Digital BW, The Print

Hello All,

Here is a link to a scan image (sent by Carl Schofield) of BO prints
on the 2200 and 4000.  It clearly shows the difference in dither
patterns, and explains why the 4000 BO print would look much better. 

The left side shows the 2200's characteristic squiggle pattern.  The
4000 pattern is more evenly distributed. 

Also notice in the dark area some faint vertical dither banding in the
2200 which is absent in the 4000.

   http://www.cjcom.net/files/BO4000-2.jpg

Thank you Carl for providing these scans.

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Clayton Jones" 
<cj@c...> wrote:

> The left side shows the 2200's characteristic squiggle pattern.  
The
> 4000 pattern is more evenly distributed. 
> 
> Also notice in the dark area some faint vertical dither banding in 
the
> 2200 which is absent in the 4000.
> 
>    http://www.cjcom.net/files/BO4000-2.jpg
> 
> Thank you Carl for providing these scans.

WOW!   That's pretty impressive.  What's maddening about this is 
that I used to write inkjet printer drivers for a living years ago 
when I worked for a Unix workstation company.   Changing the dither 
pattern probably involves about 5 lines of C/C++ code, if they did 
it right.   But will Epson release an improved driver for the 2200?  
Nooooo.   If we want those five lines of code we have to trade up to 
an $1800 printer.

That's interesting...  If the 4000 makes very good BO prints at 1440 
dpi with matte settings, has anyone tried BO with RC settings at 2880 
dpi?
Thanks in advance.
Steve B 

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Peter Nelson" 
<pnweb@s...> wrote:
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Clayton 
Jones" 
> <cj@c...> wrote:
> 
> > The left side shows the 2200's characteristic squiggle pattern.  
> The
> > 4000 pattern is more evenly distributed. 
> > 
> > Also notice in the dark area some faint vertical dither banding 
in 
> the
> > 2200 which is absent in the 4000.
> > 
> >    http://www.cjcom.net/files/BO4000-2.jpg
> > 
> > Thank you Carl for providing these scans.
> 
> WOW!   That's pretty impressive.  What's maddening about this is 
> that I used to write inkjet printer drivers for a living years ago 
> when I worked for a Unix workstation company.   Changing the dither 
> pattern probably involves about 5 lines of C/C++ code, if they did 
> it right.   But will Epson release an improved driver for the 
2200?  
> Nooooo.   If we want those five lines of code we have to trade up 
to 
> an $1800 printer.

Hello Peter,

>But will Epson release an improved driver for the 2200?  
>Nooooo.   If we want those five lines of code we have to 
>trade up to an $1800 printer.

Good heavens, you are such a pessimist.  Must you always see the glass
as half empty?  

I was talking with Steve K. about this and he pointed out that Epson
will have to update the 1280 and/or the 2200, and whatever the new 13"
model is it will probably have all the latest technology.  I agree,
and prefer to see the glass as half full and rising.  My entire
experience in this so far has been that everything continuously gets
better and better.  I would not be at all surprised to learn that
there is a 13" version of the 4000 in the works.


Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Clayton Jones" 
<cj@c...> wrote:
> Hello Peter,
> 
> >But will Epson release an improved driver for the 2200?  
> >Nooooo.   If we want those five lines of code we have to 
> >trade up to an $1800 printer.
> 
> Good heavens, you are such a pessimist.  Must you always see the 
glass
> as half empty?  
> 
> I was talking with Steve K. about this and he pointed out that 
Epson
> will have to update the 1280 and/or the 2200, and whatever the new 
13"
> model is it will probably have all the latest technology.  I agree,
> and prefer to see the glass as half full and rising.  My entire
> experience in this so far has been that everything continuously 
gets
> better and better. 

It's too bad people today don't get a good classical education 
anymore.  This is the perfect place to make a reference to a 
character in Voltaire's Candide, Dr Pangloss, whose catch-phrase 
was "All is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds".

I don't see how coming out with a replacement for the 2200 addresses 
my complaint that we will have to buy an expensive new printer just 
to get 5 lines of source code.   Or were you implying that Epson 
will issue a new driver for the 2200?

