Just under 30 paper profiles are installed with the 4800. A little more information in the names would help reduce errors selecting the right profile - or at least make use of the Additional Information field for each profile by inserting the full paper name. Yes I've made that mistake and the results did truly suck :)

I ran an interesting set of tests today, comparing color prints on archival matte (A3+) on the 4800 to the 2100. Using only photo black on the 4800, and both photo black and matte black on the 2100.

The general aim: to see if at a pinch I could get by printing color images on archival matte paper using photo black on the 4800, instead of matte black (I don't have any matte black ink and don't especially want to get into swapping back and forth)

The 2100 running matte black also has the advantage of a custom profile.

The results, best prints to worst:

1. 2100, matte black
The combination of the matte black ink and custom profile put the 2100 prints at the top. Very clean and rich. The difference in the prints isn't great but big enough to make this an easy pick.

2. 4800, photo black
The 4800 prints on archival matte using photo black are good, but lack the richness in the blacks compared to the 2100/matte black prints, as you would expect, no magic here. The canned profile looks good though.

3. 2100, photo black
Easily the worst. Not especially neutral compared to the other two, and blacks essentially the same as the 4800 using photo black.


As I mentioned, the difference in the prints isn't that great - at a reasonable distance you'd be hard pressed to spot the difference. At an arm's length though I could shuffle the prints and reliably guess which print was which throughout the day.

What's missing in this test is matte black ink in the 4800 - I don't have any. Given how these prints look side by side I wouldn't expect the 4800 print using matte black to be that much better, if any better at all than the 2100 using matte black/custom profile.

My conclusion - for my own needs - keep using the 2100 for color prints on matte up to A3+. Use the 4800 for non matte/larger output. When I've used up my 2100 ink stock revisit the situation.

It is interesting to note that when a matte Media Type is selected in the driver Advanced B&W mode is no longer available (with Photo Black installed, don't know about Matte Black). Advanced B&W options below:

Given it's 3.20am I'll post what I've gathered from printing with Photo Black on Matte, as well as results on Pictorico Velvety after a snooze.

The sweetest sound of the day - the sound of the PC winding down :)

I came across an earlier thread on Photo.net suggesting the 4800 is only a firmware/driver upgrade to the 4000 (with ink changes/additions), no hardware changes. I only bring this topic up as I feel for my buddies who haven't had a 4000 for that long.

The two printers clearly share a LOT of hardware, you only need to look at them to see that - the only easy way to tell them apart at a glance is the placement of the model/k3 ink badges. But you'd hope ('hope is the quintessential human delusion', love the Matrix!) if it was only a firmware upgrade plus inks/driver, wouldn't Epson offer an upgrade path on the 4000, and have allowed for that in the 4000's design? There isn't an upgrade path, according to the Epson guys I've spoken to.

The 4800 uses the same matte black as the 4000. Maybe all the 'K3' inks aren't new, maybe only the key inks are, maybe it's mainly the addition of light light black and new firmware and driver, and new trademark or two to describe all that?

Does it matter really? not to me.. For my part I'm only thinking aloud and watching the coconuts fall. What is important are the prints, and the 4800 prints are on the money. I haven't upgraded from a 2100 though, not a 4000.

It would be interesting though to see a list showing the differences between the two printers, and to see if anyone so inclined and able could retrofit a 4000 up to 4800 specs.

Not very enlightening, more for convenience, here's a pic showing the generic Epson info the two printers side by side, aside from the completely useless information, not a lot of stated differences.

> view 4000-vs-4800-specs

I'm more than happy with the 4800 prints, and it that was achieved by evolutionary improvements to firmware and an ink or two rather than hardware so be it. But if I recently purchased a 4000 I'd be a lot more interested in knowing exactly what is what, and why I can't have me some of that good lovin' K3 thang.

ps. Add the 400 series (4400/7400/9400) in, apart from the ink setup, firmware (and driver?) not looking much different to their 800 buddies.

pps. The firmware update capability in Epson's LFP Remote panel, good move.

ppps. sorry I've had to edit this a few times after the original post to clarify my point - it's close to 3.00am and I'm still messing around with prints!

