Epson Pro 3800 3rd party refill ink: comparison

[pharmacist]

After finally my previous Image Specialists IM-4 in my Epson Pro 3800 printer run out using the refillable cartridges from Inkrepublic.com I reviewed a few years ago (see this link: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=4746 ).
I already has this ink about 14 months kept unused in my cupboard and there was still a tiny amount of Image Specialists IM-4 ink sitting on the bottom of the refillable Pro 3800 I-refill cartridges. So the ink inside the cartridges is a mixture, but since the ratio Image Specialists to Inkrepublic IRK4-nano ink is more than 1:12, the overall ink can be considered to be Inkrepublic IRK4-nano ink.

Sofar to me the Epson K3 inkset is better than the Image Specialists IM-K4 ink, but consider I consider the original ink better, but you will be paying much more for the real thing, so no doubt about it.

The Image Specialists give more than satisfactory results if you profile your ink/paper combination properly, but the gloss is significant less compared to the Epson K3 inkset. I compared the generated profiles of these two inksets on the same type of papers with the online profile comparison site www.iccview.de and I was surprised the Image Specialists yielded a (slightly) larger gamut:

HP glossy photo paper 260 gsm + Image Specialists K4: 698,598 cubic color space units (+5.0 % compared to Epson K3)
HP glossy photo paper 260 gsm + Epson K3: 665,358 cubic color space units

SihlX high glossy photo paper 280 gsm + Image Specialists K4: 694,959 cubic color space units (+0.7 % compared to Epson K3)
SihlX high glossy photo paper 280 gsm + Epson K3: 689,164 cubic colorspace units

But what about the blackness of the photo black ink, which is very important for the overall contrast of prints ?

See these Lab values for the photo black:

SihlX glossy photo paper 280 gsm + Image Specialists K4: L: 6.12/a: 0.83/b: 0.00
SihlX glossy photo paper 280 gsm + Epson K3: L: 4.99/a: -0.89/b: 0.50

The original Epson K3 photo black is blacker and more saturated and also the gloss is considerably much better as the Image Specialists IM-K4 photo black suffers from a annoying gloss differential and metamerism under certain angles and light sources. Nevertheless the IM-K4 is still satisfactory if you consider the overall print quality but the gloss differential is much more noticable compared to the original Epson K3 inkset.

Another problem with the Image Specialists Inkset is the lack of neutrality when printing under the Advanced B/W mode: this mode also uses the light magenta/light cyan/yellow inks to neutralise the warm glow of the K3 black inks. Since the process requires a small amount of the photo colours, these inks must be optimized to give neutral results and the Image Specialists inkset tends to give a much warmer glow on the prints, making the "neutral" B/W prints more like a sepia like of print. The overall picture quality is good, but the whole picture is definitely warmer/sepia compared to ABW prints made with the original Epson K3 inkset. Even using the setting cool (bluish print) could not compensate the warm glow enough to make the print comparable to the original K3 inkset. After experimenting several prints, the best setting is to adjust the colour wheel of the ABW driver to set it to H: -24 V: -49 to make the prints neutral enough.

What about the Inkrepublic.com IRK4-nano refill ink ? Well have a look at the results below:

HP glossy photo paper 260 gsm + Inkrepublic IRK4-nano: 679,592 cubic color space units (+ 2.1 % compared to Epson K3)
HP glossy photo paper 260 gsm + Epson K3: 665,358 cubic color space units

SihlX high glossy photo paper 280 gsm + Inkrepublic IRK4-nano: 664,854 cubic color space units (-3.5 % compared to Epson K3)
SihlX high glossy photo paper 280 gsm + Epson K3: 689,164 cubic colorspace units

SihlX glossy photo paper 280 gsm + Inkrepublic IRK4-nano: L: 4.37/a: -0.06/b: 0.76
SihlX glossy photo paper 280 gsm + Epson K3: L: 4.99/a: -0.89/b: 0.50

The most important advantage is the very good rendition of the B/W prints using the ABW-printing mode of the printer. I had suboptimal results with my previous Image Specialists IM-K4 inkset. It tends to be rather sepia than real neutral B/W, but compared with my older ABW-prints on the same type of paper (SihlX) it was definitely more sepia and you will need to increase the blue/cyan component to counter the warm glow effectively. The Inkrepublic IRK4-nano inkset gave me superb neutral B/W prints without the slightest colour casts and gave me even better detail and contrast as the Epson K3 inkset.

