Because few people would ever print normal photographs using ABSCOL (usually one prints with RELCOL or PERCEPTUAL Rendering Intent), its worth looking at a similar comparison, but this time printed with RELCOL Rendering Intent (Figure 41). I photographed it in three sections, necessarily at an angle (because I was on the sidewalk across the street) and then stitched the three photos using Lightrooms photomerge/Panorama tool, which does a splendid job on so many different kinds of photos. Do not use the front feed for fine art papers less than 0.50mm thick every time I tried it pushed them up to the top feeder where they jam on the mechanism, wrecking the sheet. This raises a primary question doubtless on many readers minds do I need this printer? Gently drop the paper between the gray guides, letting it hit the bottom (Figure 8), and slide the gray guides to the edge of the paper. The hue bias is quite similar between the two renditions, and not egregious. I was surprised, but not totally, by the remarkable indistinguishability between these three renditions. If you havent found it yet, keep looking. Dont settle. While the case in Column I [1440 dpi, High-Speed ON and CB OFF] prints very speedily, its rendition accuracy is generally less satisfactory (details below); hence, this combination of settings is not recommended for fine art printing on this media if the intention is to preserve accurate tone and color. of inked surface and so far only the Light Gray tank was replaced. Click on the name of the media type copy just created and click on the Edit icon (second from top-left). The EMI allows me to create a Media Type linked with my custom ICC profile that I can subsequently pull-up every time I want to use this paper in this printer. Yellow highlighted cells indicate that the reported dE values in those cells exceed 1.0. Three paper options are of interest here: The ABW workflow in the Epson driver serves a different purpose from the more usual Application-Managed workflows using ICC profiles. We look forward to your collaboration, contributions and guidance along the way. The three cases portrayed in Columns F, G and H all show close and satisfactory results for the 48-patch multicolor test and for the gray-scale granular targets in rows 24 to 34. The more accurate the printing system, the more confidence we can have that when we soft proof photos for printing with RELCOL or Perceptual Intents, the tones and colors we adjust will be rendered accordingly on paper, to the extent the soft proofing is reliable enough. For this paper, by selecting Quality Options in the dropdown, the choices of whether or not to use High Speed and Finest Detail are workable. What we see here is of course mirrored in the data, whereby the SC-P900 gamut volume for Legacy Platine is in the range of 817,000-837,000, while that for the SC-P5000 is about 993,000. Now, let us see the relationships of the photo to these gamut volumes (Figures 62 and 63). I dont know whether these differences matter. Both the manual and the instructions provided in the LCD guide are not great at showing us how to use the front feed, so I shall do so here, saving you the grief I came to until the friendly folks at Epson sorted me out. Because this is a matte paper, CB is not an available option, so it is greyed out even when selecting Quality Options, which opens everything that can be user-determined. There are advances in the print head: 3 droplet sizes per nozzle in a single pass; variable droplet sizes as small as 1.5 picolitres; ink repelling coating to reduce clogging risk. The data for patches 35, 36, and 37 are excluded because they are deep Blacks out of gamut for this paper (and matte papers in general). The effect of using CB on such a photo is subtle, nonetheless visible. I tried to replicate their demonstration with my own test, making one print with CB ON and another the same but with CB OFF, and comparing (Figure 58). The roll holder is attached. Relative to High Speed OFF, High Speed ON marginally improved the dE outcomes, but increased variance in the dE results in a little, and marginally decreased the density of the Black Point (by 0.38 of an L* level) not enough that anyone would see the difference in a print. The slight increase of Black density in the left-side image accentuates the subject matter ever so slightly. Comparing the relationships of the Red to the Black lines of Figure 48 relative to the left panel of Figure 47, the Dark tone-setting does indeed produce less brightening than the Normal setting, which is what we hoped for and expected. While Figure 57 (Roman 16, BVDM) is a B&W test image specifically designed to test printing conditions for the quality of dark tonal appearance thus not fully compliant with Epsons recommended best characteristics for revealing the value of CB, it does help to reveal the contribution that CB makes to good tone separation. We want to do this, because it manages a number of print settings, contains the Epson profiles, and will manage other papers and profiles we may wish to use. BTW, in case you want to access the Epson profiles apart from using them in the Print dialogs of your printing application, for macOS, you can locate them by going to (System > Library > Application Support, and from there follow the tree in Figure 6. This way, it should print correctly. (c) As (b) but High Speed OFF: 7 minutes, 43 seconds. For this paper, there are eight possible configurations to explore. Much more conveniently, if you establish a wireless connection, then in the LCD go to General Settings >Firmware Update>Notification and set it to ON, the printer will check for available updated firmware when you turn it on, and if it finds any, it will prompt you to install it from the LCD. A word about the photos: Starting with Figure 65 color print, this mural is 23 stories high. Just before that one tip not in the manual you can install the printer for both wireless and USB connectivity. Although it doesnt affect printer usability, perhaps Im not the only one who would like to have data from the printer on ink usage. Epson was kind enough to provide me the test image the company used in its Sales Reference Guide to demonstrate the CB advantage. ABW provides a bit of contrast boost in this tone area, but not much. In fact, I am running only one case, to compare the results for my profile (non-ABW Figure 25) but this time with ABW ON. Mark has contributed some 65 articles to the two websites up to end 2020, with a particular emphasis on printers and papers, given his position that a photograph printed on paper remains the epitome of fine photography, as it has been from sooner after the medium was invented and started gaining momentum in the 1830s/1840s. Whether Case F or Case H, for Platine paper, one comes away with the distinct impression that on the whole tone and hue rendition are more accurate