On all the profiles (Bill Atkinson profiles, APS Z frm V5, Canon 5000 profiles given to me) I looked at in the bottom end of the L*a*b* locust Epson had more colour information in the lowest ranges of the L* levels. Does the newer x100 Canon inkset have more in the shadows than the older inkset[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=192894\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Gotta profile them all the same way using the same device to be fair. And yes the black and grey inks are different on the iPF x100 inks which bring a number of advantages including DMax.
Both HP and Canon fall back rapidly to a neutral in the deep shadows due to in most part GCR.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=192894\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
That's not what I'm seeing based on actual prints. I like to look carefully at the bottom portion of the granger rainbow when deep colors fade into black. Many processes go neutral before hitting black but iPF prints do an excellent job maintaining color down there (again with the right profiles).
In any subjective tests what viewers see as better than the other often surprises me. [a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=192894\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I agree - that can be really educational. But when large groups of people are unanimous about something that's different.
Bill Atkinson's test image has some green fern areas that tell a lot about what all three can do. Objectively one can map these colours, subjectively will be up to the viewer to decide their preferences. Since no analogue printers ever printed these colours before, who knows what is "right", yet for me realism is what I think is best.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=192894\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
When it comes to skin tones I can compare prints under high quality lighting or daylight to the person photographed and see better matching with some profiles over others. PMP and EOM profiles, for example, put a little too much pink or magenta in the skin tones even though the gray balance is fine. Photo labs are really good at picking this out and every time I hear about a lab complaining about 'pink' or 'fleshy' skin tones its a red flag that they are using either PMP or EOM profiles.
I also deal with designers and print shops with Pantone spot color matching. When I take out the spectro and compare the Pantone color book samples to inkjet reproductions made with various profiles, I consistently find the MP profiles to provide the lowest (best) Delta E variances. So this is a quantitative way of confirming what I am seeing visually.
Canon uses 2 extra bits in the plug in to it's advantage for the extended inkset.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=192894\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
12bit minus 8 bits equals a 4 bit differential right? 4 more bits requires substantially more processing power on the printer. Since Canon makes their own chips perhaps they felt that could push the envelope while everyone else was using on-board 8 bit processing? Canon told me that their tests showed 12 bits to be the sweet spot for quality and demands on processing power.
Epson do not need 12 bit processing at this point. [a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=192894\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Says who? Their granger rainbows could be a little smoother. I'm being crazy picky when I say this - this type of small detail would probably be lost to the general public.
Has anyone seen a difference with the new 16 bit drivers on the 11880 between 8>16 bit?[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=192894\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
No. Sending 16 bits to the printer doesn't matter much if the on-board processing is limited to 8bits. Since the IPF printers have on-board 12 bit processing you can see a subtle difference between sending 8 and 16 bit data to the printer (this effects smoothness, not gamut of course). On the Epson no. Epson has been asked what their on-board processing bit depth is but their silence and the results seem to suggest that it is 8. I'd certainly love to hear and see otherwise.
In theory now that Vista and 10.5 are out the plug-in (rip) approach are no longer needed as they can process images at high bit at OS level, including screening.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=192894\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
What us end users think of as "screening" and what the engineers talk about as screening are two different things. There are several things that happen that effect the dot appearance and placement on the page. Let's just say that when any OEM driver is used (any with most RIPs) the real "heavy lifting" (what the engineers call dot masking and multi color conversions) is done on the printer's on-board processor. Canon's 12 bit LCOA chip is said to have the advantage but I won't be surprised if we start seeing HP and Epson marketing talking about new on-board processing capabilities on future printers, should they catch up.
