I want to first establish a brief background of Giclée printing:

The term Giclée has been synonymous with quality inkjet printing, usually associated with fine art and photographic reproductions. In the beginning, when the Iris Printer started the concept of Giclée Printing, attaining this high level of quality one had to be knowledgeable about Rip and Color Management technology. Today if you purchased an Epson, HP, or a Canon  printer, you may assume you are a Giclée printer and that you are producing the best reproduction there is. This is what they would like you to believe. To some extent, this maybe true. Epson offers a great printer with decent profiles which with tweaking may result in some beautiful prints. Other printer manufacturer also offers the same.

So, if that is all it takes, why would third party companies produce Rips, Color Management, Media, and Inks?

1. Can I really tell the difference?

2. Is the difference worth the effort?

3. Will my clients appreciate the improved results?

4. Will the results be worth the risk?

5. How can you bring each printer to produce the same result?

6. How do you get the most out of these papers?

If you are not asking yourself these questions, you should. 

Let us first examine what Epson has offered and lets compare that to what our Symphonic Solution has to offer.

Epson Package Benefits:

1. Generic profiles for only their materials (This means a profile of a specific media made to fit a specific printer that everyone can use.)

2. A different set of inks for each generation of printer.

3. An application driver instead of a Rip.

4. An upgrade to their version of the ColorBurst Rip.

Lets examine these benefits:

1. Generic profiles for a specific printer is only valid if each printer, each batch of ink, each production run of media is exactly the same. In fact, we have seen four Epson printers with the same media with the same set of ink produce different results and it should be noted that the Epson head technology offers the greatest stability of any manufacturer. Printers in different atmospheric locations may exhibit different results as well. You can not count on any two printers being made to the same tolerance. Each printing head may slightly differ. The profiles made by the the three main OEM companies must allow for a varying tolerance. Epson does not offer any fix for this situation. HP and Canon are beginning to look into this issue by offering a built in reader for their simplified Rip. However, in numerous tests comparing the quality of Epson to the other two manufacturers, Epson comes out ahead.

2. Epson's ink sets are not backward compatible, so if you like the richness of Ultrachrome from the 7600/9600 series in place of the less rich inks of K3, you're stuck. If you have a Roland, Mimaki, Mutoh, you will not have access to Epson Ultrachrome ink. If you have a 9600 or if you have several of them and need another, but all you can get is the new 9800 you will have quite a different set of ink. K3 inks are designed for Black and White and Gloss Media. All previous images will print differently when compared to Epson's new K3. Matte media will have far less saturation than their Ultrachrome in Reds, deep Magentas, as well as a number of other colors.  Obviously, Epson does not offer uniformity.   

3. An application driver does not allow you control of the CMYK printing channels. It has no layout function. All profiles of third party media must be worked through Epson's RGB profiles and ink limits. This is not ideal for third party media. I think most of us can agree that there are some great media from third party manufacturers. I know that most of my customers do not use Epson's media exclusively. Take for instance fine art media from Crane paper, Museo Max, their new canvas and Silver Rag. Two of the best papers ever made. There are canvases, photo papers, and watercolor papers each one with different properties and prices to suit your needs.

4. The upgraded rip, ColorBurst, has been chosen by Epson and has some decent features, but in the world of Giclée printing there are a number of features and ink controls that are not available in this Rip. Ink control for Gloss Media is quite different than that of Matte media. Photographic printing is mainly about the transition of color and the fineness of dot pattern. It is easier to obtain rich color on Gloss Paper than it is on Matte Material. Gloss paper reflects so much more. It is therefore essential that great attention be placed on obtaining the depth of color so needed for matte material. Because of the way the depth of ink changes in hue value it is important that the rip take advantage of it and not discard it. Most Rips over look the importance of this. Obtaining rich shadow colors with little use of black is necessary for true quality reproduction. It is not enough to have smooth transitions. Fine art reproduction is all about obtaining deep colors, subtle values, superior separation, and excellent shadow detail. Few Rips offer all the controls necessary to obtain smooth transitions and dynamics.

 Now I will start to explain the advanced technology of Giclée printing.

There are two main elements that are essential to advance printing quality, Rip and Ink. They must be able to offer the best possible results on various media.

The First part of the Symphonic Printing Solution is Ink.