Hello Peter,

>Or were you implying that Epson will issue a new driver for the 2200?

I wasn't implying anything.  I don't have any idea what they will do.


Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

In this respect I will come to Peter¹s defence.    If an improved dither can
be achieved by a modest change to a printer¹s driver (I have no idea whether
this is the case or not) then it would be nice to see Epson bring such an
advance to the very popular 21/2200.  Epson is lousy and worse yet sloppy
when it comes to its drivers.  For example, swapping black inks with a Mac
can still be a pain and requires a work around.  Another case, with the US
driver one can print BO to RC paper and the printer will use just the black
ink.  With the European 2100 driver it uses all the ink. Why?  Sloppiness,
lack of coordination, apathy?  When I asked Epson UK support why this was
the case they took 4 weeks to respond.  There response was in effect ³sorry
for the delay, if you still have a query please enquire again²!!

But in the end it is all economics.  We still all buy their printers even
though they come with sloppy software.  Would we still buy their printers if
they cost twice the competition but had good drivers?  BO, and for that
matter B&W, are minute segments of a huge market opportunity.  I suspect
Epson will continue to ignore these peripheral market segments so that they
do not lose focus on the broader goal.  But if dither algorithms were to
cause a competition gap in the colour segment then I suspect we would
quickly see an updated driver.  Unfortunately I doubt this will occur and
more likely the competition is still very much hardware driven.  And so
exists a market for small entrepreneurial companies and individuals to
develop solutions for these problems.  Thankfully for the B&W community, the
development digital B&W is a passion for a small number of individuals who
have spent and continue to spend enormous amounts of time making good B&W
available to us ­ and for very little in reward except free ink or token
payments.

Having said that, it would still be nice if Epson was a little less sloppy
in their driver production and made a concerted effort to bring any new
driver-driven enhancements developed alongside new printers to their current
family of printer models.  But whining amongst ourselves is hardly a
solution.  Whine to Epson and make it a very visible part of the purchase
decision.  

From: "Peter Nelson" <pnweb@...>

I don't see how coming out with a replacement for the 2200 addresses
my complaint that we will have to buy an expensive new printer just
to get 5 lines of source code.   Or were you implying that Epson
will issue a new driver for the 2200?
  





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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi,
instead of complaining about these issues, I wrote this to Epson.

Why don't we start a letter-writing campaign?

Richard

I would like to make a comment on the 2100 printer. I am a black and white photographer and, but for easily rectified driver performance in black only printing, I would purchase one. 

Firstly, the addition on light black is not capitalised on in black only printing. Duotone printing could be achieved with greatly improved results, if both inks were used. Secondly, the dither pattern of the 4000 is superior to that of the 2100/2200, which shows a ripple effect. Are these things to be rectified in a driver upgrade?

The black and white printing community may be a small part of your market, but nevertheless it is one that you are losing to third party ink manufacturers and now, for my part, to HP, who are the first to produce a grey cartridge. It's not totally neutral, but it works every time and until you rectify this omission, it is where I'll be staying.

Yours faithfully,
Richard Smallfield
--
http://smallfield.vze.com
http://photos.smallfield.vze.com

   "You can best serve civilization by being against what usually 
   passes for it."
   --Wendell Berry

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Richard 
Smallfield <r.smallfield@p...> wrote:
> Hi,
> instead of complaining about these issues, I wrote this to Epson.
> 
> Why don't we start a letter-writing campaign?

I talked in person to an Epson regional rep when she was visiting 
Nashua NH late last year.  She said that she has heard from LOTS of 
people who do black and white printing who think that with a few 
minor tweaks to correct its shortcomings the 2200 could be/could have 
been a good BW printer.   She said she always passes these comments 
on to Epson of America but she never gets any feedback.   She said 
it's a very big company.   Our conversation was taking place just as 
HP was introducing its 8-color system and she indicated concern that 
if HP came out with a 13" version it could be a problem for them.

It sounds a like a typical company where the little people in the 
trenches know more about what's going on than the suits in the corner 
office.

