Eight is really a bit much. Most I’ve seen was 6 on my parents old HP Photosmart C7280. They’ve added lighter shades of magenta and cyan, supposedly because it looks better on photos.
But it’s an HP printer so that’s probably not the main reason…
Most of the pro level cannon wide format printers now have 10 or 12 inks. Once you get above the $1000 price for the printer and into the 17" and wider printers will see wider printer heads that can handle more carts. The additional carts are used to increase the chroma levels in the darks and to prevent banding. Often there’s a gloss optimizer which helps with gloss on certain colors. Many times these are the printers you see behind the counters at photo printing labs.
Hm, interesting. I ordered billboards and signs printed on industrial ones, meter and a half in widht, like 7 years ago. They too had just CMYK iirc. Maybe things changed since that or they had them old. Or that photos in a close proximity to you can benefit from more complexity while for street signs it’s just a waste of time and money.
I’m just speculating that increase of the tank count is directly tied to greed. Not only in making a picture slightly better, but selling you more inks and chemicals of more rare varieties. Basic CMYKs can be purchased anywhere, but distinct toners lock you deeper in their proprietary garden. That falls completely in line with what they did before.
Eight ink tanks? How? Why?
Eight is really a bit much. Most I’ve seen was 6 on my parents old HP Photosmart C7280. They’ve added lighter shades of magenta and cyan, supposedly because it looks better on photos.
But it’s an HP printer so that’s probably not the main reason…
I’ve heard of photo printers with orange to get better skin tones too.
light cyan, light magenta, light black, and light light black.
Feels like they should have added white ink. Not for mixing the other colors, but rather just to make the spectrum of blacks complete.
Most of the pro level cannon wide format printers now have 10 or 12 inks. Once you get above the $1000 price for the printer and into the 17" and wider printers will see wider printer heads that can handle more carts. The additional carts are used to increase the chroma levels in the darks and to prevent banding. Often there’s a gloss optimizer which helps with gloss on certain colors. Many times these are the printers you see behind the counters at photo printing labs.
Hm, interesting. I ordered billboards and signs printed on industrial ones, meter and a half in widht, like 7 years ago. They too had just CMYK iirc. Maybe things changed since that or they had them old. Or that photos in a close proximity to you can benefit from more complexity while for street signs it’s just a waste of time and money.
I’m just speculating that increase of the tank count is directly tied to greed. Not only in making a picture slightly better, but selling you more inks and chemicals of more rare varieties. Basic CMYKs can be purchased anywhere, but distinct toners lock you deeper in their proprietary garden. That falls completely in line with what they did before.
Better color
More profit