I too think Epson ABW is a tad on the cool side and the K7Neutral is visibly on the warm side. Perhaps that is the nature of the ink and it is not possible to get a neutral tone using the K7Neutral inks. That said, i’ll stick with printing in ABW mode on the Epson7900 for a neutral tone. The ABW/Epson7900 prints do appear more neutral than the K7Neutral.
FWIW I printed two more tests on the Epson7900/UC-inks using
UltraChrome-Matte-EpsonEnhancedMatte-Warm cure (UC-Matte-Warm).
These are the lower two in the attached image.
UC-Matte-Warm is warmer than K7Neutral
UC-Matte-Cool is cooler than ABW
I installed the K7Neutral inks in my 3880 to see if I like the results enough to convert my 7900 to use K7Neutral inks. I’m not getting the results I was hoping far.
-c
[QUOTE=Brian_S;9127]FWIW, I’ve done a few comparisons on an OEM 3880 of ABW Neutral with QTR using the neutral curve. I can’t do the same test using K7 as I’m using Special Edition rather than Neutral inks at the moment in my piezo printer.
I found that the ABW print was perhaps a little on the cool side of neutral, whereas the QTR profile was a little warm. I got the impression that ABW may have been over-correcting for the inherent toning in the OEM three black inks, and QTR was under-correcting. Exact neutral from OEM K3 can be elusive. Why don’t you try QTR neutral on the 7900 and see how it looks? I suspect that you’ll find all three a bit different.[/QUOTE]
Just to be completely clear, the two supposedly neutral prints I compared were both using OEM inks - one with ABW (slighly cool) and one with QTR (slightly warm). I don’t have a N7 or K6/P2 neutral print of that particular image to compare them with.
I just went back through the pile of prints and found a print of a different image done with K7 Neutral on that paper. Comparing the three, I don’t really consider any of them to be neutral - the K7 one has a slight yellowish-green tinge. None of the images is wildly away from neutral, but they’re all different.
To be fair, these prints are on Ilford Smooth Pearl, which has a distinctive off-white tone. For a fair comparison I’d need to redo all these prints on HPR, which is one of the most neutral papers, and put neutral inks back in the piezo printer. I’d expect the K7-N one to look fairly neutral on that paper. Actually, I managed to find a K7-N HPR print (different image again) in the pile and I think that’s mostly right. There may be a the slightest hint of green in the mid-tones, but I’d need the other two versions of that print as a point of comparison. Not going to happen in a hurry. Sorry. Best of luck.
If you’re going to stick with ABW or QTR-K3 for neutral, you can play around endlessly trying to get better neutralisations. Whichever of the three methods you use, you may also want to consider your paper choice if absolutely neutral is important to you. Also, I’d expect that Piezography will have less metamerism.
Hahnemuhle PhotoRag is the paper I mostly use, every now an then I’ll use Hahnemuhle’s Museum Etching. A slight yellowish tinge is what I’m seeing on HPR and K7Neutral inks. I do like the K7N inks if it is a warm tone I need. I’ve only used the supplied curves with QTR, I should explore it more.
[QUOTE=Brian_S;9132]Just to be completely clear, the two supposedly neutral prints I compared were both using OEM inks - one with ABW (slighly cool) and one with QTR (slightly warm). I don’t have a N7 or K6/P2 neutral print of that particular image to compare them with.
I just went back through the pile of prints and found a print of a different image done with K7 Neutral on that paper. Comparing the three, I don’t really consider any of them to be neutral - the K7 one has a slight yellowish-green tinge. None of the images is wildly away from neutral, but they’re all different.
To be fair, these prints are on Ilford Smooth Pearl, which has a distinctive off-white tone. For a fair comparison I’d need to redo all these prints on HPR, which is one of the most neutral papers, and put neutral inks back in the piezo printer. I’d expect the K7-N one to look fairly neutral on that paper. Actually, I managed to find a K7-N HPR print (different image again) in the pile and I think that’s mostly right. There may be a the slightest hint of green in the mid-tones, but I’d need the other two versions of that print as a point of comparison. Not going to happen in a hurry. Sorry. Best of luck.
If you’re going to stick with ABW or QTR-K3 for neutral, you can play around endlessly trying to get better neutralisations. Whichever of the three methods you use, you may also want to consider your paper choice if absolutely neutral is important to you. Also, I’d expect that Piezography will have less metamerism.[/QUOTE]
Special edition is worth a look, at least on matte papers. I find it nice and subtle on matte, but not so subtle on gloss. However doing a changeover on a 3880 is a fairly expensive and wasteful option.
rxchaos, I see from your attachments you are using the UC profiles and not the K7 profiles, you are printing on a 3880, using NU inks on HPR, try this curve instead of the UC:K7-X880-NU-HanPtoRag.quad.zip (2.81 KB)
Do you have a way of measuring your 21 step strip to test for linear results? And/or do you have a way to check Lab values or density on a Quad Tone Rip calibration ink separation image?
