rayfoxlee
Raymondo
I’ve had a frustrating few days trying to sort out my colour management (sound familiar?). I shoot both colour and black & white in film and digital and use an ageing, but still quite good, HP Photosmart 8450 A4 printer with OEM inks. The 3 tone black cartridge is really pretty good, but not up to gallery standards, not that I exhibit, I hasten to add.
Previously, I have tried downloadable and bespoke profiles for Ilford Galerie in Lightroom and PS, but always found the results to be muddy looking or just plain wrong. So, I bought a Colormunki Photo. After profiling the screen (barely discernible difference from my old Spyder2) I eventually created a reasonably accurate print profile, but the colours in the blue spectrum are still not great (a difficult colour to reproduce, I understand) but B&W is just not as good as the HP Photo Black, in fact it really isn't useable IMHO. Not a great result for a piece of kit with a £277 price tag.
So, I am thinking of buying an Epson Stylus R800 and either sticking to OEM inks and media and sending the Colormunki back or possibly using Lyson inks, as there are some interesting alternative bulk inks marketed by this firm for Epson printers that will save loads on cost of ink.
What is the experience of RFF owners with the R800 in colour & B&W? Is there a better A4 printer for sensible money that doesn’t have OEM inks that suffer from the dreaded metarism problem? I’m not up for spending out for an A3 printer, unfortunately.
Thanks for your views.
Ray
Previously, I have tried downloadable and bespoke profiles for Ilford Galerie in Lightroom and PS, but always found the results to be muddy looking or just plain wrong. So, I bought a Colormunki Photo. After profiling the screen (barely discernible difference from my old Spyder2) I eventually created a reasonably accurate print profile, but the colours in the blue spectrum are still not great (a difficult colour to reproduce, I understand) but B&W is just not as good as the HP Photo Black, in fact it really isn't useable IMHO. Not a great result for a piece of kit with a £277 price tag.
So, I am thinking of buying an Epson Stylus R800 and either sticking to OEM inks and media and sending the Colormunki back or possibly using Lyson inks, as there are some interesting alternative bulk inks marketed by this firm for Epson printers that will save loads on cost of ink.
What is the experience of RFF owners with the R800 in colour & B&W? Is there a better A4 printer for sensible money that doesn’t have OEM inks that suffer from the dreaded metarism problem? I’m not up for spending out for an A3 printer, unfortunately.
Thanks for your views.
Ray
stormbytes
Member
I have no experience with the Epson R800, but some years back I did some fairly thorough testing of both Colormunki and Spyder3Print from Datacolor. The latter worked much better for me and allowed for tweaking of icc profiles right in the software. Colormunki is more of a 'black box' where that's concerned, and while it did produce acceptable printer profiles, I found those produced by Spyder3 to be just a hair better.
If you are serious about doing B/W printing you might want to consider biting the bullet and going with an Epson 3880. I own the 3800 (previous model) and I can say from experience that this printer delivers fantastic tonal range. The 3880 also has far greater ink capacity and holds both MK and PK cartridges simultaneously, translating into further ink economy.
With SpyderStudio (or SpyderPrint) you would also have the option of profiling for QTR, a wonderful and fully customizable B/W RIP for Epson printers; the option for QTR patch-read output now natively exists within the Spyder3Print.
In short, the options are open to you if you don't mind absorbing a bit of startup cost.
If you are serious about doing B/W printing you might want to consider biting the bullet and going with an Epson 3880. I own the 3800 (previous model) and I can say from experience that this printer delivers fantastic tonal range. The 3880 also has far greater ink capacity and holds both MK and PK cartridges simultaneously, translating into further ink economy.
With SpyderStudio (or SpyderPrint) you would also have the option of profiling for QTR, a wonderful and fully customizable B/W RIP for Epson printers; the option for QTR patch-read output now natively exists within the Spyder3Print.
In short, the options are open to you if you don't mind absorbing a bit of startup cost.