New printer

[Captain John]

Thanks for having me on this forum.
I have an Epson R360 which has served me well but has recently stopped working as it reckons the ink pad is full.
I have reset the printer using the free programme and ordered an external tank to replace the pad.
In the meantime I was thinking of the worst case scenario of having to order a new printer.
I have a decent Canon flatbed scanner so don't need that function on a printer.
Is there such a thing as an Epson printer which is not "all in one"?
Also, is it true that if I upgraded to Windows 11 from Windows 10 then I won't be able to use my R360 (or my canon flatbed)?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm not running on W11 yet, but I would assume that you can continue to use your hardware, it may be necessary to re-install those drivers again you are using now with win10.

There is no direct successor anymore for the R360 and similar models from that product family; you need to decide first if you want to continue to use pigment inks or switch over to dye inks.
An entry level A4 printer with just 4 pigment inks would be the ET-1810 , it's a question whether your interest goes for photo printing. A good printer for photo printing with dye inks would be the ET-8500/8550 (with a scanner) , a scanner typically does not cost much more, Epson (or canon) just wants you to print more - as well copies. You may use as well pigment inks in the ET-8500 but with the risk loosing warranty, but that applies to all scenarios when you switch to non-Epson inks.

 

[The Hat]

Also, is it true that if I upgraded to Windows 11 from Windows 10 then I won't be able to use my R360 (or my canon flatbed)?

The writing is on the wall for all these old printers and scanners, I’ll have similar issues as you when I change over to Win 11 later this year, this new Microsoft O/S is unwilling to play ball with any old drivers so don’t expect a reprieve as happened previous.

I am looking at running Win 8 or 10 virtual in Win 11, (If possible) just to keep my hardware working, I am being forced into this upgrade, but will not go down without a fight, watch this space..

I am currently running two printers with generic drivers with limited functions on Win 10 but don’t expect I can continue to this for very much longer..

 

[W. Fisher]

Windows 11 sucks for professional printing so keep your Windows 10 around for any serious color printing. X-rite is still stumped and I've sent them all my data and profiled prints. X-rite put out a new i1Profiler version last week (Still bad.) and MSI put out a new driver for the NvIdia 5090 GPU card that is very different than the current NvIdia one so something is really fouled up someplace. I tried the Nvidia one first as it always worked for Windows 10, but doing the same on Windows 11 and it black-screened on booting up and I had to do a roll back to get it to run. The MSI driver update did not black screen and it was twice as large as the Nvidia driver too - so the OEM driver is prefered.

As to profiing, the Windows 11 colors go dark for me: Greens go dark as do the blues. Something is amiss with their ACM in Windows 11 that claims to use the monitor's screen ID to set their own color scheme (Their ACM.) up. Maybe they are relying on AI to make modifications to all the sundry screens for their ACM to work while avoiding a lot of profiling work? I can get better color using the "Let Windows decide on the print colors" function than going the profile-making route for now in WIndows 11. Better is to profile with 10, and copy that profile into 11 (My current workflow.). Hope x-rite gets the API coding info from MS soon and straightens out the mess.

Below is the ColorChecker color chart x-rite uses at the end of a profile making session in I1Profiler as verification. I made it with the i1 PhotoPro 3 spectrometer with i1Profiler version 3.8.5 (x-rite's newest version installed in both Windows 11 and Windows 10.). I also used the OBC function in i1Profiler and a test sheet to eliminate and OBAs (blues) out of their glossy paper (Seems to have no effect or very little even in WIndows 10.). The Windows 11 profile's end test result is shown on top (e.g. Note the dark blue and green.), and the Windows 10 profile test result is shown under it. Quite a difference!

After wasting 200 sheets (4 boxes) of $1/sheet Epson Ultra Premium Glossy paper, no way will I use profile making out of Windows 11 until something positive is heard from x-rite. I don't know what DataColor has said as I do not use their products for profiling, but maybe their software is different.