Color Ink Dynamics:

There have been great improvements since the creation of inkjet pigment ink. With the introduction of Ultrachrome and Symphonic Photographic ink sets, pigment saturation has increased to a point where pigment inks have great richness and depth of color. Symphonic Photographic series is even more saturated than Ultrachrome offering greater depth of color on matte media while not requiring as much ink lay down on glossy media. Many of our clients print on a wide variety of media and this ink set offers greater versatility. On tests of Epson's K-3 and Symphonic's UltraMaxII performed by Crane and us there is over a 20% increase in gamut with Symphonic UltraMaxII on Museo Max. But the real interesting point is that the prints on K-3 were printed at 1440 x 1440 and on Symphonic UltraMaxII only half the resolution, 1440 x 720 was used. So, with virtually half the amount of ink used Symphonic out performed K-3. In further tests with Epson, Canon, and HP, Epson out performed both Canon and the HP.

With the introduction of the new Symphonic Five Color approach to the 9800 series, the dynamic grows even greater. I will discuss that later.

Digital Printing has traditionally used black ink to replace color in the shadows and to enhance the depth of color. Often the technique used is called UCR, which stands for under color removal. This process is used to reduce the amount of ink layered down in the shadows. While a painter can layer pigment, digital ink when layered pools, puddles, and blisters. This is not a good thing. So the amount of ink used in the shadows and deep tones must be kept to a minimum. Therefore, in order to obtain richer color without relying on Black, each color ink needs to be increased.

To accomplish this, each color must reach the desired saturation at no more than 70 to 80% of its density scale. This means that we have to cut back each of the primary printing colors CMY. Therefore, it is necessary to start out with richer inks and control them better through software.

Not only is it important to have rich color, it is also important to have colors that are luminous. There have been great improvements since the creation of inkjet pigment ink. Our Symphonic Photographic series is a product of this advancement. It offers rich vibrant color of great depth. While we were pleased with this technology, we realized there is more. While our four color series inks offer great results they like Ultrachrome have limitations. To the most part you may not be aware of them. All to often we assume that what we have is as good as it gets.

It is like saying I can't understand why anyone would spend more money on an expensive audio setup, and then one day a friend of yours says, "I like to take you to a show room and have you listen to what I am thinking of buying." Of course this is a setup. So the two of them go into the audio store and the salesman takes them into room number one and lets them listen to different music. After the first note the unknowing friend gasps and says "Oh my god that's incredible, I never new it could be so good." The salesman then says may I take you into the next room and proceeds to turn on the same music, but add some even more dynamic selections and through in some rock music. The friend now is in shock, screaming, "The highs, the mids, the depth, the richness, I got to have it." His friend calmly says so you thought there was no difference. This little story really happened. I was the unknowing friend.

This is where the new approach to multi-channel comes in. We have introduced a new set of ink adding Emerald Green and Golden Yellow into the Epson 4800/7800/ and 9800 to augment the richness as well as the gamut. It parallels the first room. The result is truly fabulous and if there was not a room 2, this ink set would be the leading dynamic.

With our unique introduction of our 12 color ink sets, we have accomplished a myriad of dynamics and advantages. When you look at the 12 color ink sets that have been produced from Cannon and HP, you will see a focus on colors that are designed for photographic printing. It is the first step to advancing from the mundane press world of CMYK. We, looked at the 12 color approach and saw the possibility of producing quite a different set, designed for depth and brilliance of color. We looked at reducing the ink lay down by adding colors of depth, Burnt Umber, Deep Blue, and or rich Violet. We added Orange and Golden Yellow for brilliance, Emerald Green, Crimson, and deep Cyan for glowing richness, using the light colors to fill in the smoothness of gradation and aid in the gamut and brilliance of the lighter shades. Our Light Black is neutralized to allow for a more accurate gray scale. This is equivalent to the second room. Can it get any better?  

Our approach is quite different from Canon and HP who use Red, Green and Blue. While it helps them obtain richer color, than their 4 color pallet, this approach does not deal with other issues. Because these two companies use thermo heads they, they can't increase the load of pigment to obtain deep values, so they need to use more channels to catch up to the dynamics of Epson.  

