January 2012 - colorsync-users

Update: Are Canon IPF printers any reliable?
by Roger Breton 10 Jan '13

10 Jan '13

Warm thanks' to everyone that responded on and off-list. I got some wonderful insights. I still have not made my mind yet but, as I am checking prices today -- I hate to acknowledge that money plays an important part of my decision --, but I see 24" Epson printers that are selling at bargain prices, way below Canon's and HP's :( See here: http://www.vistek.ca/results/ProPhotoPrinters/printers-inkjet-wide%20carr/Wi de-Carriage.aspx According to this page (those of you in the US can probably find even better deals than this), I can have a 7900 for $2600 cdn while the 4900 is selling for almost $100 cdn more? Something's fishy because similar carriage width Canon's and HP's will run me $1000 to $1500 more? Economics.... / Roger

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Epson 4900 SpectraProofer
by Ken Fleisher 14 Feb '12

14 Feb '12

We are considering upgrading to the Epson 4900 printers with the SpectraProofer option. Does anyone have experience with this? One question I have which I cannot seem to find an answer to in the literature is what is needed to drive the SpectraProofer. Is there Epson software that comes with it? Will third party software drive it? Does it build ICC profiles automatically and if so, what does that mean for building ICC profiles externally? One main intended use would be to keep multiple printers in calibration with each other. Does the SpectraProofer make this any more simple than if I already have an EyeOne iSis? Thanks for any input you can provide.

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Re: Update: Are Canon IPF printers any reliable?
by Stephen Lawrence 31 Jan '12

31 Jan '12

On 30 Jan 2012, at 01:18, Andrew Rodney wrote: > > Message: 6 > Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:02:50 -0700 > From: Andrew Rodney <andrew(a)digitaldog.net> > To: ColorSync List <colorsync-users(a)lists.apple.com> > Subject: Re: Update: Are Canon IPF printers any reliable? > Message-ID: <121C6A2C-7DEB-4832-BF51-A20ABEF7205D(a)digitaldog.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > On Jan 29, 2012, at 3:57 PM, MARK SEGAL wrote: > >> This is an area that causes a lot of people to wonder, because it is often said that in this category of printer all of them produce excellent results. From your observation, exactly what are the real advantages of the Piezo technology? > > Not having to heat the ink for one, or having to replace the heads, or the tiny droplets that seem to get smaller and smaller with each new generation. > Hi I'll happily put my hand up and say I've been out of printer development for 5 years now, so I wonder what it is about piezo that now makes it the only tech capable of small drops? Canon's FINE heads had no problem with 1 picolitre. Have Epson gone suddenly a long way under a picolitre? > Micro Piezo technology allows for precisely controlled ink droplets of up to five different sizes to be ejected from the print head, resulting in sharper, grain-free photo prints with smoother tonal transitions. That advantage from the article sounds like marketing fluff. That's something they have all been doing for donkeys years.

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Re: [Openicc] [Gimp-print-devel] Color-managed printing on Linux with current CUPS: Fact or fiction?
by edmund ronald 30 Jan '12

30 Jan '12

Many developers still think software is feature-driven. So they want all these nice buttons eg. "Hurt me", "Hit me!" so they can tell their boss their users have "choice". Then the users cry about their pain. It's really hard to tell naive users with an uncalibrated screen that if they have color issues on a color-managed printer then the right place to fix them is in a graphics app. Most users want print controls which basically fix their wrong screen profile. Edmund On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 6:00 PM, Michael Sweet <msweet(a)apple.com> wrote: > On Jan 30, 2012, at 8:19 AM, Kai-Uwe Behrmann wrote: > > ... > > Unfortunedly the colord hook in CUPS side steps the CUPS communication > > paths. It is easily possible to print with the active profile of an > > other user. It was mentioned that the three selectors are not sufficient > > to select the correct calibration state. Users can easily change gamma, > > brightness in the print dialog and get no warning while using the same > > profile. So users need practical to check each time that nothing changed > > in one of the unpredictable way outlined. That kind of colour transform > > is useful for testing, but too unrelyable for production. Management > > implies a level of securing conditions. > > > I hope you have read all of my posts saying that "gamma" and "brightness" > controls are deprecated in CUPS and have no place in these discussions? > > _________________________________________________________ > Michael Sweet, Senior Printing System Engineer, PWG Chair > > _______________________________________________ > openicc mailing list > openicc(a)lists.freedesktop.org > http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/openicc >

