Epson 4000: Ink life and production

[tim atherton]

On checking - QTR uses the K and lK inks + lM, lC and Y the Ultrachrome profiles - for some profiles it is just the first two for others it uses some of those three coloured inks.

Which, if we are keeping things accurate, is what I said inthe first place.... :-)

[Kirk Gittings]

A few responses, I own a 4000:

I agree on the costs stated above in Paul's reply.

No problems with clogging that a "head check" doesn't immediately cure.

I bought some old inks (over 9 months) from a friend-no problem.

I tried a number of the RIPs out there prior to purchase and found the Colorbyte Image print to be the best for my purposes even with the expense, especially (especially!!!) if you run color and b&w as I do. QTR was very primitive at the time of my purchase for PCs. I run production color and B&w fine art. The IP interface is friendly, the spooling and ganging is superior and the profiles are better targeted for display (even better than the Atkinson profiles that come with the printer which are pretty damn good). Spooling and ganging--This meams that when I have spare paper, rather than running the main print and then triming and throwing it, I can plug in a "Notecard template" of my design with text that uses the extra paper for notecards with capitions. Even if the large print is b&w I can plug in a notecard or two in the margin in color or vice versa. It is sweet. Also-The b&w Tint picker (especially in 6.0) that now allows you to pick unlimited tints for the highlights and shadows seperately is pure butter and they are more true photgraphic equivilent tints. I prefer a subtle warm highlight and cool shadow like when you run warm tone paper in a cold tone developer with selenium. Paul Butzi has an alternative method on his site that works pretty well, but the IP tinting is, as I said above, pure butter. Also the "adjustable black point" also allows you to balance shadow detail with D-max in a way that gets me closer to what I think is a truely tonally rich b&w print.