With ample help from the SP4800’s all-new black-and-white driver, in fact, we were able to make some of the best, most consistent monochrome prints we’ve ever gotten from an inkjet printer. And we saw a big improvement in the tonal smoothness and density of black-and-white prints. This is most apparent in glossy prints, but there was a visible difference even in prints made on matte paper. In addition to helping on the high end, the Stylus Pro 4800’s new inkset also contributes to its deeper blacks. A related benefit is durability: The SP4800’s prints are much more resistant to scratches than before, good news for anyone who’s ever scuffed a beautiful matte-surfaced print. This improvement is apparently the direct result of the light-light black, which lessens the need to mix cyan, magenta, and yellow inks to achieve tone in very light areas. In printing with the SP4800, we also found that the new inks greatly reduce metamerism, the shifting of print color - most noticeably in neutral areas and black-and-white prints - under light sources of different color temperature.
The UltraChrome K3 inks nearly eliminate this, using what Epson calls Microcrystal Encapsulation. (More about this later.) The company has arguably taken two steps forward and one step back - but that’s still one step forward.Īnyone who’s looked at a glossy pigment print from an angle other than head-on has observed an ugly, uneven surface sheen known as bronzing. But there’s a down side to the third black, at least with the wide-format models, that might have been addressed had Epson been in less of a hurry. Light-light black is a valuable addition, and there’s n o doubt that it helps the SP4800 make better-looking prints than its well-regarded predecessor. This technology is an inkset, UltraChrome K3, that features a third black, dubbed light-light black. Despite the fact that photographers loved the SP4000, and that Epson’s pro printers usually have a pretty long shelf life, it seems the company wanted to hit the street with four new models - the other three being the SP7800, SP9800, and Stylus Photo 2400 - that shared the same new technology. Why would Epson replace this stellar model so quickly, with the Epson Stylus Pro 4800? We wonder if the move was strategic. We expressed our admiration for the SP4000’s excellent resolution and the color fidelity of its fade-resistant UltraChrome pigment inks. Here was an eight-ink model that could print a 16×20 or 16×24 image (using 17-inch rolls) and still fit on a desk, albeit a big one. Not much more than a year ago we were raving in these pages about the Epson Stylus Pro 4000, convinced that it might be the best fine-art inkjet printer ever made.
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