Gloss Optimizer - Epson

[The Hat]

Strangely when I use Papilio Clear Gloss Vinyl I never get any Gloss differential or Bronzing with the pigment inks and this Vinyl has a very glossy surface, also the ink takes 15 Minutes to dry properly, with no pooling.

I also use the GO overprint to seal the surface 24 hours after printing for better longevity and scratch resistance...

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

that's a pretty unusual material you are using here, the clear foil is missing the otherwise typical substrate of a regular paper which is most likely responsible for the surface effects - together with the inks. I'm using some vinyl matte 24" roll material for better tear resistance , but here I don't have any gloss problems ....

I also use the GO overprint to seal the surface 24 hours after printing for better longevity and scratch resistance..

I found that protective effect as well when using the GO on silk papers, that's pretty effective.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm still in search for the best print with pigment inks on glossy papers - but it may be a futile attempt. I'm happy so far with the results in the combination with a gloss optimizer on semiglossy/silk/satin/lustre type papers - good colors and black, uniform gloss, no bronzing. I have some papers of this type on order to find the best one - by personal taste and judgement, and some Inktec Powerchrome inks for more testing. The Sihl/Aldi silk type paper is pretty good as a budget paper, printed on a R265 with a GO overprint on a R800, other premium papers as mentioned above give as well good results, directly printed on the R800.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I spent some time on the Pro 7600 to find a way to run this printer as well with gloss optimizer. The thought and question was what the the printer is doing with the gray ink. I did some tests and replaced the gray ink with the clear rinse solution which I use to dilute C and M to LC and LM, and printed a gray scale ramp with various paper settings to find the gray value at which the driver phases over from dithering with black ink to the light black ink - it does not - all grays are printed with the black ink only , that would explain the pretty low usage of the light black ink overall. I tested it as well with the Black/Gray option only in the driver. So this would not work to replace the light black by GO, there is not a defined RGB value to let the printer solely with this 'ink'.
I did another option - I replaced the ligh magenta ink with the clear rinse solution, printed quite some magenta ramps to flush the tubes and the damper from the remaining ink - this works , magenta is phased over to light magenta by the driver at a particular pretty small range, so this allows me to address the light magenta cartridge specifically with a light magenta RGB value.
I did this before on a R265 and the L800 - replacing the light inks either by a clear liquid or by the regular C and M inks, it is still possible to create ICM profiles without problem - in either configuration, but then if you do that you cannot use the printer anymore for prints without a profile - e.g. directly printing from the browser to the printer you get strange color shifts. The profile gamut without the light inks is slightly smaller than the regular gamut, the gamut with regular inks instead of the light inks is slightly wider than the regular one. This indicates for me that the driver is using both inks M+LM or C+LC when printing saturated colors.
It's the same with the Pro7600, I created some profiles, they are slightly smaller than the regular ones but I have separate access to the light ink cartridge. I'm now waiting for another order with GO to arrive so I can substitute the rinse solution with the GO and start with further tests.
I have a semiglossy roll paper which gives me such a strong bronzing effect - I could use that for some artistic effects even, and those rolls have not been used for a long time . That paper will be a good test for the GO effectivity. Yes, I will have to apply the GO in a second print pass, that's the disadvantage of this work around.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I did some more testing with the R265 and R800 and gloss optimizer, I tested the InkTec Powerchrome K3 ink set, it prints pretty glossy but with a visible gloss difference on glossy paper and with bronzing, even more on the Sihl silk paper. The gloss optimiser remedies that on the silk paper but not on glossy papers, that's not a usable ink/paper combination for me.