I've been asked about Borderless printing, and have posted the relevant section from the help files.

> View Borderess printing info

No doubt the techno-razzi will argue endlessly in the coming months over which combination of B&W printing technology is best, which printer, which inks, which papers, RIP or not, etc etc etc. Which is all fine, informs a lot of people along the way and is a critical part in driving things forward.

But here's the reality - these new printers allow everyone to make great B&W prints straight out of the box, and that is GREAT. It also means those driven to achieve technical print perfection will work out ways to make these great prints even better, you go girlfriend! We'll be splitting hairs over great and better than great, tough hey!

If your niche is B&W prints, my guess is things are about to heat up.

A second CD ships with the 4800, containing the installer for LFP Remote Panel.




LFP is a stand alone application that includes a whole bunch of utilities grouped into four areas:

Media Adjustment: includes auto adjustment, custom paper settings, clock setting, printer information, auto alignment

Power Cleaning: includes nozzle check and power head cleaning.

Firmware Updater: lets you browse to a firmware update and install it, as well as view current firmware details

Media Counter settings: lets you turn counters off and on for roll and cut sheet paper and set related warnings.

Digging around in LFP there's a lot of useful stuff, especially in Media Adjustment > Printer Information > Job Information. Look at this - a history of ink usage per print, now that IS something useful.

Pacprint is a complete fix for anyone interested in printing - the exhibition hall reeks of the smells and sounds of printing, of ink and papers, all types of machines printing stuff. If you live in or close to Melbourne I'd strongly recommend checking it out. I only wish they were hiring out Segways to get around :)

After Epson I checked out other large format inkjets - there were many. The output from Canon's imagePROGRAF printers looked great! HP's output looked great. Inkjets that were larger than the main part of my house. Stunning output from Kodak's NexPress (not an inkjet, but amazing). Great stuff everywhere you look.

It's an exciting time to be involved in printing - time for less measurebating, more production.

I bought some Pictorico Velvety stock today and also scored some 17" samples at the tradeshow, all non matte. I'll be checking them out over the next few days. The Pictorico guys from Japan were there, they're still waiting on their 4800 (so no profiles yet), will be a week or two yet. I'd get custom profiles made anyway - but in this case, I have to!

I'm hoping to have a number of B&W 4800 prints in a photography festival that starts on Jun 3. It's getting tight.

(I've edited and reposted this to clarify, sorry if a comment was lost)

After learning more about the matte black situation with the 4800 today I'm considering staying with Photo black for everything including matte prints, maybe moving to non matte papers.

Matte black on the 4800 is the same matte black used on the 4000 (some of the Epson reps did not know this, no wonder stores are confused atm. On the upside at least the matte black ink is available!) - that's no big deal but it raises a few questions about mixing the K3 inks with what you'd presume isn't a K3 matte black ink, or is it? or does it not matter...

(come to think of it, Epson have released Ultrachrome and now K3, but are still peddling the same old papers overall. An Epson rep mentioned there wasn't much in the way of new papers from Epson on the horizon.)

What is a bigger deal is the process and cost of swapping between the photo and matte black on the printer. 10-20ml of black ink are flushed with each swap, not something you'd want to be doing often.

Swapping to matte black means swapping out Photo black for Matte black but also means removing Magenta, Yellow and Cyan i.e. all inks on the left, swapping in dummy cartridges, levers up and down - in and out, rub your tummy and pat your head. Here's the process as described in the help files:

> Converting the Black Ink Cartridges


I haven't seen the same image side by side printed on matte paper using matte black and then using photo black on matte, but I have seen images today printed on matte paper using photo black that looked very good, the blacks were definitely acceptable. I will print some myself along these lines tomorrow - photo black ink/matte paper.

Which leaves me thinking that while I'm going to explore different materials I'm not going to be swapping the blacks back and forth, not just yet anyway. As a rep said today, (if you intend swapping blacks often) "you might as well buy a second printer!"

