Gloss Optimizer - Epson

[Ink stained Fingers]

Canon Pro Platinum (using gloss differential to artistic effect).

that's an interesting idea - I shouldn't look for the least gloss differential on glossy papers but for the strongest effect.
I tested in the last weeks 3 more pigment inks on glossy papers, with an GO overprint, but none of those really yielded really pleasing results. And I tested as well those Epson inks on a Canon Paper PT-101 Pro Platinum - glossy - it does not look much different to the the Aldi/Netbit glossy paper. I have one more Durabrite type ink on order from China, but then the testing will be over....

 

[Taksmon]

that's an interesting idea - I shouldn't look for the least gloss differential on glossy papers but for the strongest effect.

Lemons and lemonade
I like that with paper that is glossier than the pigment, you can get an interesting almost embossed effect when you print a subject on a contrasting plain background. As long as there isn't bronzing..

 

[palombian]

that's an interesting idea - I shouldn't look for the least gloss differential on glossy papers but for the strongest effect.
I tested in the last weeks 3 more pigment inks on glossy papers, with an GO overprint, but none of those really yielded really pleasing results. And I tested as well those Epson inks on a Canon Paper PT-101 Pro Platinum - glossy - it does not look much different to the the Aldi/Netbit glossy paper. I have one more Durabrite type ink on order from China, but then the testing will be over....

Except for the more prominent paper structure of the Aldi, this paper has the same gamut and gloss as the Platinum Pro.

Overprinting with GO reduces not only the gloss differences between the (3th party) colors, but also with the white parts where no ink is applied.
The latter stays visible even on recent Canon pigment printers.
It can indeed used as interesting effect.

Turned the other side: prints without plain white parts suffer less.
On Luminous Landscape it was once suggested to add a layer with very light gray over the white parts.

As said: when I see all the faded dye ink prints on the wall, I don't bother for a bit of gloss difference anymore.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Except for the more prominent paper structure of the Aldi, this paper has the same gamut and gloss as the Platinum Pro.

that makes a price difference of 10ct vs. 70ct......

On Luminous Landscape it was once suggested to add a layer with very light gray over the white parts.

That would be very easy with Qimage to adjust the top level lightness to some value between 245 and 250, so white would print as a very light gray.

 

[Taksmon]

The only thing I would add is if the image has a white background, remove it so it is transparent before limiting the whites. Otherwise you'll have a visible border and unnecessary reduction in contrast.

@Ink stained Fingers in your overprinting with GO, do you specify a mask? Is the printer positioning accurate enough for that?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I just print a full page size white image with the GO option on, and with the borderless option on, all image areas are covered. It's at this time more a testing mode, I didn't use GO ever before.
I'm not happy really with the findings so far on glossy papers, I found a good semiglossy paper on which the GO takes the bronzing away, and it turned out that a separate GO overprint is visibly more effective than directly printing an image with the GO option in the same print pass.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

