Epson 4000 Upgrade?
My upgrade from an 2100 to the 4800 was a no-brainer - the clearest upgrade path with the new series of printers IMO. Compared to the 2100, the 4800 is bigger, stronger, faster - just like the bionic man - with all the additional benefits of the new inks, firmware etc. In dSLR terms it's like going from a 10D to a 1DMKII!
For 4000 users though it's gotta be a tough call. The extra LL black in the 4800 means Photo and Matte black must now be swapped in and out with an ink penalty. Gloss differential is reduced but still present. Bronzing and metamerism improvements are cool though, as is the B&W which I again mention will be a WOW experience for a lot of people.
I've had my 2100 just under three years and it hasn't missed a beat over that time. Three years is a long time in the tech world, and from a business perspective you could say it's due for replacement anyway. Maybe this is how people who have been running 7600's and 9600's since they were available and are considering the 7800/9800 will view their upgrade too.
But 4000 users generally haven't had their printers that long - not long enough to feel it's time to replace it.
So it will be interesting to see what happens in the coming months re 4000 users. Inserting K3 carts into the 4000 shouldn't be any problem, but getting the printer to know what to do with them might be another thing altogether. Can a 4000 be transformed into a 4800 with the wave of a magic wand? I hope so, but have my doubts.
Someone posted that it would be great if Epson produced printers with a spare couple of bays for ink carts, allowing the user to configure and run whatever suits them in those bays, maybe both Photo and Matte black, maybe a varnish/gloss optimizer. These could all be Epson products of course, or third parties who had paid for the privilege! I'd be willing to pay a higher price for a printer if it included that level of flexibility.
I'm very happy with the 4800 but given how long it's been since the Ultrachrome series of printers were released I'm semi surprised that Epson didn't go further with it and deliver what they must already know users want. They went a good part of the way - I guess you've got to leave something tucked away for the next time around.
posted by Pete Walsh @ 4:22 PM 12 comments
At 1:23 AM, Dave said...
Hi Pete,
Yes, it is a big delema for Epson 4000 owners as to whether to upgrade this time around. Not having to contend with bronzing and metasmerism is indeed a very important step in itself even if gloss differential has been fully solved. You mentioned the possibility of installing the new K3 inks into the 4000 which if the printer knew how to handle them (new driver & profiles needed?), would go a long way for allowing 4000 users to benifit from some of the 4800 improvements and as a bonus allow both black inks to remain in the printer. NEutral B&W prints on the 4000 could always be achieved with the iinexpensive quadtone RIP.
What I also wish Epson would have done is give users of the 4800 the option of either leaving in the LLB cartridge for neutral B&W prints or taking it out and substituting one of the black inks so that both Matt and Photo Black can be installed at the same time in the 4800, still benefiting from reduced bronzing and metamerism with the new K3 inks but not having to switch out blacks. The decision to have the LLB or both black inks in the printer would be a user option. This would be the least I would have hoped for on this curret round of new printers.
Dave
At 1:57 AM, scott Graham said...
as for saving "something for next time",
the K3 inks may not have been available a year and a half ago (announcement time, not ship time)
Scott
At 10:29 AM, eolake said...
I just got my own 4800 yesterday, and set it up today. Man, that thing is big and heavy!! Epson recommend two people when it has to be moved, and that is understandable. I am a big man, but I had to strain to move it into another room.
It must be because it is a professional machine, it is far bigger than than the paper size upgrade from the 2100 (2200 in Europe) would have you believe.
I also made my first B/W print on it today. The first one I had a wrong paper type set in the driver, and the D-max (blackness) was not all I had expected. The second try was awesome. I am looking forward to seeing it in daylight tomorrow.
Man, I am happy to not have to mess around in a darkroom anymore, and washing and drying and glossing paper prints...
At 1:11 AM, Pete Walsh said...
Hi Scott, the "something for next time" referred to the release of the 4800, not the 4000.
At 1:14 AM, Pete Walsh said...
Congratulations eolake! Hey yeah I agree, big and heavy - much moreso than I expected too. Enjoy!
At 4:33 PM, David Miller said...
One thing about the Matte Black inks, and the idea that we're supposed to be getting deeper, richer blacks printing with the 4800 (and the 2400, etc; all the new K3 printers) vs. the previous generation.
How is that supposed to be happening with the 4800, on matte paper, when we're printing with the same Matte Black ink used by the 4000?
Or a better way of putting it: why isn't there a K3 Matte Black for the 4800?
