EPSON L805 color profiles

[Thohog]

I have just aquired an Epson L805 printer and loaded it with Epson ink. I have now printed my first pictures. I have up till now used an Epson Stylus photo R2400 and used Epson ICC-profiles for Ultra Premium Presentation Matte Paper (SPR2400 EnhMatte Bst Photo.ICC) in Photoshop and Epson Enhanced Matte Paper 192 g/sqm . I cannot find any ICC or ICM profiles for L805 at Epson sites. I have tried to print with the provided print driver for Windows 10/64. The prints from the L805 are not as good as with the R2400. I have tried the following entries in the advanced section of the driver: Epson standard with contrast 10 and saturation 15. The copies are then close to, but not equal to those from the R2400.
Is this an inferior printer or is there a way to better color profiling with icc-profiles and better results?

 

[stratman]

Welcome to the forum, Thohog.

I am not an Epson printer user. I do not know if the ink quality is comparable between the two printers, though the R2400 uses 9 different inks and the L805 uses 6. Number of ink cartridges is not necessarily an indication of image quality, since other factors from software to hardware ultimately determine quality.

From my brief reading on these two printers it seems the intended purpose is different for each printer, so it is not surprising that you are still able to get better printed images from the now discontinued R2400.

As you probably know, ICC printer profiles are dependent on all components of the printer-ink-paper combination such that the ICC is only meant for one printer using a specific ink set with a specific paper type. Change any of the three components and you would need another ICC printer profile to maximize the quality of the printed image. Whether a custom ICC makes a difference to your eyes, and therefore worth the time/money, is up to you. Most that make there own ICC profiles seem to say yes it makes a difference when not using OEM inks and/or papers.

If you are looking for a custom ICC printer profile then you might find it on the paper manufacturer or seller's web site, make one yourself with something like the ColorMunki or i1Studio or one of the spectrophotometers in the i1 Pro Family line, or use a mail order service that will produce an ICC profile for you from a chart they have you print out and mail to them such as here.

I do not know if this mail order service is good or not. I found it on a Google search. Maybe others, like our resident Epson expert @Ink stained Fingers, can better advise.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

A set of profiles is embedded in the driver, for those papers you can select via the paper type selection option - matte - premium glossy etc in the driver- on the tab for the extended settings - you just activate the ICM-option, and the driver uses that profile which belongs to the selected paper. That' s simple, but with limitations, that only works for Epson papers with genuine Epson inks correctly, or you might get color shifts, -casts.
The driver does not allow you to embed a 3rd party driver, made by yourself or supplied by some paper manufacturers. If you use 3rd party papers or inks you rather need to activate color mgmt in the program you are printing with, and select there such 3rd party icm-paper profile.
I just decommissioned an L805 and upgraded to a L1800, but was very happy with the print output of the L805.
What differences are you oberving to prints with the R2400 ? Which papers are you using and which ink set ?


Edit:

 

[Thohog]

Thank you for swift answers. I am using epson original inks and Epson enhanced matte paper (ultra premium presentation matte) 192 g/sqm. I print from Lightroom and when I print with R2400 I have always used ICC profiles in LR. I use an ICC profile from ePSON (SPR2400 EnhMatte Bst Photo.ICC) with perceptuell rendition. The prints from L805 appeared dull and a bit washed out in comparison with those from R2400. When I used the following entries in the advanced section of the L805 driver: Epson standard with contrast +10 and saturation +15 I got almost comparable results, but still the reults from the R2400 was a bit better defined and looked a little bit sharper than those from L805. It is hard to describe the differences. I will try to scan parts of the pictures an see if it is possible to illustrate the differences.

 

[Thohog]

OK - so I should check the ICM option in the advanced menu, when I have chosen matte paper in the first menu. I will try that tomorrow.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Remote visual judgement is quite difficult in this case for me, but let me raise an idea about possible differences in the printouts.
The R2400 uses a dedicated black ink for matte papers, the L805 does not, could it be that you see differences in contrast in your printouts - please scan a print with the R2400 and the l805 side by side into one image and post it here, a print with some dark areas, e.g. a black/white test image

 

[websnail]

Just to give a little clarity on why you're likely receiving poorer quality results and to resolve any potential assumptions...