oh well, I tested 3 more types of pigment inks for their glossiness with a GO overprint on a R800. One ink is performing somewhat better than most others so far - an ink advertised for the Epson business printers as a Durabrite substitute and pretty cheap . It is not a super premium ink , the problem is that I have an inkset for my Pro 7600 better than all inks which I purchased more than 2 years ago , but I cannot identify the supplier anymore, I got them most likely in 1 litre bottles, and one possible supplier has changed their inks to own production in the meantime. And another possible supplier for comparable inks does not carry small volume bottles for tests either.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I got some more ink supplies which I tested in the meantime, a cheap Chinese ink compatible for Durabrite type office printers , just a 4 color set, this ink shows some good gloss, and bronzing which goes away with the GO overprint, this inkset is better than some others I tested over the last months but is not really my first choice. I got another Chinese ink set for the R1900 which shows a pretty good and homogeneous gloss, but as well bronzing, the look with a GO overprint is better than all (but one) other inks I tested so far, and it gives the widest gamut as well.
I tested as well the K3 HD inks - CMY at this time - by precisioncolors, mixing blue and red from the other colors - these inks for the Epson P600/800 show as well a rather good and homogeneous gloss, but as well some bronzing which goes away with a GO overprint in a R800. The Gamut of this K3 HD inkset is as well very large, about as large as the previously mentioned Chinese ink, they are not the same inks, there are some differences in the gamut shape but the overall gamut volume is the same within a few percent difference. These PC K3 HD inks look better than the comparable Lyson inks for the P600 which I got from farbenwerk in the past. These are the 2 best performing inks so far which I have tested over the last months - about 10+ ink sets . I'm always printing on the Aldi/Netbit paper, that 10ct/sheet material, I did a few prints on HP and Canon premium glossy papers, the surface is slightly smoother but that's not what I willing to pay for a 5x to 7x price of those.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I did some limited comparison of gamuts with these various inks I tested so far, there are some differences between all those inks but no extreme anomaly yet. I'm always just using an RGB inkset and mix blue and red for the R800 from those and always print onto the Aldi/Netbit paper plus a separate GO print pass. And I'm always using the same pigment P600 photo black by Lyson .
I filled the Fujifilm DL inks into the R800 this way (without GO) - their gamut is smaller than most of the pigment inks tested so far, smaller when viewed with a Gamut viewer but probably not visible in direct printout comparisons.
The precision colors PC K3 HD inks for the P600 + a set from China are performing best so far with their gloss and gamut.
And I did some comparison between prints with the R265 running pigment inks, the same which I use for the Pro 7600, all with the P600 Lyson photo black, and this ink as well in the R800 for this test.
The gamuts at L=50 looks pretty similar between these inks and printers

The red line shows the R800 gamut, the blue line the R265 gamut, it's about the same size and shape, one ink a little bit stronger at green and the R800 at magenta.
It looks very much different at lower lightness levels, here a plot at L=18

the left image shows both gamut volumes, the lower areas, the R800 provides a much wider gamut here, as well visible in the right image. This performance of the R800 is directly visible in printouts with more color variation and definition of darker colors. It's the same inks in both printers, and light colors of the R265 are not relevant here, I assume it is the presence of the blue and red inks which the driver can mix with Cyan and Magenta to higher saturated colors during printout than the R265 although blue and red are only premixed from the same cyan and magenta inks. I'm not going to test the PCK3 HD inks in the R265 at this time for a similar comparison.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I couldn't resist to test the Fujifilm DL dye inks in the R800 to compare the gamut against the L800 prints. (blue and red mixed from the CMY inks)
This plot shows the gamuts at L=50 for both printers with the same ink:

Their color coverage varies slightly - red-L800 green-R800 , this at the L=50 lightness, the overall gamut volume is about the same.
This is the color coverage at a lower lightness of L=20:

The gamut is wider here at darker colors, this continues down to the blackpoint.
And I couldn't resist to overprint the dye patches with GO, available in the R800 to see its impact:

the light blue line is the gamut of the print with GO, green the gamut w/o GO, both with the DL inks in the R800, the gamut with GO is wider, the overall gamut volume is about 6% bigger than w/o GO, this diagram at L=50.
The improvement is more pronounced again at darker colors - L=20 shown here

And there is an additional effect - the black level of the regular print - w/o GO is at L=7, the black level with the GO overprint is at L=4, this is almost 1 f/stop difference in photographic terms and the darker blacks are visible in direct comparison of B/W prints in their darker areas.
Little corners and dents relate to patch reading variations, XRite Profile maker does not smooth the data, but I could read the patches one than 1 time and average the data which I do for profiles I'm actually using.

(L = luminance in the range from 0 - 100, paper white is at about L=94)
So this answers a question I did not consider before - whether a GO overprint of dye ink prints does make a difference - yes - it increases the gamut in this case. This is just a test with one type of glossy paper - the Netbit/Aldi type in this case, I don't know whether the effects would be similar with other papers. This test does not cover the assumed UV shielding effect of a GO overprint - I need more sun for that.