I think Epson have again missed the boat when it comes to providing a user friendly way to swap blacks back and forth. As it stands it's like learning a barn dance, to the sound of someone taking a piss on the wall outside!

Metamerism and bronzing on non matte papers are no longer big problems, black and white prints on non matte papers look incredible, prints on matte paper using photo black look good. So.... why go the matte black route?

An Epson rep mentioned that in B&W Advanced mode, the 4800 is mainly using the three black inks, but with a hint of light cyan and light magenta. Makes sense re how good the B&W prints are overall, plus the toning options in Advanced mode.

I've been wondering how the 4400, 7400 and 9400 that have been briefly mentioned online (and were at the trade show) fit into Epson's line up. Found out today - the '400' series use only four inks, matte black, cyan, magenta. yellow. They are targeted at pre-press, CAD, corporate. Cheaper, print faster, overall image quality isn't as good as the 800 series and more inline with four color press output - according to Epson.

But the prints I saw today from the 400 series still looked great to me - there was one huge print in particular of a central australian landscape, printed on the 9400, that looked fantastic.

Anyway, maybe you knew all that! I think there's potential for confusion there amongst customers - if you're a photographer you probably don't want a 400 series.

I spent a lot of today at the Pacprint trade show. Epson were there with the Stylus Pro 4800, 7800, 9800, as well as the 4400, 7400 and 9400, 4000, 7600 etc. The new printers were all churning out prints - lots of very impressive prints, lots of very big prints, lots of different papers. Lots of Epson reps who were all very helpful.

I took a test print of mine down to compare and examined many prints as they were produced from the three 800 series printers. Also compared ultrachrome prints with ultrachrome K3 prints, same image, same paper, different ink/printer, side by side.

The bronzing verdict - when you have an ultrachrome print to compare it to (on the same paper type) - there is a HUGE improvement in the new printers with regards to bronzing. On some (non matte papers) it was very difficult to find any hint of bronzing at all.

I haven't printed on anything but matte for several years - and partly due to that may have jumped to conclusions last night with regards to bronzing when looking at the PSPP prints last night. Semigloss prints are a long way from matte.

If you have areas of the print where the highlights are completely blown, it remains no ink, no magic clear ink, nada, is laid down, so there's still that unfortunate patchy look on papers like PSPP at some angles looking across those areas. You still need to spray in that case if it bugs you - or better yet - tweak the file before hand so there is some data in the highlights or if using the Advanced Black and White printing option in the Epson driver, check the 'Highlight Point Shift' option in Advanced settings.

I'm still getting color printing on the 4800 sorted, it's not to the stage where I can make any reasonable comments aside from it looks good. It doesn't look lik the huge step forward like the B&W, but that could be famous last words.

As I've mentioned I don't usually print on papers other than matte, as a result I've run out of what was left of my PSPP stock already.

I'll most likely be away most of today - will head back to Melbourne, hopefully catch up with some Epson reps at the trade show, fingers crossed get some matte black ink and collect some materials.

Just a quick post to say thanks to Mike, Borge and the guys at Borge Andersen in Melbourne (I purchased the 4800 through them). Great customer service, even moreso considering the lack of clarity regarding shipping from Epson and a PITA customer like me. Kudos guys!

Looking at the B&W prints today, in the words of Big Kev (apologies to non-aussies who don't know Big Kev - imagine a big over-caffienated guy in bright clothes doing infomercials for bathroom cleaning products and you'll be close) : 'I'm excited!'.

No doubt people will argue back and forth in the coming months about wet prints vs inkjet. Whatever - the 4800's Ultrachrome K3 B&W prints look to be extremely saleable. B&W darkrooms just got that much harder to justify.

My gut feeling is this is going to be great - for anyone printing their artwork or images, for people buying prints.

New opportunities I think. Given the output I'm now interested in trying out a wide range of materials and finishes - something I've been wanting to do for a long while now but haven't really had the confidence that it was ultimately worth the expense output-wise.