Just have a look at the Lab values above: the IRK4-nano photo black yields a remarkable good black, better than Image Specialists IM-K4 and even Epson's own K3 photo black.

Furthermore: the glossiness of the Inkrepublic IRK4-nano ink is indeed very good, almost on pair compared to Epson K3 inkset and significantly better to the Image Specialists IM-K4 inkset, which suffers from a very noticable gloss differential on highyl saturated area's giving the whole print a muted glow under certain angles of light falling on it.

to be continued later on with some pictures.

 

[l_d_allan]

I was surprised the Image Specialists yielded a (slightly) larger gamut:

HP glossy photo paper 260 gsm + Image Specialists K4: 698,598 cubic color space units
HP glossy photo paper 260 gsm + Epson K3: 665,358 cubic color space units

I'm curious how you determine these gamut numbers. Is there software that inputs the spectro readings, and does the calculations?

Is this what Imatest's Gamutvision does?

 

[pharmacist]

Hi Allan,

you can upload your profiles to this website (www.iccview.de) and the online applet calculates the gamut and also displays the gamut chart in 3D, which you can rotate freely and see which colours are stronger to the other profile. Visually it is very easy to compare two different profiles at a time.

 

[pharmacist]

So yesterday I searched in my cupboard looking for the old pictures I printed as test with my previous Image Specialists IM-K4 inkset. These pictures are printed with the following setting:

ABW-mode, neutral, setting: dark, quality: high. Setting Photoshop: No color manangement
paper: SihlX 280 gsm (Aldi)

picture 1 printed with Image Specialists IM-K4:

picture 1 printed with Inkrepublic IRK4-nano:

picture 2 printed with Image Specialists IM-K4:

picture 2 printed with Inkrepublic IRK4-nano:

As you can see the contrast and neutrality of the Inkrepublic IRK4-nano inkset is far better. Unfortunately I did not have any prints left using the ABW-mode with the original Epson K3 inkset and the one I have is to0 large for my scanner.

 

[pharmacist]

Here are the gamut charts showing the gamut values:

chart 1: SihlX paper, Epson K3 versus Image Specialists IM-K4

chart 2: HP glossy, Epson K3 versus Image Specalists IM-K4

chart 3: HP glossy, Epson K3 versus Inkrepublic IRK4-nano

chart 4: Sihlx, Epson K3 versus Inkrepublic IRK4-nano

Sofar the Inkrepublic.com IRK4-nano inkset is indeed pretty good. Albeit some mixed results with the gamut. On one paper the gamut is slightly larger, on the other a bit smaller. Both Image Specialists IM-K4 as the Inkrepublic IRK4-nano inkset yield a larger gamut in the dark blues/cyan area's, but smaller in the reds/magenta compared to the Epson K3 inkset. L value for the blacks is satisfactory for the Image Specialists IM-K4 with a noticable gloss differential/bronzing and excellent for the Inkrebuplic IRK4-nano: even better to the Epson K3 photo black !!! Image Specialists has the best overall gamut, but the pictures suffer from a muted shine (less glossy compared to Epson K3), so the overall print quality (even a slightly smaller gamut) can be produced byt the Inkrepublic IRK4-nano inkset. Not only is the contrast (due to the best darkness of the photo black) but also thanks to the significantly less bronzing and gloss differential, making the prints better than the ones printed using the Image Specialists IM-K4 inkset. The only setback of the IRK4 nano inkset is the metamerism of the magenta ink: at some angles the magenta becomes a dark orange. I hope Inkrebublic will solve this problem, but nevertheless IRK4 nano will give you very good results and darker blacks, even compared to Epson own's K3 photo black ink.

