Dan,
Your inquiry is very timely.
We have a pro lab that has Noritsu and Durst photographic printers. The term Lighjet derives from one of the earlier printers, an OCE Lightjet. As far as I know, these printers aren't made any more. Most of the larger prints you see are from Durst Theta 51 and Lambdas. All these machines use laser imagers to draw an image on regular silver halide (AgX) photographic paper, which is then developed in RA4 chemistry. Many of the pro papers have been reformulated to take advantage of the narrower spectrum of laser light vs. visible white light spectrum. Some printers like the Chromira and Durst Epsilon/Theta 76 are LED printers. In our opinion (and experience) laser is far superior to LED.
We also have two Epson 9600 printers which we run through an Image Print RIP. We've been unhappy about the quality of these printers (especially in comparison to our Durst) for a long while now. The inkjet keeps falling short in gamut and tonal accuracy even though we have good profiles and have tweaked Image Print. So, we're trying to decide between an Epson 9880 and HP Z3100 to replace one of our printers since we've heard good things about both models.
I had our vendor who also does their own fine art edition printing run some tests using a stanard test target and one of my M8 images (see attached). The image was processed though C1 with my custom M8 profile (made with i1 XT) on a calibrated Eizo monitor. It should print perfectly. The rules that I set out for the test were that there could be no correction done to the image, only using the correct output profile through the native print drivers from CS3.
The results weren't bad. At first I thought that the gamut was better in both the Epson and the HP. The Epson had more vivid reds and the HP had better DMax and neutrals. Overall, the Epson looked flat and "digital" and the HP was closer to my intended image. Then I printed the image on the 9600. It was almost the same as the 9880! No great leaps and bounds improvements. This was a bit of a surprise to us.
Then the real test began. I ran a photographic print on Kodak Endura E surface (lustre) paper to compare. Wow! The photographic print looked stunning by comparison. Sharper, dead-on match to my on-screen image, snappier, and just much more appealing overall. The inkjet prints all looked like the picutre was taken through a dirty window - they had a haze over them. The photographic print looked like reality. I also noticed that the flowers' colors got lost in the ink prints. The different shades bled together. The other thing is that all the details like the grass turned to mush. On the photo print each blade of grass was clearly defined.
Understand that we have been making a lot of prints for a lot of clients for a very long time (35 years). I've been involved in digital imaging since 1991. Operator error really isn't the issue here.
While I think that inkjet printing has its place, I don't think that ink prints are at the same level as photographic ones. Sure, you have many more paper options with inkjet, but I think that photographic still has the quality edge. While I'm on a roll... (my head, at least among this crowd
) when did 17x22 become a standard size? 16x20, 20x30 = standard sizes. 10x13, 13x19, 17x22... not easy to find a frame... I'll leave it at that.
Needless to say, before we endevoured on this test, our vendor who is trying to sell us one of these fine machines told me that I shouldn't compare the inkjet output to our photographic prints and I shouldn't get my hopes up. "After all, is it really fair to compare a $7,000 printer to a $250,000 one?" he said. My point exactly.
David
The lab guy (today)