Re: filmscanners: Printer dither and discontinuities

[Arthur Entlich <artistic@ampsc.com>]

Photoscientia wrote:

> Hi Tony.
> 
> 
>> I haven't a problem with the gamut, it's wider than most print processes, 
>it's that
>> the Epson's seem incapable of subtlety in places. This becomes fairly 
>obvious if
>> you try and print a graduated bar that runs through all hues. This seems to 
>be the
>> case in sRGB or anything else.
> 
> 
> I've found the same with the 1270, but what's worse is the saturation seems 
>to vary
> across the spectrum.
> Colour is either in-your-face for reds and yellows, or practically 
>non-existent for
> blues and greens.
>

It seems to me a CMYK printer with Epson inks, which have a pretty 
bright cyan dye, (although I can't speak for their 1270 dye set) should 
be able to produce a nice result across the spectrum with the right 
papers.  Have you noticed if the cyan dye for the 870/1270 is more muted 
than in earlier Epson ink sets?  You are right that Epson makes a pretty 
bright magenta and yellow ink.  Epson sent me a sample print from the 
1270 of a woman model biting a blue silk scarf and wearing a dark blue 
silk blouse.  Interestingly, there are no greens in it at all, and the 
blues are blue-grays.  Even the model's skin tones lack the necessary 
green - she is very "pink", and her blond hair leans to the pink too. So 
maybe the cyan is the problem...  Come to think of it, isn't it the cyan 
dye that is vulnerable to ozone or whatever causes the dreaded "orange" 
death?


 
> The inability to control the red and yellow saturation separately in the 
>printer driver
> is infuriating, and the print cost per sheet is disgusting.
> Mine's going back under Epson's buy-back programme.
> I can wait 'til they come to their senses and take the stupid chip out of the
> cartridges.
> 

The chip in the cartridge was an obvious run-around the US legislation 
which requires 3rd party consumables to be unrestricted.  The only way 
Epson could violate this was to add a "feature" (the removable cart that 
could remember how much ink was in it) that was patentable.  Although 
Epson has every right to require their inks be used during the warranty 
period (or not accept warranty repair costs on units which are using 
non-Epson inks), this method of using "the chip" seems unfair to me.  I 
suspect someone will develop a hack of their driver or a dummy chip 
which will trick the system into reading a constantly full cartridge, 
but then one will never know when the cart might become empty.

I suggest you tell them that one of the reasons you are returning the 
printer is due to this chip in the cartridge.  If they find enough 
negative feedback, they just might have to change things.

Although, to date, I have used only Epson inks in my printers, coming to 
dozens of cartridges (I did buy them in a wholesale lot) I personally 
would not buy a printer which locked me into Epson's inks only, not only 
for cost considerations, but also because the company could decided to 
stop making the carts, or could go bankrupt, leaving me with a useless 
printer.

Further still, unlike some of the low end printers which Epson makes 
little profit on, the 870/1270 were at the high end of their printer 
line, so they are not "giving away" these printers hoping to make the 
money back on the ink.  Ironically, the very cheapest printers Epson 
makes, which sell for less than $49 US in some cases, allow for refill 
or third party carts, and these are the ones where the markup on the 
printer is not very large.

Art