Re:Review of Large-Format Inkjet Contract Proofers
Re:Review of Large-Format Inkjet Contract Proofers
- Subject: Re:Review of Large-Format Inkjet Contract Proofers
- From: "Cris Daniels" <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 00:55:47 -0400
<"Not critical in some installations"?? All I know is that, while I can
sometimes get by with less than perfect color matching, I get beat up
all the time over banding issues! It's not uncommon to have to switch to
1440x720dpi, not to get better color gamut/matching, but to simply get
rid of every last trace of banding.>
My word choice was very poor. The Epson 10000 has much better
photographic quality, the HP has a grainier print in comparison.
Banding is unacceptable no matter what, photographic smoothness isn't
always mandatory in "some installations".
>
Agreed except that even 2 9600's are still slower than a single 10600
at least from what I've seen.>
I was very bummed about the 10600 Ultrachrome speed. If you have to
print 1440 on the 7600/9600 you are not going to exactly set the world
on fire. It really depends on the output speed you need for the
particular install. The 10600 UC is pretty slow, and that is my chief
complaint about that printer. 720 dpi on the 10000CF/10600 Archival is
very fast indeed, and depending on the paper you can print it without
any hint of banding.
<I tell people that they should look at these devices as disposable and
should prepare to replace them every couple of years. As we've already
scene with the Epsons, major leaps in technology such as speed, quality
and better inks come around even sooner than that.>
There is no doubt about it, at these prices, and at the rate the
products are changing it makes sense to set that expectation.
< As far as profiling, my experience has been that the UC inks profile
easier. All I can say is that with UC inks, I'll get a profile
"out-of-the-box" that's either very good or may require 1 round of
editing, usually a gray balance tweak.>
Of course this depends on the particular RIP involved as well. I'm
totally with you on the weird Epson photo dye yellows that you mentioned
previously. The UC inks still drive me a little nuts, I still have to
vigorously warn people about the lighting conditions. I don't do that
much in the graphic arts end, but more often than not the lighting is a
disaster. The printing business is dreadful, at least in my neck of the
woods. Everyone is folding, the survivors are slamming out work just to
keep the doors open.
< 24 hours for the UC inks? Are you sure you aren't referring to the
photo dye inks? All I know is that photo dye will shift more in the
first 2 hours after printing than Ultrachrome will in 24 hours. Maybe I
should be waiting 48-72 hours to measure photo dye inks. I know that
would really help my bottom line when charging a daily rate!>
This is one of the first things I did when I bought a 9600. I made 2
sets of prints, I think one was Luster and one was Photo Rag (I have the
testcharts and data on another machine). I uses PMP 4.1 and the compare
tool to print the 288RGB targets and read them in. 1hr, 2hr, 4hr, 8hr,
12hr, 18hr, 24hr. At 24 the prints seemed to stabilize to within
tolerances of the device itself. Developers I've talked to have had the
same results. Mind you the differences are not huge, but some patches
are off a bit at least a couple delta e. The problem is that the colors
don't seems to dry down in unison.
The dyes are weird, you need to let them dry, then they are unstable,
when is the best time? I still wait about 24 hours and leave the targets
in a semi protected environment where they can't get any harsh exposure.
It's the best I can do.
Cris Daniels
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