Time to be done with Epson

[jnug]

Well I did just print the very same Google map on the Canon that I had printed earlier on he dying 837. Now please keep in mind that I am not instructing the Canon in any way. So for example, I believe you can order up higher quality output for the Canon simply by using the slider on the screen for quality modifications.

Clearly, Google maps distinguishes between the b/w text on a map page and the map itself and the text that might be part of the map. The text off the Canon was clearly superior to the text off the 837.

However even while in death throws, the 837 produced sharper, more vibrant color than the Canon using default factory settings.

For example, Google maps chooses to identify highways in yellow. When it needs to show two highways overlaid, it will choose a darker shade of yellow for the larger highway. You could clearly see the difference in the two tones of yellow on the 837 output....not so for the Canon. You really had to look hard to see the difference in the yellow tones for the Canon. All of the color output was really about the same. The 837 color output was more crisp, more detailed and more vibrant in all of the various colors.

I will likely try to dial up more quality of output for the Canon and then see what happens. The 837 was at factory settings as well.

 

[ghwellsjr]

The Canon must be mixing to get all the colors of its nozzle check as there are only three color tanks in the six tank system, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. The Canon nozzle check is three tones for each color. So the Canon has to be mixing in its nozzle check pattern or else how else could it create those three different tones.

I think what is happening is that there are three sets of nozzles for each color. Each set emits a different size droplet producing a different tone. The Canon print head technology cannot control the size of the droplet so they need multiple sets of nozzles to produce different intensities of color. The Epson print head technology can control the size of the droplet with a single set of nozzles for each color so they tend to have far fewer nozzles than Canon printers but they can produce a wide range of tones.

 

[mikling]

Let's stop the marketing rehash and talking points. Each fan of one brand always brings up the same stuff over and over without understanding what it really takes.

Look at the facts......engineering a photo printer is very complicated, not just from the mechanical and electronic side but also from the mathemenatical side as well. Creating any color can be performed a number of ways and it is not just ONE combination that is correct but any decisions made on how to create a color will also affect how other colors are also mixed as well. Then the engineer must juggle the aspect of how much processing power can be afforded in a consumer printer.

Now look at the comparison of printheads involved in both brands and see the difference. The nozzle counts are very dissimilar and so is the foundational technology. Also look at the combinations involved, the MG8220 uses grey ink and the engineers wanted that for a reason. That is a subject of another large discussion if it started but I remember a few years ago, many doubters here simply stated that gray was only used for B&W. Boy...how wrong they were. on printer without grey inks, CMY three colors are all used up to produce one color. How many combinations of gray can one get if three colors and the amount of different droplet sizes are used....Do the math. Now what happens if you started with grey and then used the other colors to dense and tone up and down......Hmmm.... another interesting mathematical exercise, if one assunes that the pitch and droplet size were all addressable.

Long and short....it ain't easy to engineer these wonderful things called printers.
Now go compare the specs and then when you figure it out on paper/pc spreadsheet then you'll know which one is superior. BTW, these engineers engineer color simlations on supercomputers....that should tell you something of the complexity of engineering color printers. They optimize what they can get out of the printer given constraints and they can simulate it. It ain't a dab of this and a dab of that with a brush.

Now compare the two

 

[mikling]

Hmmm...1080 nozzles against 5632 nozzles, the Canon wins. + they got 512 nozzles just for text too.
Ohhhhhh but the Epson can vary how many dots? Let's multiply that up
Canon....has down to 1pl dot size!!! Wowee, that gotta be better.
But wait there is gray on the canon already.!!! what does that mean.
And there's pigment ink that does produce sharper text than the Epson with black dye....and the RIP is for the PGBK channel is optimized for text.
Yeah, but the Canon does not need more photo inks so the carts use less ink to produce the same light color as compared to the Epson.

See what I mean.

Head in a tizzy yet?

 

[mikling]

Want to know how many nozzles your Epson is packing? Simple

Take a look at the stair step pattern across each color. Count the number of steps. Now take a look at the number of lines going down.
Multiply that number and that will tell you how many nozzles each color has.

 

[stratman]

Want to know how many nozzles your Epson is packing? Simple

Yes. Go to Epson's internet site and read the Specifications for the printer of interest.

While my way gives you the fish, your way teaches you how to fish.

 

[mikling]

you find that the 837 is a bigger fish than the 1430/1500W which is an old small fish really. They have 90 nozzles x 6 colors. The Artisan 837 has twice that amount. So how does the 1430/1500 print and what compromises are made? Epson boys let's hear the explanations.

 

[turbguy]

The number of nozzles means little toward print quality. Droplet size is most important. Nozzle count has much more impact on printing speed.

 

[mikling]

Droplet size is most important.

Not necessarily. At first glance it may appear to be so. Here's why. Though the 8220 has droplet sizes as low as 1pl, it would at first appear that at those droplet sizes it would make for perfectly smooth gradations. The Pro-100 has droplet sizes much larger. Yet, if one inspects output carefully, one can pick up grain on the output of the 8220, yet the Pro-100 is grain free at the same magnification. The real answer as to why the smaller doplets are used might be difficult to understand and is largely unknown really. Same for the Epson as well. The Pro Line of printers use larger droplet sizes as compared to the desktop line. Yet output quality is superior.

Nozzle count has a huge impact on print speed and it should as there is no magic in covering the page with ink. So it stands to reason that more nozzles always means more speed...unless the cell matrix increases. And that is where the unknown of what the printer does ends up. How are the cells of each droplet matrix really addressed by the printer? Like so many things with specifications, they can sometimes raise more questions than are answered. A consumer goes in to purchase an automobile and gets the spec of a motor/engine. Like peak torque in an engine.....meaningless spec in real use...the complete torque curve is more telling. Unfortunately most consumers will gobble up the single number and come to a faulty conclusion......just as marketing intended.

 

[jnug]

As I said a few posts ago I am going to try to dial up the performance of the Canon via the supporting software. If in fact the Canon can produce the same sort of color performance that the Epson does, then I really don't care that I had to learn more about the Canon to make it happen. That the Epson appears to outperform the Canon in color reproduction with the printers at there factory defaults does say something. But if Canon has the ability to bring up its color performance to meet or at least get close to the Canon then I really don't care that I had to learn how to get the most out of the Canon.

I would expect that the higher quality settings also mean a reduction in speed but I am not sure that is going to bother me that much. I got the Canon because based on what I have read about both printers and based on what happened to my 837, I think the MG8220 stands a better chance of lasting longer and I also think it will be easier for a guy like me to use remanufactured tanks and aftermarket ink than it is with the Epson. Granted guys here that perform thousands and thousands of print tasks and are really into printer technology probably handle using aftermarket stuff and the Epson like it is falling off a log. But I am never going to get there. I don't have the time. I just want good quality prints at a reasonable price and I am willing to deal with aftermarket inks and remanufactured tanks if it can go pretty smoothly. I am probably doing somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 print tasks per year, nothing like what many here are doing.

Finally, as I said above I truly believe that if I could have gotten an Artisan 800 when I got the 837, I think my Epson experience would have been much better.