One conclusion I've drawn over the last couple of weeks is that the canned profiles that ship with the 4800 are really quite good and hold their own beside custom profiles. I have noticed an improvement in prints with the latter, but to me it isn't huge (or at least hasn't been to date) - if I had to quantify the improvement , maybe 5% overall.

(Which makes sense in a way - why would Epson ship a product like the 4800 with profiles for their own papers which weren't very good?)

The improvements in prints when moving to custom from canned profiles on the 2100 prints was easily more noticeable - although still not huge. Related, now that I'm back into production mode I'm able to compare a wider range of prints produced on the 2100 using custom profiles to prints on the 4800 using canned and custom profiles. In all cases the 4800 prints have had the edge - I'm noticing more things to like about it's color performance, especially how clean the lighter tones are compared to the profiled 2100 prints.

Laying out all my 4800 test prints to date on Glossy, Semigloss, Pictorico Velvety, Archival Matte, Elegance and Photo Rag, some using canned profiles, some custom - they are all very similar. There are shifts/variation print to print but nothing dramatic, aside from things mentioned previously e.g. the blacks on Elegance.

At least when you use custom profiles you know you are theoretically getting the best out of the combination of your paper/your printer combination - the money spent is probably worth it for the peace of mind alone.

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.

I've been runing a few tests looking for differences in ink usage when printing B&W using Color vs Adv B&W mode. Wny? I guess primarily because while the B&W results out of both modes are good, I think Epson could have done a better job with the B&W Adv mode interface which leaves me wanting to use the Color mode, but not if there are penalties.

To date the ink usage between the two modes has been close, and comparing it is tricky as even according to Epson there's a reasonable margin for error in what is reported via the printer utilities.

But so far the general trend seems to be:

- More Light Black used in Color mode
- More Light Light Black used in Adv B&W mode (the biggest difference)
- Perhaps less Light Cyan and Light Magenta used in Adv B&W mode but not by much

If anyone else has run this type of comparison I'd be interested to know the results.

Related, Andrew posted a link to the Digital Black and White Print group on Yahoo, where someon has made profiles available for soft proofing some Adv B&W settings in Photoshop, that's pretty cool.

I've been catching up on work while waiting for Rag profile. I'm hoping to receive it in the next day or two. It's also been great to get out with the camera!

I've added an image to the black ink changeover post, taken just after the conversion. It may be some time before I swap back to Photo Black, but when I do I'll definitely be trying the alternative method.