The L805 is basically a P50 with a CIS system (to state the obvious) and while the ink in the printer is indeed Epson OEM, it's also bulk original ink of a poorer quality than say the Claria used in it's P50 (Artisan 50) predecessor. That's a very deliberate decision by Epson because if they made the Claria inks available in bulk at knock off prices, guess what remanufacturers would be using in their compatible cartridges from this point on...

Throw in the difference in pigment (R2400) vs' Dye (L805) and the granularity the 8 colour system offers vs' the 6 and you will get some substantial differences in output quality.

FWIW we took a specific set of K3 encapsulated resin style pigment inks (compatible with the R2400 too) and put them in an L800 and the results were pretty good but definitely custom profiling was required for each paper. Unfortunately the L800 in question had a delaminated printhead (clues for which we hadn't spotted until after we converted to pigment) so not the thorough testing we'd intended.

If memory serves though @Ink stained Fingers has a ton of experience with the L805 and a variety of compatible inks so you have the right person on the thread already... The only thing I'd say though is that starting over with a new ink is not a simple enterprise due to the built-in CIS. Not impossible but worth considering options carefully before changing.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

The L805 is about the latest printer model in a long series of photo printers with similar properties - 6 inks - good
overall printing quality. It started with a R265 and related combo-models, the R285, the P50 for quite some time, and
the XP-55 today all with cartridges and the Claria inks. The L800/805 are CISS type conversions which Epson does/did not offer in all European countries, but years earlier already in other regions - e.g. South East area - Singapore etc .
I got mine via Poland as a gray import. I was running it for quite a while - probably 2000 A4 photos with pigment inks - and then switched to dye inks - all without a problem - printhead or else. It is now replaced by an L1800.
As @websnail is pointing out Epson is very reluctant to release any reasonable information about the performance of their inks beyond marketing speech - prints will last for generations to come (in an album in a cabinet) but not much more. Plenty of tests had been done by Wilhelm Research WRI and Aardenburg showing wide performance differences,
just forget the 664 inks for the L300, ET-2600 etc in regards to fading stability, they are no better than cheap refill inks, inks for the L800 are somewhat better in this respect but not Claria like. Epson is offering a printer model ET-7700/7750 as well with tanks, with the 106 inks. A test in a German computer magazine c't showed that this ink was performing as good as the Claria inks in the same test, yes - Epson can do it, but won't tell you. I did some follow up tests and can confirm that, the 106 inks are the best Claria like inks like you can get - in 70ml bottles. I cannot say it is the same ink but an ink with a comparable fading performance vs. the Claria inks. And Epson has another similar ink in their range, not in the consumer market, the Epson Surelab printers like the D3000 for commercial photo printing services are using an 'Ultrachrome D6' ink set (dye 6 oclors) in larger cartridges - up to 700 ml, and these inks perform as well very similar to the Claria inks - so yes - Epson can do it but won't tell you. You can drain such cartridges easily.
But let's get back to your issues - differences in the printout - as discussed above it could be a profiling issue, driver settings or a contrast issue between the matte pigment inks and the dye inks - or something else

 

[websnail]

Epson is offering a printer model ET-7700/7750 as well with tanks, with the 106 inks. A test in a German computer magazine c't showed that this ink was performing as good as the Claria inks in the same test, yes - Epson can do it, but won't tell you. I did some follow up tests and can confirm that, the 106 inks are the best Claria like inks like you can get - in 70ml bottles. I cannot say it is the same ink but an ink with a comparable fading performance vs. the Claria inks. And Epson has another similar ink in their range, not in the consumer market, the Epson Surelab printers like the D3000 for commercial photo printing services are using an 'Ultrachrome D6' ink set (dye 6 oclors) in larger cartridges - up to 700 ml, and these inks perform as well very similar to the Claria inks

Well, colour me informed... I haven't kept up on OEM products for a while so this was seriously informative. For those 106 inks I'm guessing the challenge is in creating a Photo/Light version of the Cyan/Magenta's for a 6 ink set... or is the D6 a suitable stand in I wonder...

Slightly amazed that they've done it though...

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm using a dilutant for the light inks 1 part ink + 2 parts dilutant
something like this
https://www.octopus-office.de/shop/...-inside-of-printer-cartridges?number=ON002002
A few other companies are offering something like 'clear ink' or similar - the base solvent without colorant.
Since I'm doing my own profiles slight changes with this 1:2 ratio vs. original inks don't really matter.
The Ultrachrome D6 ink set includes light inks. 'Smaller' 300 ml cartridges are used by the SL-D700 printer