I've spent a good chunk of time this morning comparing my 2100 prints with those out of the 4800. I usually print on a variety of matte stock but since the printer doesn't ship with matte black I've dug out the only non matte stock I've got - a roll of Premium Semigloss Photo paper, so keep that in mind.

I gave up printing pretty much anything on semigloss on the 2100 due to the bronzing and excessive metamerism within a short time of having received the printer. I did like the extra punch tho. This was followed by giving up on printing great B&W, even on matte papers. It fell short of what I wanted.

I've walked around this morning with 4800 B&W side by side with 2100 B&W, under a wide range of light sources - daylight, fluro, bulb etc.

Keeping in mind my limited testing - time and papers, metamerism looks to have been resolved. There's _very little_ shift in the 4800 B&W PSPP print, where the 2100 B&W on matte ebbs back and forth, magenta, green, wildly in comparison to the 4800's. I think this is great. B&W inkjet prints are back on the menu.

I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on the matte black ink!

Bronzing, reduced? yes. I need to pull out some 2100 prints on PSPP and compare more thoroughly side by side.

(NOTE: 27/05 - I've done more comparing on the bronzing issue)

Bronzing - has improved but may still be an issue - at least with PSPP, well at least with my stock that was first opened three years or so ago ( I really haven't used it much!). But it is late and funnily enough I've run short on power points tonight because of the new printer, so have sacrificed some lights to run the printer, will correct that tomorrow and investigate bronzing more thoroughly with fresh eyes.

It will be interesting to view the B&W image on PSPP under varied light sources tomorrow.

I've spent the last couple of hours exploring the driver settings and color prints and will post further on that tomorrow.

The highlight of the evening without a doubt is the B&W print. Very nice, very saleable. Exciting.

The speed of the printer is exceptional - making it almost too easy to change settings and run off another print, and another, and another. It seems to churn out Super A3's like a photocopier!

I'm off to snooze and hope to have fresh eyes in the morning.

ps. after the initial ink (dis)charge and only a handful of prints the nappy is 70% full according to the Epson monitor.

I'm (finally) excited by Adobe Camera Raw, 3.1 is looking very good so far. But what is with the Bridge... can't Adobe make an image browser that isn't a bloated whale? Yes it performs a lot better than it did... but compared to other Raw tools, it's not happening, (photographer) workflow-wise I'm not sure it's a winner. The Bridge is by far the weakest link in Adobe's raw workflow imo.

While the free version of RSE isn't perfect, they really do seem to have a much better overall approach when it comes to ranking/viewing/sorting images, performance and workflow.

Now back to the whale... err Bridge (reminds me of Finding Nemo, maybe I'm just lacking fluency in whale-speak), I'm looking for a purdy color pic to print.

The printer is FAST, really FAST.. I didn't time the A3+ print, will do that next time, but it didn't taken long at all, a fraction of the time the 2100 takes. It hums along, very much what it is I guess, a production machine. The new print head does the business speed-wise.

There was also a much shorter delays throughout using the driver e.g. from the time I ok'd the print in the driver to the time the preview appeared.

Now the print itself - I've pushed it through on Advanced B&W, Colour Toning Neutral.

First impression - the print is very neutral... the best B&W inkjet print I've seen to date. I'm excited, given this is only a first print. I haven't printed any B&W (or seen any Ultrachrome B&W print) as neutral and as rich as this to date. Smooth too. My best B&W print on the 2100 looks fairly shabby beside it.

Bronzing - hmm... not sure yet. Straight out of the printer, hard to say (definitely some gloss differential, but that is different to bronzing) . I'm going to make a cuppa and let the print sit and have another look. It's been a long day.

The image I've printed is http://www.petewalsh.com.au/flash/#picno=1&galno=2
(groovy to have bookmarks in a flash site isn't it! Oh, if the use of flash is something that bothers you, view the image in the html site) As it was shot into the sun it's a got a few areas that are blown out, so a good test to see what magic the printer can work across those areas, without anything like a gloss optimizer.

