Digital BW, The Print

Martin,

It would be interesting to see the 10000 comparison as I understand 
they went down to 3 picoliters on the droplet. I would need to check, 
but I think the 7x00 has a slightly smaller droplet than the 
5000/9x00. Also the newer 5500 has the smaller 3 picoliter droplet, 
so it should be as good as the 12x0 series printers.

The slightly coarser look of the 7000 and up probably wouldn't be 
noticeable do to the size prints these were designed to make. I keep 
thinking about a 7000 as the prices continue to drop at a rapid pace, 
just not down to my "range" yet!<g>

I noticed the same thing in my Spectratone sample prints. I have been 
playing with both these and the color Wide Spectrums on a 1270 doing 
some beta testing (at the moment concentrating on the WS). I did 
notice that the Spectratone inks responded better to using the 
separation curves under RGB similiar to Pauls curves, I got 
reasonably close. Maybe Allen will play with that idea using the 
softproof method on the 3000 to help smooth the output.

Terry

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Martin Wesley" 
<mwesley250@e...> wrote:
> Terry,
>  
> Thanks for the link to the inkjetart.com page which shows the side-
by-
> side comparisons of the various Epson printers and associated 
drivers 
> including the 3000, 1160, 1200, 1270, 2000, 5000 and many others. I 
> put it in the "Bookmarks" section of the group homepage.
>  
> This helps explains some things I have noticed. Especially the 
> difference between the 3000 and later models with the Epson driver. 
I 
> noticed this on sample prints of Spectratone Quad inks. The 1200 
> samples showed much less dot pattern than the 3000 samples.
>  
> I think that the ConeTech Piezo vs. MIS comparison images are from 
a 
> 3000. It seems likely that the "poor quality" reputation of the 
Epson 
> driver I hear mentioned occasionally may be based upon the earlier 
> technologies and not the newer versions.
>  
> It is interesting that the 5000, 7000, 9000 and perhaps 10,000 
> printers appear to have a coarser dot pattern than the 1270, 1280, 
> 1290 printers but less banding pattern. There may be a trade off 
here 
> or a realization that beyond a certain point smaller dot sizes 
simply 
> are not noticeable.
>  
> It is also important to remember that with all of these printers 
and 
> dot patterns, that they have little to no visibility at normal 
> viewing distances and that people have been able to produce very 
> excellent prints with all of them.
>  
> Martin
> 
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "TerryR" 
<terryr1028@h...> 
> wrote:
> 
> (snip)
> 
> > The droplet size combined with the lack of the ability to vary it 
> is 
> > why the "dots" are so much more visible from a 3000 using the 
Epson 
> > driver. The Piezo driver compensates for this by eliminating the 
> > Epson dithering in the driver and tightening up the dpi so the 
dot 
> > size isn't as obvious. Paul Roarks curves take advantage of the 
> Epson 
> > dithering and the crossover points to also minimize the dot size 
> > appearance. Go to the Inkjetart site and look at the comparisions 
> of 
> > the output of the printers under 8x and 17x magnification at this 
> > link:
> > 
> > http://www.tssphoto.com/sp/dg/news/dot_comp.html
> > 
> > For a better explanation of the Variable Drop Technology go to 
this 
> > link (from Epson themselves):
> > 
> > http://www.epson.co.uk/whatsnew/technology/vdot.htm
> > 
> > Terry
> > 
> (snip)