Epson SureColor P600 Colour Ink Consumption

BirdWife

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I have a Epson SureColor P600 printer that I ONLY use to print gray scale. The all cartridges that are currently in it are the originals that I put in when I received this printer in January 2019 (It is a refurbished printer to replace one which I purchased in June 2018). The three black cartridges (I dont use the glossy black), are going down in amounts that I would expect, however the colour ink is also going down, all at varying amounts. I understand that every time the printer is turned on and it prints a "small amount" of colour ink is used to clear the print heads so that they dont clog. What I do not understand is why some of the colour ink is being consumed at the same rate as my black ink, while other coloured ink is barely being used. Using Epson's logic, all colour ink should be being consumed at the same rate if it is only being used to clear the printer heads.

I called Epson to ask them about this and they gave me some excuse saying that the colour ink is being consumed in this manner because I am using the smaller volume cartridges that my printer came with. Once I switch to full size cartridges this will no longer happen and the colour ink will be consumed at a consistent rate across all 5 cartridges if I continue to only print gray scale.

To me this makes little to no sense - why would the volume (size) of the cartridge affect how the ink is being consumed? I have attached a picture for reference.

Is Epson correct and I am out to lunch?
 

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Ink stained Fingers

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I rather think that small amounts of colored inks are used even if you print grayscale, this to offset small color shifts of the black and gray inks. The driver is doing such corrections based on the various driver options. The driver is converting the image into grayscale but still uses some of the colored inks together with the gray inks. Just to give you an example - I'm using a P400, and if I load the matte black cartridge with a clear ink/cleaner and print black it is printing cyan , printing the matte black ink without that cyan byprint it would have a brownish black look, and not a neutral look. And I can give you more examples for such embedded color corrections. Black or gray inks still have a color tint which gets corrected by the driver.
(I won't comment on the competence of support lines )
 

BirdWife

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Thank you very much for your reply. I heard something very similar from someone else, and your explanation, as well as theirs makes total sense to me. I wish the Epson Representative that I spoke to would have just told me this...
 

Julia

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Can I ask...when (The Hat) you say that 'if I load the matte black cartridge with a clear ink/cleaner and print black' could you explain what that means and why you would do that?
Are you using other than Epson Inks? Or have you some other ink delivery system?
Always learning ! Thanks, Julia
NB re rates of ink use...orange seems to stay forever while cyan and magenta disappear fast, yellow coming in second along with one of the blacks. But then, I am printing colourful stuff.
 

stratman

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If my The Hat decoder ring is functioning again...

I think what The Hat is trying to say, in this uncharacteristic minimalist way, is it was Ink Stained Fingers that posted that and who you need to direct your questions towards.
 

Ian Barber

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If you are are printing through a color managed workflow (ICC Profile) then you will be using more coloured inks than you would do if you print greyscale images through the ABW Driver.

The ABW drive will by default use a tiny amount of Cyan and Magenta to offset the slightly warm tone of the black carbon ink to give you a more neutral greyscale when using the Neutral option in the ABW Driver.
 

Ink stained Fingers

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Is this subject open again ? is it about ink consumption ? A look through a microscope would show whether and how much colored inks are used to render different gray tones . There are two main issues for the driver - to print a neutral gray - or a toned gray which does not vary from dark to light , and to dither the gray tones such that individual drops are not visible , they look smooth, edges are sharp etc . Some of such effects are more visible on B/W prints than on regular color prints where such imperfections disappear in the the color variations.
 

mikling

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This far more complex subject than initially meets the eye. In ABW, the gamut of the printer is intentionally scaled back smaller. This will allow greater tonal variations within than than if it was printed in color mode which would be a greater one. As a result of this scaling back, the ABW mode is easier to control tonal variations within the smaller gamut.
A similar trick is applied by RIPs that concentrate of B&W printing.
The amt of ink consumed will depend on the firmware programming by Epson engineers and how that matches their intentions with WHAT media and model. Very complex subject and delves into the engineering of the printer at the finest level.
I'm not that smart to figure it all out.
 
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Ian Barber

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Im not sure about the Gamut been scaled back. The ABW driver is a Greyscale driver not an RGB driver
 

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