Well, maybe hate is a strong word. But have you ever met anyone who will admit to enjoying working with rollpaper? Psychotic stuff, medication required. Give me cut sheets anyday, nice and flat - easy.

Now that I've had the pleasure of becoming re-acquainted with my roll of semi-gloss (that has been gathering dust under my workbench) and have it loaded into the printer without any problems, I'll resume normal programming and print the file shortly.

ps. The (printed) setup guide is surprisingly accurate and brief.

Here I sit with what looks like a 1996 Epson Stylus with a serious case of steriods abuse, ready to go - I should print something.

Given I'm interested in the Ultrachrome K3 B&W and bronzing improvements and that no Matte Black ink came with the printer, I'll dig out an B&W image that I was never really happy with on the 2100 (on matte) and print it on Premium Semi-Gloss. See how it goes.

Driver installed no problems at all - I'm running Windows 2k, USB 2 interface. Have firewire but will mess around with that later on. The guys in Melbourne mentioned XP users need to run the install twice to get around a glitch of some sort, sorry no extra info.

So how's the ink levels after the charge? No surprises here, in aussie dollar terms though that's probably around $200-$300 (sorry, messed up my math last night) worth of ink used in the charging process... (no I don't use these print settings - this is how the driver opened the very first time, just interested in ink levels)




So, how much of that ink/$ just got flushed into the 4800's fresh nappy? Here's how much, it's worse in the flesh :)

The printer has been charging ink for a few minutes now, including a couple of cycles of raising and lowering the ink levers - you can almost smell the money as the ink gets flushed. I'll be interested to see how much ink is in the printer's 'nappy' when this is complete.

One minor disappointment is that while the printer ships with a 'full' set of inks, no Matte Black is included, only Photo Black. I expected both would be included (dream on) even though that hasn't been the case in the past.

For a 2100 user, the new ink cartridges are huge!



As I understand it there are no ink cartridges for the 4800 available for sale in Australia for a week or two yet. I'll see what I can rustle up tomorrow as the pacprint trade show is still on in the city. I have some beautiful matte papers here I'd love to run through the printer.

Not exactly a ballet but the printer made it into the attic in one piece, wahoo! (many thanks to Aaron from up the road for his help)

30/05: I've been busted by my wife for not thanking her for her help in getting the printer up the ladder. So - thank you boss! :p

There's a lot of green tape to track down, maybe 30 strips and pieces of foam here and there. The printer is really well packed. I've gone over it several times to make sure I've removed all the bits and pieces of packaging.

It's a case of RTFM for me with a gadget on this scale, not the time to rush into things - being sure to remove the carriage fixing board and unlock the print head before going any further.

Probably nothing new to 4000 owners but the build quality is impressive, really stands out - this is really well made piece of equipment. Time to charge the inks and install the driver.

ps. Apologies for the image quality, just quicksnaps with my kids 2mp coolpix.

My 5 year old daughter is supervising the installation and is in charge of photography. I'm doing weights with the 4800 rollpaper holder, in preparation for lifting the the printer up the ladder behind me and into the attic. Not really recommended I would think, the printer out of the box is much bigger and heavier than I'd expected (I had contemplated moving my office downstairs) . Maybe we'll win a sound system on funniest home videos when the printer lands on the floor, ultra trashed. It's times like this I wish we'd installed a set of stairs.

It's a big box of stuff.

Argh, it's stuck in the car until I can find some help :)

The main things I'm interested in (obviously apart from increased size) are improvements vs the 2100/original Ultrachrome inks re:

- black and white
- bronzing on surfaces other than matte
- wider gamut

Once I've got the 4800 up into the attic I'll start checking it out. No small feat - I'll need some help to get it out of the car!

Yes, my Epson Stylus Pro has finally arrived in Melbourne!

It's a 3-4 hour round trip, I expect to be posting comments later tonight once I get the printer into my attic!

"It's on board" "It's on the truck"

Maybe it hasn't shipped at all, that's my gut feeling. Now I remember the hassle that surrounded availibility/shipping of the 2100 :s

No sign of the printer here that's for sure. Maybe tomorrow!