I’m testing a 9900 newly filled with Piezo Pro inks
I’m getting kinda mixed results
some things print great and some get banding issues
So I wanted to try out a variation
Currently I’m printing in the K5 settings and profiles.
but I’d like to try the K4
but I cant seem to find info on the site about it
so I have questions like
what are the inks used
e.g. which inks are eliminated
what positions do they go in the printer
and how interchangeable are the profiles from K5?
and in my case I think I have only one channel not working…
is there a way to mix K4 (warm) with K5 (cool) ?
sadly the documentation has no mention of K4 setup
nor the landing page…
only the readme in the curves gives a clue… (it seems to say the K4 & K5 are mixable)
I assume from what you are saying is that the positions are the same… (right?)
I will keep trying to figure it out
but a few questions:
can you confirm the K4 and K5 curves mixable?
are the final target densities the same?
would using the K4 for the warm curve and a K5 curve for the cool work?
Also the K4 master curves are super useful for figuring a lot of this out
but I don’t find the master curves for the K5
are they available somewhere?
(I’m using the 9900)
K4 and K5 curves can be used together in QTR. They have the same Luminance slope.
The idea behind the K4 curves is to allow you to have one side be K5 (lets say cool side K5 for the sake of argument) and one side K4 if you are down a channel.
The general workflow is you not use the warm very light gray ink and then use K4 warm curves. You throw away all K5 neutral and K5 warm curves and re-map whatever curves you may need to (the remap text is in the manual under advanced techniques).
while the documentation explains the remapping
it’s not very up front about mixing the K4 and K5
nor the default positions for the inks on K4 (ok the same! yay)
many thanks
I’m off to the races again…
(currently learning about the wonders of the GO on ExFib
I’m still very interested is finding the K5 master curves
are they down loadable?
as I’m about to do the K4 & K5 mix
and for initial testing I’d like to see the same “luminance slope”
for both so I can see the results of mixing shades …
Garret,
Maybe I’m not understanding your situation correctly, but if you are able to run both K5 Cool and K5 Warm in your 9900, why would you want to do anything with K4??? If all your nozzles are good in your 9900, then IMHO you should be using K5 all the way (both Warm and Cool). This gives you maximum print quality from the Pro inks.
On the other hand, if you have one dead nozzle on your 9900, then (and IMHO ONLY then) you would use K5 Cool and K4 Warm. This is what I had to do on my 7900 that has a dead green channel. There is no problem at all with this setup.
The only thing that might be a bit confusing is that Walker has provided individual K5 curves for all the supported papers for the x900 printers, but apparently they ran out of paper while making the new Pro curves and have supplied only the “Master” curves for the K4 setup. Depending on what papers you use, you might be able to just use the Warm Master K4 curve, but if you also have the PPE tools you could start with the Master and linearize it for you specific paper (that’s what I did). In any case, if you use the K5 Cool / K4 Warm setup, you must definitely make your own Neutral curve (using the Blender Tool if you have PPE tools). Otherwise, you could just use two curves (Cool and Warm) in QTR to setup your blends and splits.
yes sadly I seem to have one of those 9900 printers that print good and clear nozzle tests but produce some micro banding. So I was experimenting with the K4 set up & moving channels around.
(I got it “free” so this was about learning)
Much of my confusion revolved around the K4 and K5 “inkset” when they are really just different curve .quad files. I think one of the things that really led me off-track was the fact that the install produces two “printers”. Most of this is nomenclature; I’m new to the community and the way language is used. The documentation is great but is not NewbieEasy. Its a hard process because by committing to Piezo
you are learning (or better said - reverse engineering) two systems at the same time (epson printers and the piezo ink process).
But so far so good
I’m happier with the K4 output and am happy about the potential decrease in cost (less inks)
I’m working well with Raw files direct out of LightRoom
I’m getting good correspondence from retina screen to paper (using the P3 DCI icc for the screen)
at the moment the only thing I can’t find is the K5 Master Curves which I’d like to match with the K4 Master Curves…
and then I have to figure out GO coverage…
OK, fair enough. Yes, I agree that there is a lot of learning involved and I’ve had my fair share of scratching my head trying to figure things out
One additional comment and then I’ll leave you to move on with your testing. Regarding micro banding: Since QTR does not implement any kind of “media type” setting as in the standard Epson driver, I think it is important to take the time to create Custom Paper Types directly in the printer for each paper that you are using with QTR. That is the only way to get the optimum Paper Thickness and Paper Feed settings which can each affect banding (especially Paper Feed). These settings are initialized by the “Media Type” parameters when you print with the standard Epson driver, but with QTR you get whatever is set directly in the printer at the time the print is generated. I keep a little cheatsheet taped to my 7900 with a list of the papers I’m using and the corresponding Custom Paper Type Number that I’ve setup in the printer.
As noted in the readme notice for Pro ink customers as well as in each ReadMe file in the pro folders, I mention media speed settings. If you see micro-banding you will want to create a custom media type and use that so you can change the paper feed speed up or down (usually down) to eliminate micro-banding.
yeah I’ve been testing with different settings for the paper feed adjustment (also platen setting)
and I do have tape with setting all over my printer
I’ve been working with big epsons for a few years now
so - yeah - tiny settings in a deep menu system is a pain – I tape notes all over the printer to remind me of stuff
(if only there were good remote tools… )
anyway, for me, doing a “mk nozzle alignment” test print really showed the true state of the head
(that’s the one that prints all the ink channels with alternating even and odd nozzles)
sadly it’s in worse state than I thought
changing the paper feed adjustment (-15) helped some - but moving to the K4 and moving one of the inks helped more!
hey @IJM_TechSupport
I’m still trying to find the Master K5 curves… are they available at all?
I’d like to use them as a base line for testing
– >> being able to plot the curves out and compare them really helps to wrap my head around what the system is doing
What are your standard papers for linearization?
or
What paper were the K4 master curves made with (both matte and glossy) ?
e.g.
I would like to know what K5 curves match the curves in the 7900-9900-Pro-K4 folder
I call them masters because of the naming scheme you provide
I am trying to mix the K4 and K5 curves and would like to understand the baseline response
I’m still trying to figure out the papers used for the masters for K4 inkset
I went though most of the web site
and it seems the matte is most likely – “we designed it on is Hahnemuhle Photo Rag.”
and that paper seems to be the one most mentioned
but most of that information is more than 5 years old… so who knows?
you may have moved to one of your inhouse papers for standardization?
I read lots about problems with paper consistency of quality
anyyywayy
I’m trying to produce a good solid “neutral” print mixing the K4 and the K5 inksets
and with the Cone type2 for the K5 and the MatteMasterV1 it works quite well
but I can’t find a happy medium for the glossy K4 cure.
prints come out alway way too blue or way too sepia
(really hard to nail the “neutral”)
currently I’m trying to use the epson exhibition fiber
but every paper I’ve tried shifts quite a bit
so asking one more time
what are the papers used for the initial curve set in the K4-9900 folder?
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