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Re: [Gimp-print-devel] Color-managed printing on Linux with current CUPS: Fact or fiction?
by Kai-Uwe Behrmann 30 Jan '12

30 Jan '12

Am 30.01.2012 16:31, schrieb Tim Waugh: > On Mon, 2012-01-30 at 16:18 +0100, Kai-Uwe Behrmann wrote: >> The colord hook in CUPS is flawed in essential parts. That is not to be >> called colour management at all. > ... but ... > >> Till Kampeter connected CUPS own profile selection mechanism with >> Ghostscript for CUPS vendor side colour management. Edmund is now on the >> path to make that path configurable for user selected profiles. > ... this is *exactly* how colord support is currently already > implemented, with the ability to override based on user-supplied > profiles already in place. Unfortunedly the colord hook in CUPS side steps the CUPS communication paths. It is easily possible to print with the active profile of an other user. It was mentioned that the three selectors are not sufficient to select the correct calibration state. Users can easily change gamma, brightness in the print dialog and get no warning while using the same profile. So users need practical to check each time that nothing changed in one of the unpredictable way outlined. That kind of colour transform is useful for testing, but too unrelyable for production. Management implies a level of securing conditions. In my view the not so great situation is fixable. Remove the colord hook in CUPS and use proper available mechanisms through regular CUPS APIs. Of course that will be a little bit more work. kind regards Kai-Uwe Behrmann

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Are Canon IPF printers any reliable?
by Roger Breton 30 Jan '12

30 Jan '12

Now it's my turn. I can't put any more time and money on my old Epson 4000 printer without ruining my bank account. So, I feel like someone who's driven GM's for all his life and now wants to switch to an import. I only hear good things about Canon IPF printers. I'm especially considering the 5100 as I don't really have a need for anything larger. So my question is, does anyone have anything good or bad to say about this printer or Canon's in general? I intend to experiment with Canon's supplied Photoshop plug-in, of course, but will surely drive it mostly from a CMYK proofing RIP like ORIS or GMG or EFI. So I'm not too concerned about getting the color I want. Some folks say they had to change print heads past warranty time? Some say that pages are not cut straight? I thought Scott Martin could chime in with his experience? Please don't try to convince me to stay with Epson -- I won't. Best / Roger

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Re: [Gimp-print-devel] Color-managed printing on Linux with current CUPS: Fact or fiction?
by Kai-Uwe Behrmann 30 Jan '12

30 Jan '12

Am 30.01.2012 12:42, schrieb Tim Waugh: > On Sat, 2012-01-28 at 19:17 +0100, edmund ronald wrote: >> Is the above fact or fiction? How should it be done on what existing >> distributions? > In Fedora, CUPS and Ghostscript are patched to use colord for colour > management. > > Here is the submission upstream: > http://cups.org/str.php?L3808 The colord hook in CUPS is flawed in essential parts. That is not to be called colour management at all. Till Kampeter connected CUPS own profile selection mechanism with Ghostscript for CUPS vendor side colour management. Edmund is now on the path to make that path configurable for user selected profiles. kind regards Kai-Uwe Behrmann

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Re: Are Canon IPF printers any reliable?
by Louis Dina 29 Jan '12

29 Jan '12

I've had a Canon iPF 6100 printer for about 4 years. It has been 100% reliable and I have never had so much as a head clog or even a bad nozzle check (unlike the Epson 4000 it replaced, which was a piece of junk from the start...to be fair, it was always the dog in Epson's large format printer lineup). My Canon has been an awesome printer. Both blacks are permanently installed, so you don't have to swap gloss and matte black inks. Tough to find good 3rd party inks, so if that is important to you, Epson is a better bet. The heads are user replaceable, and I replaced both my left and right print heads about a year ago. It's very fast and easy to do and doesn't waste a lot of ink. Heads seem to last about 2-3 years, which seems a bit short to me. My biggest beef is that the heads are not exactly cheap, so check out the price of replacement heads before you decide one way or the other. (Provantage.com had the best head prices I could find last time I looked). Supposedly, the iPF x300 series printers have heads that last a little longer and are a bit less expensive. Lou Dina