And a related question: is there a K3 Matte Black for the 2400? (and if so, does that mean the 2400 will produce a richer black than the 4800?)
David Miller
At 5:04 PM, David Miller said...
... I'm going to continue the thought, having just looked at:
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/Landing/UltraChromeK3.jsp
Nowhere on this page does it say that Matte Black, rather than being a new K3 ink, is (so far, everywhere it's currently available) the same non-K3 Matte Black used by the older printers.
In the middle of the page, to quote:
"With two different black ink modes - Photo Black and Matte Black - Epson UltraChrome K3 provides an innovative solution to optimize the black ink density for various media types. Photo Black ink can be used for all media types with professional quality results. The optional Matte Black ink significantly increases black optical density when printing on matte and fine art type papers. This innovative solution enables the use of just one printer for all media types."
But there is no such thing as a K3 Matte Black ink, so:
How can the optional Matte Black ink "significantly increase black optical density when printing on matte and fine art type papers" when it's the same as the 4000's MK ink? Compared to: what...?
David Miller
At 11:05 PM, David Miller said...
And even more:
Yes, there -is- a "K3 Ultrachrome Matte Black" ink for the (less expensive) R2400. It's Epson part #T059820. Whether or not this ink is the same as the older "Ultrachrome Matte Black", it's labelled differently and is newer packaging.
But there is no "K3 Ultrachrome Matte Black" ink for the (more expensive) 4800.
As a new owner of a 4800, my expectation is to be able to print blacks on matte paper that will be just as good (and improved) as those coming out of R2400's, and now I'm wondering that this may not be the case.
David Miller
At 1:40 AM, Pete Walsh said...
Don't know David, it's interesting to consider for sure. Maybe this is where the new LLK ink on the 4800 comes in?
Afaik, the 2400 carts are physically different to those on the 2100/2200 so it's not surprising it's been relabelled.
Maybe K3 is more of a loose term used by Epson to describe the new family of inks vs individual inks?
It's hard to imagine Epson going to the trouble of not using the same inkset across all the new printers labelled as K3, or that the blacks printed on the 4800 would fall short in someway of the 2400's.
Maybe Epson is trying to dump all that matte black stock! :) The Epson sales guy mentioned Matte black hardly sold at all over the last few years (in the large format range) vs Photo black - which I find interesting.
At 6:42 AM, David Miller said...
It could be that they're laying some LLK down along with the MK, but you wouldn't think it could make much of a difference. The blackest black printable is really going to be coming from the "main" black.
I'm looking at this, also, from a profiling standpoint, since I'm working on custom profiling software and one of the first things I'll be doing is using it to build some custom profiles for matte papers. I'm going to start with Heavyweight Matte, since there's no Epson-supplied profile for it. (I wonder why?)
From what I can see so far (just printing a calibration target), the max black on Heavyweight Matte (using the driver settings for Enhanced Matte to print a "raw" target with no color adjustment) is pretty good; but it doesn't look like it will be as deep and rich, with the same kind of pop, that I get if I print on a 1280, and that's a bit of a disappointment. Once I profile the printer, we'll see how close it really comes, but I was hoping that with all of the fuss whipped up over the K3 pigmented ink, that they are presumably the best yet developed, and that by this time printing with pigmented inks would produce comparable results to printing with dye-based inks on a 4 year old printer.
It may be that Epson is putting the same Matte Black ink into the K3-labelled cartridges for the 2400 that is being used for the 4000/4800/etc and is just calling it something different. But if this is true, it's got to be confusing to just about everyone who buys these printers and wants to know what's going on with them.
Probably the only way to know for sure that the matte blacks are the same between the 2400 and 4800 would be to print/profile/test with them both, and I may be able to do that at some point in the near future. I would hope that they -would- produce the same prints; I can't imagine much happiness being generated if they don't.
As for the possibility of dumping the matte black stock: hmmm. Hmmm. (And then, later, introducing an improved matte black ink). Hmmmmm. All conjecture, of course, but: hmmmm.
David Miller
At 8:04 PM, Alessandro Damato said...
We have the same problem ( working in a pre press studio ) yet exposed about the 4000 : the true black and metasmerism .
Tryng to find out to passthem , but still don't find the cure .
Not so happy for a 1000+$ printer at the moment ... ze hope epson find out soon the way to support and help us .
At 12:10 AM, Pete Walsh said...
David I'd be interested to see the results if someone with the inclination and capability analyzed the old Ultrachrome inks and compared each to their equivalent in the K3 set. Would be very interesting to see which inks were markedly different.
Alessandro, here's hoping for 4000 users.
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