Hi,

I have now been printing with an InkjetFly Bigfoot C.I.S. on an Epson 1400 for about six weeks.

Like most people on this and other Forums I was a bit dubious about making the move, but I have to say so far I am exceptionally pleased.

The cartridge holder lid came off without breaking (please see my earlier post), the kit fitted in easily and I was printing very quickly.

Using the free profile from InkjetFly I wasn't completely happy and got a profile from Roger Barrett at Hermitage Photo Services.

He is extremely helpful and after some perseverance I got a superb profile for Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper.


A word of warning when printing out a test sheet for your profile - make sure you disable colour management on both the Epson software AND Photoshop.

I was also advised that you should not use Adobe Lightroom to print a test sheet for a profile as, for some reason, it just doesn't work.

The other thing, which I forgot, is to turn off 'High speed' printing on the Epson print manager as well as colour management before printing test sheets or final work on a profile.

Something else I discovered is that the print preview you get from the Epson software will look nothing like the actual output when using your chosen profile.

Roger Barrett also recommends leaving prints to dry for around two hours before checking colours, overnight is best.

Colour management and profiling are very complex subjects and there are a lot of different things to remember in getting it right.

Ideally you should have a profile for each type of media you use, but I mainly print images on Epson Premium Glossy, so only have the one so far.

The E.P.Glossy profile works very well on Epson Glossy too.


OEM Cartridges have rocketed in price recently, my old R360 cost £36 for an original set a year ago.

I visited PC World last week and saw a set of cartridges for an R360 now priced at £58.99.

The R360 printer itself only cost £50 some 18 months ago.

OEM cartridges for the 1400 are some £12-13 each and are difficult to get hold of and likely to get more expensive.

I am, so far, really glad I made the move to C.I.S.

Hope some of this info helps those of you about to make the move.

Cheers,

Barryt

My experience is a little different, albeit satisfactory. I use my 1400 to print music books and covers. My printing involves mostly black but my covers are full color printed on glossy cardstock. Early on I was discouraged with the longevity of Epson's #79 carts. I find their chips waste ink and I got tired of throwing away perfectly good carts (and money). Unlike many in this forum I took a chance and decided to go cheap. I purchased an asian manufactured CIS unit on eBay for ~78 USD. The system was a PIGMENT ink system. I wanted to take advantage of the archival qualities of pigment ink. Unfortunately my unit came with a defective autoreset chip and the seller refused to make it right. So I ended up purchasing a set of cheap empty refillables and stole the chips off of those carts. IT WORKED!! For those interested this unit is designated as the XM series continouos ink system. This is the unit with the curvy reservoirs.

After initial setup I had to run the clean process 5 times to eliminate banding from the test print. Once the new ink was flowing things have been great. I had some difficulty finding the exact placement for the tubing and ended up with a different setup than the one recommended in the instructions. Also, I'm finding that I must run 1 clean process every morning to eliminate banding.

Alright - now for the fun part - pro photographers and perfectionists, please look away! I had to make some adjustments to my color output and instead of using a different ICC file for every medium I simply adjusted my levels in the advanced printing preferences. I KNOW, I KNOW - this isn't the best way! BUT I managed to obtain very decent results with the following settings. (Remember these are for the GENERIC ASIAN PIGMENT INKS developed for the 1400)... your results may vary...

paper type = ultra premium presentation matte
high speed=checked
color controls=checked
Gamma=2.2
Color Mode=Epson Vivid
Brightness=+8
Contrast=+3
Saturation=+7
Cyan=+4
Magenta=+3
Yellow=+3

[color=#]REMEMBER your results may vary[/color] but I found these settings to be satisfactory. Actually the colors appear more accurate now than the old Claria inks! Please note that it took a couple of hours futzing with the settings before I got to these.

SO FAR SO GOOD...

Mod Note: Just a quick apology as your post got caught up in the spam filter and I just spotted and unhooked it for you.


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Printers: (Canon) MP500/830, MX700, iP4000/4200/4300/4500/5200, iX4000(A3) (Epson) C84/86, D88, CX6600, R285/800/1900 (HP) K550, K850, K5400, L7680