As I stated just before, we developed a 4 tier approach, Light, Mid, Solid, and Deep values. Browns are the most difficult colors to produce without the aid of Black. With our burnt Umber we can reproduce images of great depth with less than 150% of ink. Our combination of color allows you to obtain Brilliance, Richness, and Depth of Color at ink limits at and below 250%. With this ink set you can reproduce fire engine Reds, glowing sunsets, midnight blues, scenes of bright and brilliant colors and paintings of great depth of color. These colors along with our neutral shades of blacks offer all you need to reach the essence of true reproduction.

At this time only Roland offers a wide format printer that we have converted into what we designated "The Symphony 1250". While these colors offer great potential it is important to control them well to obtain what they have to offer. It is even more important to control the color of a CMYK Photographic ink set to approach the magic of the Symphony Series. This is where Rip software comes into play.

Giclée printer, Terry Shopper, states, "never before has a there been an ink set with such dynamics and vibrancy. My prints are alive."

Printers using this ink series printing signs on low gamut media a amazed at the richness of color saturation.

I believe that there will soon be a number of 12 color printers to reach the market, but I do not expect to see any colors other than Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Red, Green, and Blue.

Software Control, The Rip:

Having a great ink set is like having super gas, but without a great engine nothing happens.

Ink, media, and the printer have no intelligence to produce great prints. It is up to the Rip to control how the ink, media, and the printer perform. I have used many Rips personally and when I set out to produce a Rip, I knew what controls I wanted to have. As an ink designer I new what issues must be dealt with in order to achieve the most out of ink. A rip sets up the parameters for the creation of the making of the profile. Understanding color management, ink, printers, and media, gave me an advantage to help in the creation of the rip. To this end, for over two years I have been integrally involved with the Steve Greaves the originator of Evolution. With the help of Giles Prett, master printer and head technician of Crane Paper who worked endlessly, Steve Greaves, and myself have developed the most advanced printing technology. I named it Symphonic Evolution Giclée Rip. The three of us all have a desire to produce the finest images possible and will continue to strive to that end. 

Evolution Giclée will obtain the most from our inks. The result is an increase in color gamut, optimum shadow detail, minimized dot pattern, perfect Black and White images. It can overcome the variances from paper coatings, humidity, and control multiple printers to print alike.

How does it do all this?

When you see the features and controls you will understand.

Evolution Giclée Rip Controls:

• Evolution allows you to control all three dot sizes and utilizes the smaller dots to effect a higher resolution and smoother dot pattern.

• It allows you to choose the crossover point between light and dark inks to obtain the smoothest transitions and control the amount of light ink used.

• After performing the linearization and smoothen control, Channels, the ink limit is tested for the media.

• Primary, secondary, and total mix inks can be individually controlled.

• The unique ink limiting feature maintains 100 percent of primary ink values, while blending a portion of it to produce the secondary and total ink limits. This helps expand the potential of 4 color printers, 4000/7600/9600.

• Once this is set the color profile patches are printed and a profile is created for the greatest color gamut possible, which we will explain in color management. Then a gray scale profile is produced.

• The two profiles are placed into the rip accordingly. The rip uses the color profile for all color values and the gray scale profile for neutral values. The best of both worlds.

• If the gray scale is not perfect the scaling table can be re-balanced by printing out a special table of values that are read in to correct any anomalies.

• Applying the gray lin, which neutralizes the CMY channels to produce a perfect gray ramp is the key to overcoming variances caused by paper coatings, ink, temperature, humidity, and variances from printer to printer. By re-running the gray blend for each paper or condition that throws off the accuracy of the profile, it will re-establish the perfection of the profile.  

• The rip offers every rending intent with Black Point Compensation.

The Layout Features:

• The layout works independently from the rip. You can open up as many layouts as you wish. Each layout shows you the full image

• You can place the layout on numerous printers.

• It takes in layer files.

• It offers templates.

• Cropping

• Duplicating

• Sizing

• Positioning

• Fill in information

Summary:

Our approach offers some huge benefits in the final result while introducing a greater amount of stuff to learn and you may feel intimidated by all this stuff. That is where we come in to help you make this stuff simple and straight forward. If you want to get the most out of your printing, the Symphonic Solution of Rip and Inks will offer you the best there is.

We feel unequivocally, Symphonic Ink and Evolution Giclée Rip offer the essence of Giclée Printing.

Links: www.americaninkjetsystems.com/symphonic_evolution_giclee_and_.html