Weird printer news from Japan

[Seachicken]

A new range of A4 photo printers is about to come out in Japan. The details are available (in Japanese) on the Epson Japan web site.

Top of the line is the PX-G900. This uses a new type of pigment in where the pigment is encapsulated in transparent resin. The idea is that the colours will not fade with time.

Other oddness is in the inks. The PX-G900 uses 8 inks. These are:
[list=1]
Cyan
Magenta
Yellow
Red
Blue
Gloss optimizer (transparent goo)
Black
Matt black
[/list=1]

Gone are the light cyan, and light magenta. Presumably these are not needed because of the smaller drop size of 1.5pl.

The addition of red (and blue) are interesting, since inkjet reds have not been as bright as they could have been.

The printer also features automatic nozzle checking and cleaning, which for me will be a very welcome addition.

I don't know when or even if these will be marketed outside Japan, but I expect they will be.

The street price looks like it will be about 40,000 yen (220 UK pounds) when it is released in a few days time.

[dhani2489]

thanks for your information, Seachicken

I'm now looking for the new printer, I'll wait and see

:) :)
dhani

[Igor]

Well, sounds great, but knowing Epson, I'd expect $330 for printer and $30-50 for one cartridge!

[Seachicken]

I'd expect the cartridges to cost about 1,000 yen each here, i.e. 8,000 yen for a set.

I quite concerned about the gloss cartridge. This seems to be used to fill in the areas not printed on by the colors... presumably to keep the glossyness of the area constant.. however, this also seems to imply this cartridge will be used heavily.. could be expensive.

My main concern is print head blockage though. My PM-950C (960 in US I think)'s sole reason for existance is to block up and ruin the next print. Of course, unblocking is possible, but uses a LOT of expensive ink. I hope this is fixed in the newer models, but it concerns me because somehow it seems in the manufacturer's interests to have this mechanism in place.

[Seachicken]

Seen one!
They are on the shelves in Japan now.

I had a look at some sample output.
To be honest it seemed impossible to see the difference beteen the 1.5pl and 1.8pl Epson printers' output. Light smooth areas of constant tone seemed perfectly smooth with both old and new models. The prints seemed equally sharp too. Perhaps with magnification it will be possible to tell, but who cares. The 3pl printers' output was noticably more grainy, but still perfectly presentable.

There was a sample photo of a lobster to highlight the new red ink. To compare against was the same print made using the old 970C. The difference seemed quite slight to me.

The resistance of the new inks to fading however, if true, is going to be the big advantage of this new line of printers.

Ink cartridges cost 6500 yen for 8. Not too bad... my 950C cartridges are 6000 yen for 7.

[bjnicholls]

The PX inks are called Ultrachrome in the US market. Another Colorio printer, the PM-4000PX is the 2200 in the US and 2100 in the rest of the world. Ultrachrome inks are resin-encapsulated. In the world market, the inkset for Ultrachrome includes light black, in Japan they use light yellow instead - opting for extended color range over more subtle neutrals.

The "goo" sounds like an answer to one of the negative characteristics of the Ultrachrome inks. The inks and the encapsulating resin have a sheen that is different than the surface of resin papers. You see a variable sheen in areas with heavier ink coverage vs. areas with little coverage or paper white. By putting down a clear coating (such a coating is called a varnish in the press trades), the printed surface will have a consistent finish instead of the variable sheen.

The Japan market gets products a year before the rest of the world, and they often have unique features that are changed or deleted for various world markets. We'll see this new printer, but it will be different than the printers in Japan.

If you want to keep up on new Epson printers, here's the site to watch:

http://www.i-love-epson.co.jp/products/printer/inkjet/colorio/

[Seachicken]

My 950C gave up the ghost last week so I was forced to obtain a printer from the latest batch here in Japan.

It was a toss-up between the new Epson PX-G900 with pigment ink and the latest Canon 990i (a 7-color 2pl dye-ink-based model).

In the end I went for the Canon. The image quality seemed preferable to me, and I have had a fair number of problems with the Epson (I don't know whether or not the Canons have similar problems).

There is a comparative review (in Japanese) here (http://arena.nikkeibp.co.jp/rev/parts/20031017/106275/) with scans of output. The colors of the new Epson seem subdued in the review (and also in the samples I have seen), and the smooth tones do have a slightly grainy look, but you have to look very closely to see this. The dye-based PM-G800 offers non-grainy output, but on the samples I saw there was a cyan cast to neutral grey tones. The Epson had a deeper black than the Canon, but only just.

I wish I had preferred the Epson, having inks that last so long is a major plus. The Canon blurb claims their dye inks on their best paper have a similar lifespan (25 years under glass, 100 years in an album), but I wonder how they will fare in the real world.

No doubt these printers will hit the world markets in the next six months.

From the prints I have made so far, my feeling is that the prints are considerably better than those made by my PM-950C. In particular the transitions between light and dark skin tones seem to be handled far better.
The colors also seem truer to what I see on the screen. It seems a lot easier to get the results I want than before.

[Seachicken]

I'm finding the blacks are not black from my new 990i on Canon's Pro Photo (HR-101) paper.

The same image printed with the same settings on top-end Epson glossy photo paper gives a MUCH deeper black. I'm using Max quality (1), diffusion dithering.

Any clues as to what's going wrong for me?
I am sure something is wrong since most people are reporting this paper to be excellent.
Also, the blacks I get are no match for the blacks on the demo prints in the shops, printed on the same paper with the same printer.

This printer seems to be a close relative of the i960, with an additional red ink cartridge. It uses the same BCI-6 inks.

[Seachicken]

I read on the comp.peripherals.printers newsgroup that something that's probably the same printer as the PX-G900 will be released in the US in January, and will be called the R800.

[David Smith]

I'm curious about the Canon 990i? I have a Canon i950 that is an 8.5x11 printer, it has 6 ink tanks, a 2 pl droplet size, 512 nozzels per ink tank, a resolution of 4800 x 1200 and prints with over 5.7 million droplets per square inch.

The 990i, from the specs I read, uses the same print head and cartridges, BCI-6[PC] etc., but has a resolution of 4800 x 2400 for an astounding 11,520,000 dpi!

Is this printer still an 8.5" x 11" printer or what in the U.S.A. is our standard size digital printing paper or is it a 13 x 19" printer??

From the picture I saw of it it appeared to be just an 8.5x11??

Here's the image:

[HulaMike]

Originally posted by Seachicken
I'm finding the blacks are not black from my new 990i on Canon's Pro Photo (HR-101) paper.

SeaChicken,

Not sure this is relevant but I used to get washed out or even greenish blacks from my Epson 1280. Epson called it unavoidable metemerism. But that all changed when I started using decent ICC profiles for the ink and paper I use. (Jon Cone's Inkjet Mall) Now blacks are dense and jet black. Perhaps a better ICC profile for your Canon would help.