 

[martin0reg]

@pharmacist
I have tried to compare B&W prints with my scanner
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=5604&p=11

but my scans seems to show other, if not contrary color shift than the prints show to my real eyes.
Does your prints display the same neutrality / color shift as the scans on the monitor do?

 

[pharmacist]

Hi martin,

actually the scans are pretty closed to the pictures when viewed with the naked eye. To my eyes the scans are a bit more magenta compared to the scans, but only slightly. What is your impression with the ABW-mode prints with the Inkrepublic IRK4-nano prints ? Is it neutral enough for you, since I use an autocalibrating Eizo FX2431 high gamut monitor and should display 96 % of AdobeRGB colour space. Still my printer tends to boost up the magenta component a bit, so in real life the scans should be a bit cooler.

 

[martin0reg]

On my monitor the IRK looks quite neutral, the IM to the magenta / warm side.
You can pick a certain area of the photo on the monitor and compare the RGB-values, both are not even but the IM has a stronger shift to R.

I have no printer with epson k3 ink set (and sadly no 3800) - nevertheless thank you for your comparison.

 

[pharmacist]

This weekend I made a few prints on glossy and satin papers (SihlX glossy and Moab Satin) and still amazed with the printing quality of the Inkrepublic IRK4-nano inks.

Actually I am more satisfied with this IRK4-nano ink than my previous Image Specialists K4 inkset, which somehow is giving me an annoying warm/sepia tone over the ABW printing mode and can only be countered by heavily increasing the cyan/blue component. The IRK4 nano inkset produces a very neutral and linear B&W. Pity though I did not used this ink before, but I did not want to throw away my Image Specialists K4 ink, so I continued to consume this ink for more than a year before I have discovered the merits of this very good ink from Inkrepublic.com.

The Inkrepublic.com 's IRK4 nano inkset is almost perfect to the orginal Epson K3 inkset. The only wish I have, if they would reformulate the magenta ink to make it stronger so to increase the gamut in the red/orange area's and also to solve the strange metamerism causing the magenta turning orange under certain lighting angles. The photo black of this inkset is indeed incredible good and yields even a better black compared to the Epson K3 photo black.

Gloss: much better compared to the Image Specialists inks. The more noticable on area's with large ink densities I have discovered today. IRK4 nano ink shows much less gloss differential compared to Image Specialists and also seems to shine more one high glossy papers. Still: Epson K3 rules supreme, with IRK4 als good second one.

Gamut: comparable to the Epson K3, stronger in the blue/cyan area's, weaker in the red/magenta. Image Specialists has a larger gamut (see first post), but somehow the prints made with the Epson K3 and Inkrepublic IRK4 nano looks nicer instead. Maybe this has to do with the better glossiness of these two latter inks and much less gloss differential, making the overall print more pleasant and somehow more vivid to the eyes. The best thing to me is the excellent neutral ABW printing quality.

I always thought my prints made with the Image Specialists K4 ink was neutral B&W (see earlier post), till I have used this ink and came to the conclusion it was more sepia then true neutral B&W. I guess somehow B&W is somehow subjective to someone's own eyes and if the whole picture is shifted towards a certain hue (sepia), then you would think the whole picture is neutral....until I compare it with the ABW prints made the Inkrepublic.com's IRK4 nano inkset. I did not find the ink greenish at all as mentioned at the inkquisitor.com website (probably an older and not optimized batch ?). Yes it tends to be a bit cooler, but very neutral and linear. But I can confirm the weaker magenta compared the Epson K3 inkset (as mentioned on the inkquisitor.com website), but with proper profiling this can be minimised effectively.

I wonder who produces this excellent pigment ink.

 

[Red John]

Hi pharmacist,

A question, IRK4 nano inkset does work with the Epson R2880 printer?