Vivid Magenta K3 inks on a Non VM printer

[jtoolman]

I am asking this here from some of you ink experts. A friend asked me the same question and I really could not come up with a reasonable answer other than the driver would not be able to map the colors accurately with the stronger magenta.
But is there a physical differences in the actual VM inks as far as compatibility with a NON VM head such as the R2400 or R3800?
He wanted to know if he could profile the inks and whether that would solve the color issues that the use of the VM would cause, if any.

All I could tell him was that the example of CONE's Thrift K3 inks, which come only with a VM and LVM dye equivalent inks and they claim they are compatible with the R2400 R2880 R3000 R3800 ( I used them on mine but needed profiling to achieve excellent color ) the PRO 3880 and anything higher that uses K3 inks either vivid or not.

So I suggested he became a member here and ask.
Apparently he has not so since I am always thinking crazy thoughts I figure I would ask on my behalf as well.

Joe

 

[cls]

it will work
you could easily exchange any 6 color dye epson printer into following

Dye Cyan > K3 Cyan pigmented
Dye Light Magenta > K3 Vivid Light Magenta pigmented
Dye Light Cyan > K3 Light Cyan pigmented
Dye Black > K3 Photo Black pigmented
Dye Magenta > K3 Vivid Magenta pigemented
and
Dye Yellow > K3 Yellow pigemented

 

[jtoolman]

I think what he and now I wanted to now if whether. for example a R2400 or PRO3800 could be adapted to use Vivid Magenta inks K3 inks.

My CONE dye K3 inks example was simply to show that CONE is selling a Vivid Mag K3 Dye ink set which they also tell you will work with non V Mag printers.

My question was whether VM inks would physically work fine with currect R2400 and PRO 3800 print heads.

I assume the differences between say the 3800 and the 3880 drivers have to do with the usage of VM and how it is used to produced balanced color.

If I put VM in a cart intended for the R2400, will nothing other than possible color being off occur? Would custom profiling fix that, and allow the advantages of VM to be used?

Just curious!

Joe

 

[costadinos]

I tried replacing the Magenta in an R2000 with the Vivid Magenta from IS.
After profiling, the results were pretty much the same with what I get when using the regular Magenta (the rest of the inks are all from OCP if that matters).

There is only a very small difference in gamut when inspecting the profiles graphically side by side, the magentas, red, yellows and greens are pretty much the same, the blues/cyans are a little bit worse, but in no way visible in most prints.

 

[cls]

hey jose and costa!

with Vivid magenta instead of plain magenta in the cartriges the printer would reach a MUCH higher overall gamut

since gamut is always based on the varieties the printer can produce.

Profiling with at least 9 steps for each color (R * G * B = 9 * 9 * 9 = 729 color patches plus additional shades of grey) is a minimum to achive plausible results for profile scanning. I would even say 11 * 11* 11 = 1331 is a good step
I have a good working patch field for argyllcms on two sheets of A4 paper with a total amount of 1512 color patches I have to read the row slowly and carefully BUT it works just fine.

This is the lasted profile i was scanning for my R1900 fully equiped with OCP colors
https://hotfile.com/dl/248947472/c18cbfa/SPR1900OCP1512.icm.html

 

[costadinos]

with Vivid magenta instead of plain magenta in the cartriges the printer would reach a MUCH higher overall gamut

Well, in the case of the R2000, it simply doesn't (the gamut actually gets a little smaller).
I use an i1 pro with ~1000 patches, I doubt the profile can be improved much further.

The R2000 uses a unique inkset. Using vivid magenta in a M/PM/C/PC printer will probably help with the red and orange hues, like you said, but the R2000 has dedicated Red and Orange inks to begin with, so I'm guessing the magenta isn't used as much for creating these colors as in a 3800 for instance.
On the other hand, blue is a combination of cyan and magenta, and since the R2000 only uses one shade of magenta, replacing that with a more vivid version results in problems reproducing the deeper blue tones.

I am not 100% sure about this, but visually comparing magentas from the same manufacturer, that are designed for the R2000 and K3 magentas, that of the R2000 looks weaker.

 

[jtoolman]

I am currently running OEM K3 in refillable carts on the R2400. I would very simple to set up a set of carts with K3 + VM and check the difference if any on a particular image file I have which is predominantly made up of really bright Oranges, Reds, Magentas, Purples, Deep blues. I will print one with the regular K3 ink set and them with the K3 VM ink set.
If I detect a visual difference toward the better, I will them create a custom CM profile for it and the paper.

Then I will print the same file on the R2880 which is already running on OEM K3 VM inks and see if they match or not, the ones off the R2400. If this works then I would try it on the PRO 3800 then I will be able to use up the abundant supply of VM and LVM I have on hand.
Why do I have so much VM inks you ask? Because I am naturally crazy and cannot pass up a deal. I paid $9 per 110 ml and ended up with about 6 carts of each vivid magenta.

I cannot use that amount up by just printing on the R2880.

Joe

 

[costadinos]

I am currently running OEM K3 in refillable carts on the R2400. I would very simple to set up a set of carts with K3 + VM and check the difference if any on a particular image file I have which is predominantly made up of really bright Oranges, Reds, Magentas, Purples, Deep blues. I will print one with the regular K3 ink set and them with the K3 VM ink set.
If I detect a visual difference toward the better, I will them create a custom CM profile for it and the paper.

Joe

Doing that you'll probably get more vivid magentas, reds etc, since the printer will be blindly using a vivid ink in the place of the regular ink. But that doesn't guarantee that all of the colours will improve, you may get brighter reds but worse blues for instance, like what happens when doing that with an R2000. The only way to be sure is to first make a profile and then compare the profiles, that way you'll be able to see exactly how much the vivid magenta affected all of the colours inside the reproducible gamut.

Here's the two R2000 profiles, the larger circle is the one using the regular magenta, notice how similar they are, except for the small difference regarding the blues (the magentas and red haven't improved at all):

 

[mikling]

Now that we have profiling tools, what can we do and what can't we do? Let's determine what we can't do and why then we can better appreciate what we can do. Anyone want to take the first step? because I suspect when we know what we can't do then we truly understand what we can do and what it really means.

I don't know the answer, honestly but I am fearful of some misguided conclusions otherwise.

 

[jtoolman]

Doing that you'll probably get more vivid magentas, reds etc, since the printer will be blindly using a vivid ink in the place of the regular ink. But that doesn't guarantee that all of the colours will improve, you may get brighter reds but worse blues for instance, like what happens when doing that with an R2000. The only way to be sure is to first make a profile and then compare the profiles, that way you'll be able to see exactly how much the vivid magenta affected all of the colours inside the reproducible gamut.

Here's the two R2000 profiles, the larger circle is the one using the regular magenta, notice how similar they are, except for the small difference regarding the blues (the magentas and red haven't improved at all):

I could see that occurring on the R2000 since it only uses one cyan and magenta plus red and orange. By itself it already probably has the advantages in the yellows through magenta ranges.

But the K3 ink set has C / LC and M / LM so the results may just be as they are meant to be as with the R2880.
We can spend hours explaining why it would not show any improvement or looking at gamut maps but the only test I actually believe on is the visual one.
I will compare R2400 " Vivid Magenta" (Profiled) prints with R2880 OEM prints of the same file. These purposely contain many of the Yellow to Red to Purple range of saturated colors with good graduated shades.

Joe