On Sat, 31 Mar 2001 00:35:08 -0500 Gordon Tassi (gtassi@erols.com) wrote:
> I believe that it is
> in the part of the work flow that deals with the transfer of the image to the
> printer. I bought an Epson Stylus Photo 700 about 2.5 years ago and it
constantly
> changes its values, especially when I get a new cartridge and then has to get
into
> the mood to do it right. Like you, I am frustrated by it, and I do not
depend on
> it for a living.
Yes, I agree. The Epson driver is broken, and they haven't fixed it, which
kind-of suggests to me that they cannot fix it without revealing some deeper
flaw. I would summarise the problems I see as:-
1. Broken colour management - the driver cannot do a profile transformation
adequately
2. Poor profiling. The canned profile is way off the mark, as can be proved by
comparing 1. with doing a profile-profile within PS and then bypassing the
printer driver CM.
3. Variability/inconsistency of output. As you mention, different carts or
paper batches affect consistency, though IME this is a minor problem
4. Metamerism. I see massive amounts in vanilla 1200 prints on Epson Photo
Paper. It's a joke, you need a calibrated daylight reference to be able to view
prints! A $1 daylight tungsten artists bulb works fine for conventional
darkroom prints.
5. Dry-down colour shifts. I see excess red which calms down within a couple of
hours. You can't rebalance a print before that, except by guesstimation.
6. The gamut is wide, but has some sharp discontinuities and weaknesses. This
plays havoc with trying to get a precise match in some colours/tones -
grass/foliage can be especially impossible, and pale European skin tones will
drive you stark staring mad. I think this characteristic alone limits the
opportunity for custom profiling, at least any attempt to DIY using a flatbed.
A precision spectrophotometer might stand a better chance, but I suspect that
the printers are so twitchy that 3, inconsistency, would scupper even that -
unless you were able to reprofile for every image.
7. Archival longevity I am not even going to mention.
Overall - and I am being picky - these are adequate tools for casual use, but I
doubt the aftermarket industry borne of discontent with the OE product, can
really conquer many of the issues. But I have no experience of either CIS
inkset or Cone's new colour kit. Maybe they have fixed things, the trouble is
it is lots of $$ to find out.
I should also say that I don't think $100,000 Iris printers do any better, but
for different reasons. As for HP etc, forget it. Epson's are the best, so far,
but not there yet. The new Canon S800 looked very promising indeed, largely
because the test print I saw was subtle and looked 'right' - Epson demo prints
are always high contrast, high saturation, and gloss over the weaknesses.
I think you only have to look at the huge volume of angst on leben.com to see
that people are really struggling with these printers. They are good,
tantalisingly so, since it is easy to produce a print which is *almost* right.
But I despair of producing one which *is* right, that sooner or later I don't
go back to and think 'urgh, that sucks'.
> I am getting to the point that I will be taking my disk to my friendly
Noritsu/Fuji
> printer lab. Hopefully we we can come up with the adjustments needed to get
the
> print to match the disk image as I see it on my screen.
Hm, well. My test Noritsu print was closer to the screen/scan than I'd have got
from the Epson after much struggling, and with no tweaking at all - the Noritsu
seems to do CM properly! But there was an obvious posterisation in light,
graduated tones, which looks to me like an aliasing issue. I tackled the lab
about this and they said 'ah, yes - we've spotted that too'. They aren't
pleased, having just bought the machine.
I can see a need for hardass, objective reviews of printers too...
Regards
Tony Sleep
- Online portfolio & exhibit; + film scanner info &
comparisons
