EPSON Stylus Pro 4880

and UltraChrome K3 Vivid Magenta

Page 3

"… if you are new into the market, the 4880 remains at the top of the wish list in the 24 inch category"

Epson Traditional Photo Paper

Known in the USA as Epson Exhibition Fiber Paper, we obtained profiles built by Pixel Genius (www. pixelgenius.com/epson/) for use with this paper/printer combination. It is a big (2.8Mb), high-resolution profile made using 5202 patches, a heroic piece of profile building – we hope they have an automatic instrument!

Colour Performance

The gamut volume for the profile was 891,327. Our first print was slightly damaged by the passing print head and we experimented with paper thickness and platen gap in the ‘Paper Config’ until we resolved the matter. We found that using a paper thickness of 0.4mm and a ‘wide’ setting for platen gap solved the problem.

The print made using the Pixel Genius profile was very slightly yellow (but only by half a Lab point) and this, combined with the coolness of the base paper, made for a slightly creamy rendering. The average errors are tabled and are typical for the quality we have come to expect from a baryta paper (see elsewhere in this issue). For a non-bespoke profile the data are excellent. The bulk of the errors lie in the Lightness channel, our pre-production model seems a little dark overall.

Mono Performance

As Traditional Photo Paper is being billed as a ‘monochrome performer’ we looked at the combination with the 4880 in some detail. The Dmax was high at 2.33. The greys were clustered around the yellow quadrant, on or just above the pure neutral point. In combination with the cool base of the paper, this left them a little yellow-looking, but we are talking very small amounts here. The linearity of the tone range was excellent right down to the shadows although the shadow area blocked quite quickly, immediately after the 20 RGB point was reached.

The measured metamerism was slightly higher than anticipated at 2.2 ΔE Lab (D65 to Tungsten at 50% grey) and we went back to the sample to investigate. What we found was that the slight yellow bias was lifting the metamerism value. The cooler swatches in our grey-seeker part of the audit image were the typical values between 1.1 and 1.5 ΔE Lab. As shown in the graphic, the higher values were obtained on the yellow-bias side of the print.

As always we made large prints to get an impression of the printer's capabilities.

Advanced Black and White

No changes seems to have been made to the Advanced Black and White driver. If the settings are zeroed the prints still come out about 11% too light and our previously reported settings tweaks of –11% density and +6% on contrast still hold, certainly as starting off points. Using ABW, the image tone was mapped closely to the coolness of the paper and the metamerism values were back down to the ‘normal’ values we expect from UltraChrome.

Overall

The changes between the 4800 and 4880 printers are not visible from the outside of the machine. However, the ink changes are a measurable improvement from an already high benchmark. The productivity improvement is substantial and would make quite a difference if you were printing a wedding album. The ABW interface and the inability to fast change the inks from Matte to Photo Blacks are a little disappointing and must surely be under consideration for a future upgrade. If you already own a 4800, and you are coping with the print speed, it is unlikely to be worthwhile changing up. However, for proofing, the increased speed and greater reach of the gamut are very welcome. So if you are new into the market, the 4880 remains at the top of the wish list in the 24 inch category.

The colour ringaround with metameric indices scribbled on. Note the more typical UltraChrome values in the more blue parts of the set. See text for details.

Photo Quote: I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do - that was one of my favorite things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very perverse. Diane Arbus