Also, the 38XX printers are notorious for color staining, even after flushing the system. The way the system is designed using internal ink lines, Dampers (aka. Ink Selector Unit) give way to pigment build up and stubborn staining. This will either go away with continued use, OR you may have to bit the bullet and do as Epson recommends you do once every 12-18 months and replace the Ink Selector Unit, to rid yourself of the hassle.
As common solution is to simply run 2-3 cleaning cycles at the beginning of a print day and print a test to verify the staining to be gone. With systems that are older then 18 months, this may take 3-5 cleaning cycles. At that point, it’s your decision to either send the ink into the waste tank OR replace the Ink Selector unit. You can purchase this at Compass Micro for around $175, you will need a Manual (2manuals.com) and some mechanical abilities to perform this replacement.
The last image I uploaded was a picture of 4 prints. The upper left (it has the writing Epson Presentation Matte, Epson 3880), is the only print that was printed using K7 profiles. The other prints were done on an Epson7900 that has Epson inks, and were printed using ABW, UC profiles just for comparison.
I do use an i1PhotoPro profiler with i1Profiler to profile papers for my printer. I’ll gladly measure a 21 step strip. I’ve not done it before, would it be possible to point me to a link that provides the instructions.
My 3880 printer has K7Neutral inks. I printed the same test image using K7-X880-NU-HanPtoRag curve and there is a noticeable yellow tone.
[QUOTE=KellyC;9148]rxchaos, I see from your attachments you are using the UC profiles and not the K7 profiles, you are printing on a 3880, using NU inks on HPR, try this curve instead of the UC:K7-X880-NU-HanPtoRag.quad.zip (2.81 KB)
Do you have a way of measuring your 21 step strip to test for linear results? And/or do you have a way to check Lab values or density on a Quad Tone Rip calibration ink separation image?[/QUOTE]
I’ll look into replacing the ink selector unit. If I decide to do it I’ll have it done by an Epson service center. I don’t have any experience taking apart printers. All this would be a pointless effort if even after replacing the Dampers I’m unable to get a fairly neutral toned print. Perhaps I should just stay with ABW mode.
[QUOTE=KellyC;9154]Also, the 38XX printers are notorious for color staining, even after flushing the system. The way the system is designed using internal ink lines, Dampers (aka. Ink Selector Unit) give way to pigment build up and stubborn staining. This will either go away with continued use, OR you may have to bit the bullet and do as Epson recommends you do once every 12-18 months and replace the Ink Selector Unit, to rid yourself of the hassle.
As common solution is to simply run 2-3 cleaning cycles at the beginning of a print day and print a test to verify the staining to be gone. With systems that are older then 18 months, this may take 3-5 cleaning cycles. At that point, it’s your decision to either send the ink into the waste tank OR replace the Ink Selector unit. You can purchase this at Compass Micro for around $175, you will need a Manual (2manuals.com) and some mechanical abilities to perform this replacement.[/QUOTE]
Perhaps someone on this forum with Epson Presentation Matte paper and Neutral inks could send this gentleman a print of this test image. At least this way we can determine if it is a “yellow” issue of just that K7 Neutral inks are warmer than Epson’s ABW inks. I have neither the ink nor paper or I’d do it myself.
Good luck,
John
You shouldn’t be seeing yellow casting in any NU prints, on any papers, with any printer. I see you have purchased matte and glossy K7 samples from us back in 2013, you can reference them to your current image printed with the K7 curve I supplied you previously.
What you are seeing is color casting from left over pigment ink in your system. Have you tried running the 3 power clean cycles to see if it will subside while you print for the short term? That way you get a clear view of what the NU ink should look like from your 3880 printer, again it should not be yellow in tone.
Do you have Measure Tool for measuring your 21 step strip?
The yellow cast if there could only be in the highlights as this is where Shade 7 prints. Printing the Ink Separation Target in Calibration Mode would reveal this quickly.