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Re: Are Canon IPF printers reliable?
by Barry Gorrell 29 Jan '12

29 Jan '12

Hello Roger, I manage a digital imaging lab at Cecil College and we have (3) Canon iPF5100 and (1) iPF6100 printers all purchased in 2008. The ability to switch from "Photo" to "Matte" black inks on the fly was a major factor in our decision to switch from our aging Epson (4800) printers to the Canon's. There was also a significant improvement in output quality especially when printing with "Photo" black ink on satin and glossy media. On the down side the Canon's have not been as reliable over all as the Epson's . The main issue has been print head replacements. Early on Canon replaced a couple of our failed print heads at no charge despite recently expired warrantees. Since then however, we've replaced almost every print head and in some cases more than once over the 3 years since our warrantee's expired. One of our 5100's recently stopped printing with an error message that ended with "Call for service". It is currently awaiting a repair visit from Canon which they provide at a blanket rate of $700, including any necessary replacement parts. The print head replacements can easily be done by the user, but they are rather expensive at approx. $500 each. When Epson finally introduced their new 4900 printers we purchased a pair of them and have been pleased with them so far. Although the new models have both "Photo" and "Matte" loaded all the time and do a much better job at switching between them, it is still not "automatic" nor as fast or economical as with the Canon's. We've not yet reached a final conclusion regarding the total "cost of ownership" between the Canon's and the Epson's, but the Canon's do seem to be more expensive over the long haul. The output quality of both is excellent with significant improvements over previous models. The ink costs for both also seem similar, but the Epson may have a slight edge there as well. For us the main question is, does the superior media switching capabilities of the Canon offset the higher maintenance costs? Barry Gorrell VCP Lab Coordinator Cecil College ___________________________________________________________________ On Jan Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:25:47 -0500, Roger Breton <graxx(a)videotron.ca> wrote: > > Message: 4 > Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:25:47 -0500 > From: Roger Breton <graxx(a)videotron.ca> > To: colorsync-users List <colorsync-users(a)lists.apple.com> > Subject: Are Canon IPF printers any reliable? > Message-ID: <001601ccdd53$617bf740$2473e5c0$(a)videotron.ca> > Content-Type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII > > Now it's my turn. I can't put any more time and money on my old > Epson 4000 > printer without ruining my bank account. So, I feel like someone who's > driven GM's for all his life and now wants to switch to an import. > > I only hear good things about Canon IPF printers. I'm especially > considering > the 5100 as I don't really have a need for anything larger. > > So my question is, does anyone have anything good or bad to say > about this > printer or Canon's in general? I intend to experiment with Canon's > supplied > Photoshop plug-in, of course, but will surely drive it mostly from > a CMYK > proofing RIP like ORIS or GMG or EFI. So I'm not too concerned > about getting > the color I want. > > Some folks say they had to change print heads past warranty time? > Some say > that pages are not cut straight? > > I thought Scott Martin could chime in with his experience? > > Please don't try to convince me to stay with Epson -- I won't. > > Best / Roger

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Color-managed printing on Linux with current CUPS: Fact or fiction?
by edmund ronald 28 Jan '12

28 Jan '12

Hi Folks, I have just had a conversation with Kai-Uwe, it appears that the general release CUPS is now capable of doing profile conversions and so, basically if one sets up a print queue properly and writes a profile name into the PPD then conversion to that profile should happen. If by some miracle CUPS treats untagged images as sRGB, then basically it should be possible to print files from *ANY * app correctly if one manages to get the current printer profiled and the profile name into the active PPD and doesn't mess up media settings between prints. Training users to set up a new print queue for each media type and leave the settings alone after printing would mean they would have a nice color-managed system, at least printer-side, provided the profile were shoehorned in. And of course if Gutenprint knew how to install specific purpose printer queues for certain printer/media combos, and supplied profiles, then color would be very good out of the box with those specific media. Is the above fact or fiction? How should it be done on what existing distributions? Edmund

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