Need Help Switching from HP Latex 360 to Epson S80600??

[dypinc]

Oh right. I thought I did that once but I didn't think it was doing anything. I'll have to mess with that again. Does it save ink and provide better color in the lower passes?

Better color maybe if you are doing lower passes and printing output that might use a lot of lc/lm thus avoiding ink starvation from having only one lc/lm printhead. Any 8 pass or faster I seldom every use the lc/lm ink. More to lose than to gain by it. Most all my POS stuff where I would use lc/lm ink for unclose stuff is printed a 12 pass or 10 pass, bumping up the inter-pass delay if a lot of lc/lm ink is used.

I found the limited 100% ink density say at 8 or 6 pass show no improvement gamut wise if only CMYK is used, but you can build your black generation different than you might if want to take advantage of the lc/lm inks so you could say better in some situations.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

Ink savings yes, Better color yes... the printer no longer interprets when to use Light Colors so you have a slightly narrower gamut but much better control of that gamut.

 

[dypinc]

Ink savings yes, Better color yes... the printer no longer interprets when to use Light Colors so you have a slightly narrower gamut but much better control of that gamut.

Slightly narrower? Post a plot of your profiles to prove that.

 

[Bly]

I'd never go back to solvent.
I mean really, do people put a magnifying glass onto your car stickers and complain about the graininess?
If you're doing art repro or proofing maybe there's a reason but for signage I doubt it.

Still, free country and all. Let us know your experience when you do it.

 

[MainostePrint]

I'd never go back to solvent.
I mean really, do people put a magnifying glass onto your car stickers and complain about the graininess?
If you're doing art repro or proofing maybe there's a reason but for signage I doubt it.

Still, free country and all. Let us know your experience when you do it.

Do you create ICC with 360, or do you create your own with X-rite etc.?

 

[Bly]

Just use the onboard i1.
Press a button and let the printer do it's thing.
If you want better quality print at 18 pass.

 

[daenterpri]

Do you create ICC with 360, or do you create your own with X-rite etc.?

We've used both.

 

[daenterpri]

I'd never go back to solvent.
I mean really, do people put a magnifying glass onto your car stickers and complain about the graininess?
If you're doing art repro or proofing maybe there's a reason but for signage I doubt it.

Still, free country and all. Let us know your experience when you do it.

I understand what you mean. We really have enjoyed the Latex printing overall. And it will continue to be great for our signage. But we do lots of smaller printing, like stickers. And when people get them, the grain in many of the colors is obvious because they hold them up close. And I think the metallic option will be used by a large portion of our customers because of our automotive niche.

We received test prints from Epson yesterday. Very very impressive over our latex prints.

Being a small sticker shop, we need every edge we can get over the big mass online guys.

 

[dypinc]

Slightly narrower? Post a plot of your profiles to prove that.

I mostly use the onboard i1 but I drive it from the Colorgate RIP. If I am creating a profile with Fiery XF I use an i1pro 2. But I never use the printer to generate the profile as they are pretty crapy.

 

[daenterpri]

I mostly use the onboard i1 but I drive it from the Colorgate RIP. If I am creating a profile with Fiery XF I use an i1pro 2. But I never use the printer to generate the profile as they are pretty crapy.

And am I right when you are creating the profile, even with the i1Pro 2, that the linerealization is still done on the printer end?

 

[dypinc]

And am I right when you are creating the profile, even with the i1Pro 2, that the linerealization is still done on the printer end?

Linearization can not be done on the printers end. Only a calibration on some media presets can be done on the printer, and the L360 being an ink limiting contone printer it is usable for low ink densities at 120% or lower. At higher than 120% ink densities I would not use it. While it is available on backlit SAV media I have been told by some HP techs not to use the onboard calibration and that it was not supposed to be implemented. On don't believe it is available on the L560. And, really above 120% ink density the onboard calibration is pretty useless because you have no control of the individual ink channels and total ink limits like you get from a RIP linearization which is essential for printing great looking reds for example on the L300 series. This is probably do to the ink formulation but when setting a 150% ink density and above it is very apparent that cyan lays down more ink than it really should and the only good way to back it off is to use per channel ink limits which is one thing a RIP linearization can do.

So I would say creating a profile where you can control black generation based on your needs with other software based on top of the printers calibration is okay if your ink density is set to 120% or lower. Can you improve on that with a RIP linearization, yes but in most cases you would be hard pressed to see any difference. And some RIP profiling solutions may not let you create a profile without a linearization.

The disappointment of the L360 being a contone device lead me to investigate and test every possible way to control color management on these printer. You still have no control of the light ink splits but you can affect it some by how you set black generation in your profile. Note this post. HP 360 Profiling w/Caldera

Since this is a Epson forum for any further discussion of this we should probably take it to the HP forum.

 

[daenterpri]

Ok thank you. Every time you post I'm learning more and more. Even though I've been printing for several years now, I'm quite a noob with profiling and color calibration so I really appreciate your knowledge.

So really, to get better looking prints on the HP, I'm going to need to slow things down and have increased densities and by doing that, ink starvation with LC and LM will be less of an issue...am I on the right track? But like you said, should probably be asked in the HP forum.

 

[BigfishDM]

I understand what you mean. We really have enjoyed the Latex printing overall. And it will continue to be great for our signage. But we do lots of smaller printing, like stickers. And when people get them, the grain in many of the colors is obvious because they hold them up close. And I think the metallic option will be used by a large portion of our customers because of our automotive niche.

We received test prints from Epson yesterday. Very very impressive over our latex prints.

Being a small sticker shop, we need every edge we can get over the big mass online guys.

Did you send your files or were they just samples that Epson sent? Send your files to them and they will print your artwork so you can see a real life sample.

 

[FrankW]

Linearization can not be done on the printers end.

You shurely mean "linearization can not be done on the RIP's end"? Because the latex 360 is a contone printer, linearizing in the RIP doesn't make any sense.

 

[daenterpri]

You shurely mean "linearization can not be done on the RIP's end"? Because the latex 360 is a contone printer, linearizing in the RIP doesn't make any sense.

Sorry, I think that's what I meant. I'm still learning what all this means, but what you said I think is what I meant to say