Can We Beat this ink Monitoring ?

[The Hat]

I have decided to dive in the deep end and get the new Pro 1.
I know that the chip will be a problem for a long time to come but I have a plan to beat it.

I have the weight of a completely empty cartridge so Ill just weigh all of the new ones and subtract the empty cartridge weight from each one in turn and then Ill have the exact weigh of all the cartridges / inks together.

With the 1gm to 1 ml conversion each cartridge having 35 ml of ink in it to start with
I will use each cartridge till it gets to half-full 18 ml. ink left and then refill it.

As the low ink warning would not have had time to activate the on screen ink monitoring
will always show half or a full cartridge depending on where it was before I refilled it.

By maintaining this procedure I should not have to worry about the chip at all and could go on do this indefinitely without ever having to change to a new cartridge at all. ( in theory)

This can be done as far as I know on any of the Canon cartridges not just these big ones,
maybe someone else should give a try..

 

[mikling]

The hat, I am pretty sure that the chip counter has an upper limit at which point it knows for sure that something is amiss and will count down to low no matter what the prism says. There is a logic loop in the algorithm somewhere. I think some folks tried this in the early days of the chip.

 

[rodbam]

Congratulations Hats the pro 1 is supposed to be a great printer. A couple of early reports on the DP printer forum said they got fantastic prints by letting the printer handle the colours, better than using their own profiles.
With the other non resettable chips couldn't you turn off the warnings or at least carry on printing with the low ink warning?

 

[The Hat]

mikling
The hat, I am pretty sure that the chip counter has an upper limit at which point it knows for sure that something is amiss
and will count down to low no matter what the prism says.
There is a logic loop in the algorithm somewhere. I think some folks tried this in the early days of the chip.

I did try that before with a CLI-8 cartridge and it worked but as for how long as you say is something that still remains out-standing, I filled it twice with no response from the chip.

With this new cartridges huge volume it would be even harder for the chip to have this loop built in to it without it hijacking the prism system all together (my theory anyway for what its worth).

If you try this with a BCI-6 cartridge and keep filling it at half full the prism will never show a low ink warning, I think the chip was only introduced later to stop the refiller, it then went on to monitor cartridge position and the like especially the compatibles.

I am working on the theory that the chip is only activated at the low ink warning notice and not before, then the algorithm loop kicks in but before that the chip remains passive and doesnt count any ink flow.

rodbam
Congratulations Hats the pro 1 is supposed to be a great printer.
A couple of early reports on the DP printer forum said they got fantastic prints by letting the printer handle the colours,
better than using their own profiles.
With the other non resettable chips couldn't you turn off the warnings or at least carry on printing with the low ink warning?

Yes it is suppose to be great on B&W prints which I dont do much of, but I might give it a try and send one to Redbrickman just to ruffle his feathers a bit because hes always wanted a Pro 9500 for B&W.

If all else fails then its back to plan B turn off the ink monitoring and lump it, then try something else..

 

[mikling]

Congratulations Hats the pro 1 is supposed to be a great printer. A couple of early reports on the DP printer forum said they got fantastic prints by letting the printer handle the colours, better than using their own profiles.

That's interesting because according to the Pro1 manual, you have the choice to allow the printer to "manipulate" the image with non linearities or custom curves or stick to your linear profiles. The option to stick to profiles as generated by the user is more accurate provided the user has a properly calibrated monitor. If the user was good with image manipulation, and was using their own ICCs then they could softproof what their printer would eventually print. The general concept of ICCs is lost on many because it is there for predicting color output not for creating perfect color as many think. As a base it tries to match colors it can output but there are always colors that cannot be outputted and as a result there will be slight shifts depending on the compromises the user chooses...and that is where softproofing steps in. By using ICCs and softproofing, the user can see what the print will essentially look like before the image is printed. The user makes those changes to generate the print look that they want outputted. That is why this feature is finally being introduced in Lightroom 4 in a month or so and pros were screaming for it for years whereas it was available in Photoshop since many many years ago. When you let the printer handle colors you really don't know what it is going to do in the end or what it did. After a while you might get a feel but the same effect can be had with the current printer you own if you attempt softproofing with a calibrated monitor and adjust the image accordingly. The assumption here is that the user is good with image manipulation....the gotcha point and skills play a part.

What I am indicating is not that the Pro1 is not a great printer but in all likelihood someone skilled could get the 9500 to pretty much output nearly the identical pic unless the Lucia inks changed dramatically. On the Luminous landscape they talk of someone who wants to be a good photographer must put in 10,000 hours before they acquire the necessary skill set. I'm less than 1.000 BTW. The same phenomena occurs I think with printers. After you use a particular printer for a suitably long time, you acquire the ability to adjust for its shortcomings and ICCs help. If you don't know what the printer is going to do, it will be a guessing game for a long long time. Same for cameras (P and Auto buttons) and lenses in that then newest does not always deliver better pics. It's who is behind it pushing that button. Same for F1 drivers.

