Scalability of Epson inkjet results: R800->9600

[Glenn Kroeger]

I am printing via an Epson 9600 at a local service bureau. Despite careful profiling of my monitor, I find it necessary to do a series of small test prints (usually 8x10ish) to fine tune the color and density of the results. Right now, this involves returning to the service bureau several times over a week or so before I am ready to print full size.

I am wondering if the inks and associate gamut are close enough between the 9600 and the R800 to do my own testing at home were I to purchase the R800?

Any experience comparing the two?

[Paul Butzi]

The short answer is 'maybe'.

Let me use a slighty different example (but parallel) to explain.

I print on an Epson 9600, using Ultrachrome inks on Epson Premium Luster paper.

A good friend of mine recently bought an Epson 4000, loaded with exactly the same Ultrachrome inks. As an experiment, he's made duplicate prints on the 4000 of prints I've made on my 9600, again on Epson Premium Luster paper.

The prints don't match. Now, this is disappointing, and we've done some examination of why - and the answer, really, is that I'm using Bill Atkinson's profiles for the 9600, and he's using the Epson provided profiles for the 4000.

And, as a result, although I get can get dead neutral grey-scale prints on my 9600, he can't do that on his 4000, because (despite all the ballyhoo that the Epson profiles for the 4000 will be MUCH better than the really crappy Epson profiles for the 9600) the Epson profiles are Just Not Good Enough.

The the long answer is "If you can get profiles for the r800 that produce results which match the results that your service bureau gets from their 9600, then you could make test prints on the r800 and they'd match the prints you get from the service bureau, provided you and they were using the same media as well.

It's unfortunate but there are a lot of variables - inkset, paper, printer, ALL the settings of the printer driver, etc. The color management/icc profile will do the bulk of the work of getting matching results but you will need profiles that are very good ON BOTH PRINTERS.

If your service bureau is using Atkinson's profiles for the 9600 that would be good news, because then if you could get similarly excellent profiles for the r800, you'd be close to getting matching results.

If, however, the service bureau is using profiles which are not as accurate as the Atkinson profiles, then it will be very hard to get profiles for the r800 that will match, because I just don't see any way to target profiles to match an arbitrary target, as opposed to 'perfectly accurate' in the theoretic sense.

So, depressing as it is, I suspect that although in theory you could buy an r800 and (through doing quite a bit of work) get results which are close enough that you can 'proof' print things before sending them to the 9600, in the real world you'd find that the work was so extensive that other paths are more cost effective.

Are you making large prints which require a 9600, or could you get by with a smaller printer? If you never make prints where the short dimension exceeds 17", then you could get by with a 4000, currently running about $1800. Expensive relative to the r800, but if you do much printing, the fact that the 4000 can use 220ml ink cartridges will eventually pay back over the r800 and the 2200.

[Glenn Kroeger]

Thanks Paul. I regularly print larger than 17", so as attractive as the 4000 is, it won't do, and I can't justfy the cost of my own 7600. I will check out the profiles that my printer is using. He is pretty saavy, so he may be using Bill's profiles not Epson's.

[Paul Butzi]

Glenn, before you decide that a printer (say, the 7600) is out of your price range, it might be wise to assess how much printing you're going to do and what you'll pay to have it done.

The costs for running the printer are surprisingly low once you've bought the printer. Materials costs for me are running (based on some ROUGH tracking I've done) about $1.20-$1.30 a square foot. So a 24" x 30" print runs about $7.50 for cost of materials (ink and paper). Getting that print from a service bureau is going to be a lot of dough. It won't take too many big prints before you've paid off the printer. (West Coast Imaging offers 24x30 prints for roughly $60. At a savings of 50 bucks per print, 60 prints gets you to even).

[Bruce Watson]

The inks are the same more or less (the R800 includes a "gloss optimizer" as an "eighth ink") assuming that your service bureau is using UltraChrome inks. So, theoretically, in a perfect world, you could proof on your printer and make the big prints on theirs without an intermediate proof on their printer. In a perfect world.

Unfortunately, the world we live in is far from perfect, and this assumes a lot. It assumes that you are both printing through the same software (Epson driver), that you have made the same settings for the driver, you are using the same paper (including thickness), and that you have a good profile for your machine.... Little of this is likely to be true.

In reality, the service bureau is probably using a RIP. Different software, different capabilities, different settings.

However, there is some hope. They should be able to provide you with an ICC profile for their machine. You can use the profile to soft-proof on your computer. Using their profile should get you very close to WYSIWYG - their print should be a close match to your screen (you have calibrated your screen, yes?). You'll still have to make at least one proof print, because a CRT or LCD isn't a piece of paper so there will always be differences to work out.

Alternately, you could buy the R800, get a good profile, and make your own proofs. You'll have to take the proof and the file to the service bureau and tell them to match the proof. They will of course change you extra for this service, since it involves them working in an image editor and almost certainly making at least one internal proof.

Basically, there really isn't any way to get consistent results without making a proof print or two, IMHO. Of course, YMMV.