What Peter Nelson calls "writing 5 lines of code" is an 
underestimation of the problem in my opinion.

First of all there has been a lot of work done in 
dithering/weaving development for Gimp-print to get the same (or 
maybe a better quality in some cases) than the Epson driver 
delivers.  Lots of RIPs around that don't have it as good. So it 
may not be that easy to get better dithering for a given printer 
model.

Secondly the number of nozzles on the 4000 (single array head 
also) if compared to the 2100 / 2200 is much higher too. It most 
likely means another speed sacrifice if you want a similar print 
quality.

Third, the wide format pro models with carts separated from the 
head(s) have always had a more consistent droplet size and an 
overall more consistent print quality.That's also getting better 
per generation. In time, between printers and between heads. The 
nice results with the Atkinson profiles on the individual 
9600/7600 show that the printers are very consistent. I haven't 
seen similar comments on the 2100/2200.

Printer heads wear in time. To compare  one should start with 
equally aged printers, in practice both should be new.

Ernst

No it sounds like they are doing just fine in their sales and don¹t yet face
a competitor that forces them to focus on these issues in the consumer
market.


It sounds a like a typical company where the little people in the
trenches know more about what's going on than the suits in the corner
office.






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Ernst Dinkla 
<E.Dinkla@c...> wrote:
> What Peter Nelson calls "writing 5 lines of code" is an 
> underestimation of the problem in my opinion.

In my original posting I said "if they did it right".  

As I said, I used to write inkjet drivers.  The obvious difference 
between the 2200 and the 4000 is that the 2200 produces very obvious 
patterns, which increase the visibility of the dots, and the 4000 
does not.   There are essentially 2 kinds of dithers: random dithers 
and patterned dithers.  The 2200's patterns don't look like a 
patterned dither, they look like a badly done random dither.  So I'm 
surmising that that's what needs to be fixed.

Peter Nelson wrote:
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Ernst Dinkla 
> <E.Dinkla@c...> wrote:
> 
>>What Peter Nelson calls "writing 5 lines of code" is an 
>>underestimation of the problem in my opinion.
> 
> 
> In my original posting I said "if they did it right".  
> 
> As I said, I used to write inkjet drivers.  The obvious difference 
> between the 2200 and the 4000 is that the 2200 produces very obvious 
> patterns, which increase the visibility of the dots, and the 4000 
> does not.   There are essentially 2 kinds of dithers: random dithers 
> and patterned dithers.  The 2200's patterns don't look like a 
> patterned dither, they look like a badly done random dither.  So I'm 
> surmising that that's what needs to be fixed.

So far I have little proof that Epson engineers are of the lazy 
kind. If the random droplet distribution as observed is caused by 
a selected "random" algorithm for the dithering they must have 
done that for a reason.  If the random pattern is the result of 
the other points I mentioned it will be hard to get that 
corrected by whatever pattern. But one could check the different 
Gimp-print ditherings for the 2100/2200 and compare them with the 
Epson result. The Gimp-print patterns are also well described in 
the sources etc. Looks like there are more categories of patterns 
than just two. If Gimp-print shows better behaviour in one of its 
patterns you would have a strong point in the discussions with Epson.

I've written before that BO printing may become better with a 
higher nozzle quantity. Either by a bigger black head or by using 
more heads for blacks and reducing the black output per head. I 
very much think that that is a better way to go.  But it needs a 
driver like QTR to get that done.

Ernst

Peter,

Is this at all printer dpi's? I ask this as my 1290 has a far superior
'micro-appearance' (=dither?) at 2880 dpi than at 1440dpi. I've not done a
detailed comparison of my 2100 yet at different dpi's.

Bob Frost.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Nelson" <pnweb@...>

As I said, I used to write inkjet drivers.  The obvious difference
between the 2200 and the 4000 is that the 2200 produces very obvious
patterns, which increase the visibility of the dots, and the 4000
does not.   There are essentially 2 kinds of dithers: random dithers
and patterned dithers.  The 2200's patterns don't look like a
patterned dither, they look like a badly done random dither.  So I'm
surmising that that's what needs to be fixed.