After having owned many printers I have reached the point where I think printer mfrs are stretching the hype a bit, the incremental advances are now becoming marginal. We're hitting a plateau somewhat. That is possibly why guys like jtoolman goes out and gets yesterday's printers at ridiculous prices and probably is turning out prints that probably is superior than todays newest machines with lesser skills because in all likelihood his years of being in the biz has a lot to do with the results

My suspicion is that the 9500 will be a long term gem for the hobbyist. Easy to refill, the chips issues are resolved, easy to maintain, reliable and produces very good output with a wide color range. When it is discontinued, it will then be missed especially for what they are priced at in the secondary markets currently.

 

[The Hat]

I agree with just about most of it the above but maybe someone can explain it to me
why theres a need to have a calibrated monitor to achieve correct colour prints.

Let me explain I do some Coloured photos on occasion but mostly colour graphics like leaflets brochures, colour paint charts and a host of things besides.

Now I work between several different computers at the same time on the same project and the colours differ ever so slightly on each monitor, I am using a Dell U2410, Eizo HD2441W and Dell U2711 none have being calibrated by me and only use default factory setting.

I have never found a problem outputting the correct colours at all, let me say I always use the printer for matching colours not the editing software.
I can match any Pantone C/U colour perfectly by just using the printers own colour management.

I work with the colour that the printer outputs not whats on the screen because
they rarely match anyway so whats the point, to me the colour prints much match my colour samples.

I am of the opinion that whatever the camera shots the printer will print, whether it is lighter or darker I care not because I can change it to my own liking in my editing software when and if theres a need too.

I have being doing this for a very long time and I am not saying for one moment that I am perfectly right far from it, but it works without the need for the perfect monitor/printer setup, again can anyone explain to me why it works and am I wrong in all this and why..

 

[Grandad35]

...snip... can anyone explain to me why it works and am I wrong in all this and why..

It works because you have your own (closed) color management system - this is how colors used to be adjusted in the old days.

However, what if you wanted to have your images printed by someone else who didn't have access to your color samples or the time to fine tune the prints to match your colors? What if you ran a business printing for others - how would you get their colors correct? This is why color management is important to many people, so that we all work to the same international set of standards. As Mikling mentioned, soft-proofing allows us to see what our printed images will look like and make adjustments to the image before they are actually printed, even if the printing will be done in another country.

The next time that you walk into a large electronics store that has the same video feed on multiple TVs, critically compare the colors and brightness on the various screens. If these monitors were calibrated, they would all look approximately the same (within the capabilities of the monitors to produce the desired range of colors).

 

[The Hat]

Grandad35
It works because you have your own (closed) color management system -
this is how colors used to be adjusted in the old days.

I ran a print design business for two decades and thats probably where I got my old fashioned way from, but again they simply worked because PMS colour system is a worldwide standard.

With the dawn of the digital age it became a little slower because we had to use a colour standard within the software package itself, soft proofing but always had to keep a good eye so the dreaded gamut warning didnt appear.

But when printing photos we would always used software to maculate the colours and never the print driver itself, PhotoShop was always the preferred application used on both Mac and Windows.

We never calibrated the CRT monitors to be the same either and back then both Mac and windows used a completely different colour display layout..

 

[Grandad35]

....snip.... I ran a print design business for two decades and thats probably where I got my old fashioned way from,
but again they simply worked because PMS colour system is a worldwide standard.

If you are told the PMS color and you then match the print to get that color, you don't need a calibrated monitor.

How do you handle printing photos with that system?

How do you handle customers who don't give you a hard copy to work from, expecting you to reproduce artwork displayed on their uncalibrated CRT? Do they set up their own color managed system to give you a calibrated print to work with? How do you deal with metameric failure between their inkjet test print and your final print?

 

[The Hat]

Grandad35

If you are told the PMS color and you then match the print to get that color, you don't need a calibrated monitor.

How do you handle customers who don't give you a hard copy to work from, expecting you to reproduce artwork displayed on their uncalibrated CRT?
Do they set up their own color managed system to give you a calibrated print to work with?
How do you deal withmetameric failure between their inkjet test print and your final print?

When dealing with any customer who wants a particular custom colour they either supply their own which we'd insist or get them to pick one from the Pantone range.

We would always ask the customer to choose their colour under whichever light it was going to be displayed or used under and explain the differences, artificial light (florescent) or natural daylight, dealing with women was always more difficult because there not as colour blind as men are.

How do you handle printing photos with that system?

Colour photo printing is so much easier with a Pantone CYMK chart and a densitometer.