Epson UltraChrome™ K3 & UltraChrome Hi-Gloss™ ink
Epson UltraChrome K3 ink
Epson UltraChrome K3 ink combines advantages of the current range of Epson UltraChrome ink with an additional light, light black that improves quality of output noticeably for monochrome and colour images alike.
The introduction of the third black ink ensures excellent grey balance and improved tonal gradation for both black & white and colour printing.
Metamerism is the phenomenon where colours change due to different light sources – particularly for black and white printing, and it is an issue often found among professionals and high end amateurs using inkjet printers for their enlargements. Although Epson UltraChrome ink has already shown a drastic improvement on its metameric behaviour, the end user in this case has had to print using black ink only, which resulted in a good but noticeable graininess of the image.
Traditional silver halide enlargements are made up of one image forming element only – elementary silver. This is usually not the case for inkjet where black and white is often printed using composite colours, to achieve smooth graduations and avoid banding at lower resolutions.
Black and white prints with Epson UltraChrome K3 are printed mainly using the three “blacks”: light light black, light black, photo black and matte black. The use of the “coloured” inks is very limited and only used to give black and white images a certain tone, like warm, cool, sepia etc. The images are mainly printed using the black inks resulting in virtually zero metamerism for black and white prints. In addition the previously described improvements using black inks when printing colour photos also results in an improved metamerism in colour images.
Epson UltraChrome & UltraChrome K3 inks
Epson's groundbreaking UltraChrome inks perfectly combine the benefits of dye based and pigment inks. The inks are extremely resistant to light and water and give an incredibly broad spectrum of colours. The UltraChrome ink set comes in 8 colours, including two black ink types. The standard photo black ink is replaceable with the optional matte black ink for outstanding quality on all matte papers. Perfect for professional and semi professional photographers alike, UltraChrome inks produce the optimum results for colour as well as monochrome.
Achieving superb color expression on a variety of media is made possible by an increase of the density of pigment content in the ink, which also provides for a much wider range of media support. Even with greater pigment density, each particle has an extremely smooth and uniform resin coating, ensuring superbly sharp image reproduction on both specialty media and plain paper along with marked improvements in light and water resistance.
Ideal for photography and graphic art applications, Epson UltraChrome Ink offers a superb colour gamut which approaches that of dye ink, but with the water and fade resistance of pigment ink. The secret? Our Micro-Encapsulation Technology coats each particle with special resin for long lasting prints.
But what really makes Epson UltraChrome Ink unique is that it uses a 8 colour pallet – photo black, matte black, cyan, magenta, yellow, red, blue plus a Gloss Optimizer.
The use of photo black improves tonal quality in the mid tones and shadows for more subtle shading and improved graduation quality. The addition of photo black ink also improves monochrome prints, giving you greater control over the ‘warmth’ or ‘coolness’ of the print.
The UltraChrome Ink system also offers an optional matte black ink cartridge, for perfect prints with even better contrast and higher optical density when printing on matte and fine art papers.
Water resistance
Since dye based ink contains water-soluble colorant, the colorant dissolves when coming in contact with water. With Epson each print has superb water-resistance, whether monochrome or color.
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Durability
The pigment colorant improves light and gas resistance. Since the pigment colorant exists in the particle form, only the surface is affected by light and gas, and the color inside remains vivid. Epson UltraChrome Ink utilises this property of pigment ink effectively achieving superior light and gas resistance.
Extremely High Archivability
Precision
Uniform particle size and shape: Due to the precision crafted head of Epson Micro Piezo technology, the UltraChrome™ ink can be formulated from highly particulate pigments. Epson Micro Piezo technology has the capability of producing consistently sized and shaped ink droplets.
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