Piezography Neutral is only neutral on the paper base of Hahnemuhle Photo Rag and Innova Cotton Smooth. Any paper warmer or cooler (like EPM) would produce warmer or cooler results. EPM should be cooler than neutral because the paper has OBAs which promote a cool cast - not a warm cast.
rxchaos have you printed the Ink Separation Target in Calibration Mode to look at what is coming out of each channel? Casts would be seen in shades 7 and / or 6 (yellow and / or lt magenta stains) if the printer’s dampers are still laden with Epson yellow and/or lt magenta pigments. You can see in the attached Curve that a lot of shade 7 is used in the highlights but also filters through the 1/4 tones…
I bought a K7Neutral kit (glossy and matte) in 2014, and didn’t install it till a few weeks ago. The details of the steps I’ve followed are in earlier posts in the same thread. I’ve carefully followed the steps in the documentation. The ink’s been flushed several times using Piezoflush, and I’ve run 3 power clean cycles for both Gloss and Matte inks (6 cycles in all). It didn’t get rid of the yellow cast. I then bought a new set of empty cartridges and new K7Neutral inks and installed everything from scratch and repeated the cleaning cycles (3 for each of the inks). All nozzle checks are clean. After all this there’s still a noticeable yellow cast. Perhaps the yellow ink isn’t fully gotten rid of. I’d like to believe that the K7Neutral inks are indeed neutral and don’t show a cast.
At this point I should perhaps just print my b&w images on my Epson7900 with Epson inks in ABW mode. I got the 3880 to try the cone inks and if it worked the way I expected it to I was was going to convert my Epson7900 to use K7 neutral inks. Much time and resources have been spent on this and I can’t get a neutral print. May be the left over yellow pigment will take a very very long time to get rid of.
[QUOTE=KellyC;9210]You shouldn’t be seeing yellow casting in any NU prints, on any papers, with any printer. I see you have purchased matte and glossy K7 samples from us back in 2013, you can reference them to your current image printed with the K7 curve I supplied you previously.
What you are seeing is color casting from left over pigment ink in your system. Have you tried running the 3 power clean cycles to see if it will subside while you print for the short term? That way you get a clear view of what the NU ink should look like from your 3880 printer, again it should not be yellow in tone.
Do you have Measure Tool for measuring your 21 step strip?[/QUOTE]
A follow-up to a previous post of mine and a couple of observations. In post #21 I commented on a print I made on HPR using neutral inks. I’ve had another look at it in daylight against a grey card and I now think it’s neutral. Making the same comparison for prints on papers that are not themselves neutral shows a colour cast, but that’s to be expected.
In post #6 I said that If I was doing a conversion like this in an ink-lines-and-dampers printer, I’d consider replacing the lines and dampers. I may well be in the position of advising a local printer who is thinking of doing such a printer conversion. That’s what I’d be advising him. Actually, no, I’ll be advising him to use P2. This surely has to be an easier conversion, putting Photo Black (WN1 or SEL1) in the Yellow slot. I think that any slight residual staining would not be noticeable. I think this makes sense even if you don’t want to print on gloss, you could always put flush in the Y channel if you don’t. Jon will no doubt jump in and defend the benefits of printing with shade 7, but I’ve just spend some time staring at Jeff G’s classy high-key images printed on both K7 and P2/K6, and I couldn’t spot the difference. So that’s what I’ll be advising this local printer to do.
I would not jump in to say K7 is critically more important than P2. But - having a yellow stain after running Power Flushes 6 times… that is not normal in any regard.
Turning the printer into a P2 system would prevent issues with the MK/PK black ink exchanger to be sure. PK would go in the yellow slot and the specter of whatever is in that yellow ink damper requiring so much effort to rid itself would become a moot point…
[QUOTE=jon;9213]Neutral inks are most definitely not measurably warm.
Why not just print the Calibration Mode target and send it to us for us to evaluate and measure.
If it is yellow - we will see it either by eye or by Lab measurement. We will then know how to advise you.[/QUOTE]
Just wondering if someone has taken a look at the calibration mode target prints I sent. It should have been delivered early last week; they were sent via USPS Priority Mail.
Yes, we reviewed the tests and the inks look normal. I wrote you personally but you must not have received. We also reviewed what Epson ABW considers to be “neutral” and we think that you are trying to have the two systems be the same (which they are not). Epson ABW “neutral” is measurably cool. It may appear “neutral” to you, but it is not actually achromatic (equal amounts of red, green, blue under 5000k). So you do not have yellow staining. You may not like achromatic neutral. You may prefer a cool neutral, which we do not make. We make a neutral and we make a warm neutral. In the mid-2000s we did offer PiezoTone Cool Neutral but it was not popular enough to reformulate a second time. It was very close to what ABW Neutral is (bluer than neutral).
Thank you for the response. I did not receive the email you sent, and that’s why I posted on the forum. Your analysis makes perfect sense. For the images I was trying to print I preferred a ‘cooler neutral’, I’ll use Epson’s ABW for that. I’m glad to note that there is no yellow staining. I use my Epson3880 with NeutralK7 inks when I want a warmer tone. I appreciate your clarifying this
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