Red and Green inks on Canon i9900

[Grandad35]

This is in reference to Canon's addition of red and green inks for the i9900. After printing 100 8x10 sheets (and using 2 full PM carts, plus others), there was almost zero usage of the Red and Green ink. Here is a link that points to a Canon document discussing the use of custom ICC profiles for Canon printers that may explain the low red and green ink usage. Most cameras apparently default to a sRGB color space, which is suitable for a CMYK printer. There isn't much need for the extra red and green inks for images that reside within the sRGB color space, as all sRGB colors can be printed with just CMYK (or so I have been told). The Adobe RGB (1998) color space is larger than sRGB color space, including colors that are out of gamut with CMYK and where the red and green inks would be useful. I have programmed my DSLR to use Adobe RGB, but it is still (at least according to Canon) necessary to assign the Adobe RGB color space to each image (in PS or equivalent) so that the printer doesn't treat it as an sRGB image.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=29530

After I get everything profiled and calibrated, I plan to experiment for a while and then report what I find.

 

[Nifty]

Grandad35,

Thanks for the info. I look forward to seeing what you find!

 

[tyamada]

I have been using my i9900 since July 2004 and have printed over 200 4x6 on Kodak paper and about 300 prints on 8.5x11 paper.

I use Profile Prism to profile my papers and ink, till now I have used about 75% of my green and red.

I can see the difference in the greens and reds with my profiles, they give my prints a richer look.

I use Corel 12 to print most of my pictures and Qimage to print some, both programs support color profiles.

 

[tyamada]

Just had to refill the green and red cartridges on my Canon i9900.

I have printed about 300 4x6s and about 400 plain paper 8.5x11s.

So far I have used:

Magenta 2
Yellow 3
Photo Cyan 1
Blak 2
Red 1
Green 1
Photo Magenta 2
Cyan 1

The printer doesn't use much ink. I have tried to print everything I can just to get a feel for the ink usage.
I am using Profile Prism to profile my inks/papers/printers, it seems that with the profiles I am using the less photo ink than without the profile. My yellow ink usage seems to be way up.

 

[rjr3684]

Grandad: I was wondering, since I am using your profile for my I9900 and Kirkland paper, if you will be updating your profiles or is this a PS only fix?

 

[Grandad35]

rjr3684,

I am not sure why I would have to update my profiles, as the printer, ink and paper are still the same, and I am still getting accurate colors on my prints.

From what I understand from tyamada's post, he is printing on 8.5x11 plain paper as well as 4x6 photo paper. Each of these uses needs a separate profile, as each paper's optical characteristics are so different. His ink usage is very different from mine, as I only print photos on the highest quality setting and therefore use more ink of different colors.

A profile has two main functions:
1. Define the extent of the color gamut that is achievable with the printer so that the software can make the proper decisions about how to handle colors that are "out-of-gamut".
2. Define a Look Up Table (LUT) that tells the color management software how much Red, Blue and Green it should request from the printer to actually achieve the desired color(s) over the full color gamut.

To generate a profile, test sheet(s) with predefined color swatches are printed without color management. The colors that were actually printed are then measured by some accurate technique, and the software then generates a profile based on that information.

I hope this answers your question.