I tested 2 papers by Fotospeed - around 50cts/sheet - it's more at the upper end of the pricing range, but you get an option for a free icm-color profile for your printer with this paper which may not be a bad bonus option for some.
I'm using the PFLustre275 and the PFSatin270, both in the R265 with a GO overprint or in the R800 with the full GO setting. Prints looks very good, the granularity of the Satin paper surface is finer than on the Lustre paper, the Lustre paper shows more gloss, almost a glittery sheen with GO, but that's a matter of taste and preference.
The PFSatin looks very similar to the Sihl/satin which runs just at 13cts/sheet which is at this time my first choice. Two more papers are on order for a test.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I did some prelim tests on the Pro7600 printing some target sheets for profiling and alike, the gloss appearance on a semiglossy paper has improved, no bronzing, better dark colors, no gloss differences between printed and unprinted areas. I need to finetune the technique some more, I need more GO, I so far added a trace of yellow to it to make it easier to detect it on papers with a UV lamp.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I have tried various ink combinations to free up one of the ink channels on a Pro 7600 for use with GO, but I did not succeed so far, the crossover ranges between standard and light links are somewhat different to a R265 , and a profile cannot stretch colors that far as it would be necessary. I tried as well standard cyan in the light cyan channel, and clear ink in the cyan channel, that works quite well except for a range of light cyan colors and greens. I'll try later another approach, to reactivate an old piece of RIP software which would let me run the 7600 as a 4-color printer, that software was quite good but not very convenient to use - with quite a complicated frontend, but this will take a while until I find the pieces back - registration, install software etc.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I did a test with Canon Lucia pigment inks in the R800, I had ordered PGI-72 Pro 10 cartridges and drained them for use in the R800. The R800 rattled and a red alert popped up that I'm using Canon inks in the R800.... no, nothing like that, the R800 is printing with those inks without problem. I printed this and that on glossy papers, with and without GO, there are no real difference to prints with other inks , there are bronzing and gloss differences on prints without GO, the bronzing goes away with the GO option, but the gloss variations only to a degree. These Canon inks look better than some other inks tested earlier but are not magically better and do not give a uniform gloss like dye ink prints do.

 

[mikling]

do not give a uniform gloss like dye ink prints do.

Let's get this whole shebang cleared up now. With dye ink, the ink resides beneath the paper coating, so the coating which produces the gloss finish is left intact. This is with microporous type paper. Of course dye ink gives auniform gloss. Did we expect anything different? unlikely.
With pigment ink much of the ink is left to reside on top of the paper. Now what is pigment ink? particles suspended in a carrier that needs to adhere to the paper. Producing a single color coating like paint and retaining gloss is easier than printing. Why? With the inkjet, the dots should not join up. If it does it will tend to pool and smear colors together. Not good. So we are left with small gaps between the dots.
The way Canon uses the CO is slightly different than what the older 800/1800 did. It is a little more sophisticated. However the takeaway is that it needs to fill the gaps between the dots. Right away, you will see that media will play a large part as the coating on the paper and its properties and ability to allow the CO to remain on top....and the ink and its uniformity will vary.
Now try to blend a pigment ink with various colors that all will retain the exact consistency and you see the problem. Add to that mix that the spacing of dots will vary depending on the density of color and the whole ball game gets more complex. Further add to that the issue of behavior of light as it reflects off a not smooth surface. You will get diffractive effects that you will NOT get if the coating is left smooth. There are various tricks to minimize the diffraction and it also has side effects as well.
To get good gloss with pigment ink is tricky and the mfrs are getting better but keep in mind it is far more complex than what most think. The newer print engines do a better job and the ability of the mfr to both tailor the pigment chosen and match it to the print engine is also a major advantage. The aftermarket will struggle with this as they need to use off the shelf dispersions to the best of their ability. Even so, what media should they use to formulate?
Print engines are a huge part of the trick to this. Just like valve timings and ignition timings will produce a totally different engine even with the same engine. There's a lot more going on.
Even on a Pro-10 vs. Pro-1 which uses most of the same inks, the output is different because the print engine is different.

 

[mikling]

Joe has done some testing on gloss aspects on the R2000 which is the same as tests show as the P400 and R1900.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yMP7JKOTDk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTsSGJA_-Mk

This new generation comes out a lot better than what we've had before and is due for final release just about by this weekend. Things are getting better.