Just recieved the new OCP Vivid and Light Vivid Magenta K3 inks.

[jtoolman]

Today I received 250ml each of the OCP Vivid, and Light Vivid Magenta Thanks to CLS

MP 209 K3 Vivid Magenta Pigmented
MPL 210 K3 Vivid Light Magenta Pigmented

With this shipment I also received a liter or OCP Gloss Optimizer for Epson. Since Epson uses GLOP basically for only a few printers, I decided to take the plunge and get a liter of it. I was simply very cheap to get. So no sweat.

So far I've only done a simple swab test so far on Kirkland Glossy. Examination was only done after thoroughly drying.

I used a saturated Q-Tip to swab about a 2 inch long swab of each Magenta pair.
I swabbed three passes with each load of the Q-Tip resulting in a progressively less dense swab.

I also did the same for the Gloss Op

I swabbed the following:

OEM Vivid and Light Vivid Magenta.
Results: Nice true Magenta looking color and fairly glossy. No Bronzing at all on either.


Older OCP Vivid and Light Vivid Magenta which I got from Bob Petruska last year ( fussybob here in the forum )
Results: More toward a red shade than Magenta. Less gloss across all three swabs of each magenta. Bronzing was visible under regular tungsten light.

The supposed new OCP Vivid and Light Vivid Magenta
Results: More toward a red shade than a true Magenta shade as with the OEM Magentas. Slightly better gloss. But It's really hard to discern if indeed it is better since the swabs are not of identical properties. Bronzing was seen under same lighting


I also tested:

Image Specialists GLOP
Results: Good Gloss.

OCP GLOP
Results: Possibly a bit glossier than IS in all three swabs.

No Name GLOP from an EBAY company.
Results: Much less gloss. I would not ever want to use it. So out it goes.

So now I have prepared a set of R2880 refillable carts loaded with OCP K3 inks, including this "New" magenta.
This ink set I will be tested against real OEM inks on real OEM carts.
I will not test the older OCP magenta in this case as I simply do not have any other carts to refill.

I am mostly concerned with the difference between the OEM print and the all OCP ( with the new Mag ) print.
I will print a standard reference image using the printer profile for Epson Ultra Premium Glossy on the same Epson Paper.
Then I will print on Premium Luster using Epson's matching profile.
If there are great color differences between the two I will then have to go through the trouble on making Colormunki profiles for the OCP inks and each of the two papers. Then repeat the printing process again.

Sure, I can just profile the OCP inks to the Epson papers right from the beginning but I am curious to see how the OCP inks compare to OEM as far as color rendition.

As far as the color rendition or OCP K3 with regular magenta ( Not Vivid ), when profiled produces outstanding color accuracy and image quality, BUT terrible Glossy and luster results as far as gloss and bronzing. SO I've been forced to only use it to print onto matte and art papers. However it does and admirable job on matte media.

If these results are even somewhat better than the previous inks, I will be quite happy.

As far as the OCP GLOP, it is very good. I will have to actually try it on my R2000 or R1900. If the results are good, I will then be able to use it on my Modified Epson 1400 GLOP only printer which with one pass it will completely eliminate any bronzing or gloss differential on any glossy luster and satin Pigment prints.

More as I continue to test.

Joe

 

[pharmacist]

Hi Jtoolman,

Yes: the gamut of the OCP K3 Vivid magenta is slightly less in the difficult tot reach purples compared to the Epson vivid magenta, so your findings are in line with the gamut comparison of my profiles. I tried to print using genuine Epson profiles for K3 Vivid and the colour rendition was pretty good, execept for the grays, which tends to be on the warm side.

The strange thing is that gloss of most colours is pretty good, sometimes even better compared to Original Epson K3 Vivid ink, except (still) for the magenta concerned colours, however to my eyes it is much better compared to the older normal OCP ink.

Eager to hear about your results.

 

[jtoolman]

Pharmacist, when you say older normal magenta I assume you are referring to the magenta for 3800 R2400 right.
I too thought that the magenta gloss performance was horrid. Might as well be Matte ink.
Today I am luckily of so I will be running a slew of actual on printer ( R2880 ) tests which should give me some "Real life" results.
If these results are sub par by an enough margin to using pure OEM inks I will go back to replacing the OCP K3 magentas with OEM from larger 110 / 220 ml Epson carts which seems to take care of the problem and after profiling pretty much matches the OEM results.

I will keep it for all my Matte and Art paper use.

The GLOP is very good though.

Joe

 

[pharmacist]

Yes I do mean the older normal magenta of OCP, which is really a red, not a magenta, causing a dramatic drop in gamut in het purples, oranges and blues. You might remember the solution I took by having it replaced with Octopus T0343 magenta (K2 compatible magenta, which was a true vivid magenta). You might have a try on satin or pearl type papers; on these papers the latest OCP K3 Vivid Magenta is pretty good indeed, but unfortunately on high gloss paper there is still that matte look.