with ABW OFF rather than ON, but people printing with ABW is not necessarily aiming at colorimetric accuracy. You are given the option to carry on regardless (risking stoppage due to empty ink during printing) or to replace the ink. I think Cases F and H are the most worthwhile selecting for ABW analysis here. Having examined the data for whats achievable with CB using luster-type papers (Legacy Platine example), we are now well-positioned to explore the remaining potential for improved Black tonal appearance using the Advanced Black and White mode (ABW) alone or newly possible with this printer combined with CB. (2) As instructed on LCD, open the roll holder cover. That is because these functions are not primarily aimed at achieving any particular standard of accuracy. Joining me in this adventure is long-time friend and videographer Chris Sanderson. (Note: The Baryta Paper Type was generic pending a specific paper; the driver is now updated with a specific Baryta paper, being Legacy Baryta II, forthcoming early 2021. ABW isnt necessarily meant to be accurate, and the data above and the graphs below show that it isnt. The dimensions I want to explore include: This printer is really well-designed and quite easy to use. The gamut volume and maximum Black of much canvas media are quite limited (in the case of Epson Canvas Satin about 512,387 and L*22 respectively (versus over 800,000 and L*3 or so from a high-quality Luster paper in this printer). Some driver options are different enough in the SC-P900 that its worthwhile explaining what they are. It takes only a minute. Maximum Blacks are the same and typical for this paper. To determine the average ink cost per square footprinted specific to this model, it will be necessary to track the square footage printed until enough cartridges are replaced that an estimate of the volume of ink used can be matched against the aggregate square footage printed. The same image settings are used for all three except as noted here. So I can highly recommend this combination of the SC-P900 with Epson Legacy Fibre paper, processed under soft proof in Lightroom and printed through the Epson driver using standard application-based color management with ICC profiles. At least two features allow this: firstly, in the middle of the target there is type going down to 2 pts. The probability of anyone being disturbed by an appearance of hue bias in any of these outcomes is low. The Black points differ little between the options. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________. Both of these cases were printed in ABSCOL and had satisfactory dE outcomes. We hope you enjoy your experience on our site and find a home here. The data are the average differences from target values for each section of the scale. Ideally one would like all results to fall below the horizontal Red bar, set at dE = 1.0. They just want to make sure you know this is an Epson product packaged by Epson and not tampered with by anybody else (Figure 2). From about L* 14 upward, the results with ABW ON are more linear and convergent with the target reference values than for the previous four cases. Aha, this is IT, I said to myself as I hustled it inside the house, took a bite of lunch and got down to work. Figures 65 and 66 are photographs of the actual 1722 inch prints I made in the SCP-900, one color, and one B&W. (4) Feed the canvas under the small white rollers as shown in Figures RF 6 and RF 7. Trying it again at minimum quality: 1440 DPI resolution, High-Speed ON and CB OFF, the printing time was 1 minute, 8 seconds. or 1.51mL/sq. Figures 27 and 28 focus particularly on grayscale rendition for the OEM and Mark profiles respectively. Please feel free to leave comments in the forum. Im not posting different renditions of this photo here, because quite frankly, after making and studying three different prints of the same file, I could see no difference between them. The two must cohere one way or another. Please consider helping us grow and broaden all aspects of what we do here. Whether for Case F or Case H, having CB ON produces by the numbers a bit greater Black density. Theres a limit to how much I can say at the time of writing, because while the machine and paper costs are known, Epson has not provided a utility for reporting on ink used per print and the company has no intention of doing so, notwithstanding that they do provide it for their larger professional models (P4900 onward) and Canon has been providing it for years with the Pro-1000/2000/4000. I walked home from visiting with a friend, socially distanced and masked as the times require, and as I reached my front door, I was pleasantly surprised to see a large box from Epson America sitting at the doorstep (Figure 1). Ill provide a summary comment on the ABW options after reviewing the three papers slated for this portion of the review (Glossy, Legacy Platine and Legacy Fibre). Well see what it does below; the Epson Sales Reference Guide shows a bit of visible difference. So I decided to replace two of them, based on the ink status info (Figures RF 8 and RF 9). The cost of paper of course varies according to the paper used and its procurement. I discuss this later in the context of wireless printing software. I show one representation of this test page (Figure 56), because although I printed one with and one without CB, none of the images on this sheet reveal any difference between the two printing conditions. The quality of our best inkjet matte papers and ink-sets is good enough these days that with good profiles one can obtain very rich-looking results on this media. Epsons default tone setting for ABW is Neutral darker, so I leave it there, except for several tests at the bottom of this section. Some difference between OEM and Custom profiles is always expected, for known reasons. One would have preferred a bit less bias toward yellow in the L*2~L*6 range, but that part of the tone curve is so dark, and the extent of the bias limited enough, that in normal photographs it would pass unnoticed. This site is about the community of photography, a place where young and old alike can share their stories, learn about the art and craft of photography, and gain an understanding of what it takes to Enhance Your Vision. Once this process finishes, as indicated, it turns the printer off and on again, and leaves you with the LCD Home screen, ready to print. The gap between the red and black lines for file values L* 1 to L* 15 occurs because this printing conditions Maximum Black is at about L*15 as weve seen above. Let us examine hue neutrality with versus without ABW in the darker part of the tone scale (Figure 44, and please note the differences of the left side scale when reading the bars in each section). If you set that slider to the final position, CB gets turned on and greyed-out.
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