The most appealing pro of the OCP K3 Vivid is the incredible low price, which makes printing cost almost nothing compared to original Epson K3 Vivivd ink.
The overall gloss of the print is pretty good, taking into account the area's in which magenta is heavily utilized (on high gloss papers, much less or hardly noticable on satin/pearl type papers).

 

[jtoolman]

Well here are three unedited scans of my results on EPSON Premium Luster.

Image #1 is on EPSON Premium Luster using the matching EPSON ICC profiles
Results are very good. Almost acceptable Gloss. Obviously not as good as an EPSON using GLOP but still not bad. Colors are true and neutral. Almost no bronzing

Image #2 is the same settings except printing with OCP with New V Magenta inks.

Colors are warm and blacks are visually much weaker than with OEM. This is the same results I got way back when testing OCP K3 with normal magenta. The is more gloss differential and bronzing in the reads and dark tones.

Image #3 is same paper and OCP inks but with my own Colormunki Profile
Colors are much truer, neutral and almost match the OEM results. Same level of Gloss and bronzing problems plus the d-Max is also less that that of OEM inks.

If I pass the print through my EPSON 1400 GLOP printer it significantly reduces Gloss and bronzing problems and increases the visual density of the dark tones.

So in the end, I really do not see any visual advantage other that the incredible savings.

I would have to replace the both Magenta inks and possibly even the Photo Black with OEM.
I know this would help as I have done it in the past.
If you buy the OEM equivalents in large carts you can reduce the over all cost and end up with an almost perfect Hybrid Ink set that provides an almost perfect visual match to OEM.
Profiling helps even more.

To Pharmacist, I experienced worse black performance with these inks. You say the blacks are excellent. I hope we have the same matching blacks.

Any way, if printing on matte, there is ZERO problems as the Matte Black is quite dense and does produce very good black rendering.

Joe

 

[jtoolman]

Update on print testing.

I chose an image of a fruit platter diaplayed on a neutral gray table cloth.
Bright red strawberries, green and bright orange melon slices on top of a bright green bed of curly lettuce.

The oranges and reds were my target to see how well this OCP magenta would perform.
I tried using Epson Ultra Luster but the magenta performed dismally!

Since I now have a very good supply of Canon Pro luster I decided to shoot for the moon and print on it and the R2880 with OCP K3 VM inks.
Using the same profile I had originally created I printed the first image. It was much better than on the Epson Paper.
Still lacking in gloss an all areas directly or indirectly affected by the OCP VM inks. But just not as bad.

I went to my PRO 3800 which I have loaded with OEM K3 ink and just compare gloss quality I printed one on the Canon Luster. Beautiful! Hardly no negative gloss or bronzing effects. It was what I expected to see.

I took a break and worked with the R2000 which I am running on OCP inks plus the new OCP GLOP I recieved yesterday.

This GLOP is apparently much better than IS and I was able to print images that almost looked as good as the OEM one. Yes I understand it is a different ink set. But I was only concerned with gloss and bronzing here. The red berries still had a discernible different level of gloss and slight bronzing but it was acceptable.

So following a suggestion from a member here, I decided to go for the ridiculous and I added 20% OCP GLOP to the two magenta carts ( Vm and LVM ) I made sure to thorougly agitate and ran two cleaning cycles to replace the ink in the cart's priming chambers.

Not only did I get a bit more gloss on the berries and orange melon but much to my SHOCK, the overal color quality, strength and density was identical to the undiluted mageant prints. At least to the eye.
I was 100% sure this would cause all sorts of color havoc, but it did not.

So in order of excellence.

PRO 3800 with OEM inks
R2000 with OCP including OCP GLOP
R2880 with OCP and 20% GLOP added to both Magentas

Color was nearly identical in all examples.

As a secondary observation. If any of these NON OEM prints is passed just once through my EPSON 1400 all GLOP printer, the results exceed those on pure OEM inks in all aspects. Even the OEM Print would be improoved upon.

So there we have it.

OCP K3 either regular or VM, does not perform very well in the gloss and bronzing department. The only remedy at this time is to do a GLOP coat as I do on the 1400.
Once profiled, it does an ecellent job on Matte meterial. So it is still avaluable asset on your printing arsenal. Fine art matte prints can be printed for pennies a piece and they turn out stunning.

The only way to directly get that OEM gloss and look is... well... by using OEM inks.

Joe

Joe

 

[pharmacist]

Hi Jtoolman,

I did compare the black with a print from a few years ago I printed on my previous Epson Pro 3800 and I could hardly distinguish any difference in the blacks, but it could be also the blacks have muted a bit compared to freshly printed pictures. Since I do not have OEM ink left in my printers, this might have cause the bias.

So the idea with the GLOP seems to work....what about increasing to 30%, as 20% does not seem to alter color intensity significantly ?

Many thanks for the update, as my first prints seems to have a better gloss compared to the older OCP K3 ink set (see youtube video).

So you would suggest to combine OCP ink with Epson V/VM and PB ink to have the best of both worlds: good price + good gloss printing quality ?

 

[cls]

@jtoolman
Great seeing that you got adequat results of the ink. I will be setting up my R1900 this weekend hopefully with full OCP Ink Set and will post the results here