Matt Black v Photo Black Ink

Most of my colour printing is done on photo matt papers but I do occasionally use glossy papers too.  My Epson printer utilises two full black inks.  One for matt papers called Matt Black (MK) and one for glossy papers called Photo Black (PK).  On my previous Epson printer (R2400) if I wanted to switch my media from matt to glossy paper I had to unplug the matt black ink and plug in the photo black.  the printer would then perform a head clean to remove any residual ink before printing.  My new Epson R3000 both blacks are installed but switching between them involves the printer flushing out the old ink from the tubes so there is no cross contamination.  Either way, it wastes ink so you don't want to be doing it too often or just for the sake of a one off print.

So what happens if you don't switch?
Well if you are using Epson ink with Epson paper then you probably haven't gone to the trouble to get any custom profiles created.  In which case you are stuck with switching inks as you cannot select any of the glossy paper profiles if you have matt black ink installed and vice a versa.
If you are using quality third party paper the manufacturers will supply generic profiles for that paper for your printer.  They will be on the paper manufacturers web site somewhere usually called ICC profiles.  You will need to select the paper & your model of printer and probably either MK or PK ink.  The profile will then be made available for you to download and install.  This is not a custom profile but normally these will be close enough.  For custom profiles you normally have to print of a set of colour patches which you send away to be read by a spectrometer and the resulting profile will be e-mailed back to you.  Once you have your profiles you can select them no matter which type of black ink you have installed allowing you to print on either matt or glossy papers with either matt black or photo black ink.

Matt Paper with Photo Black Ink
If you print on mat papers with photo black ink the results can look a bit flat.  The high absorbency of the paper means the black ink soaks in more and looks less black, more very dark grey.  As a result there can appear to be a lack of contrast in your images. If you are going to regularly use PK ink on matt paper I would recommend getting some custom profiles made up for each matt paper using PK ink and if you make sure you use them each time it will largely compensate for this problem.

Glossy Paper with Matt Black Ink
Printing on glossy paper with matt black ink is not generally recommended by ink manufacturers.  The ink looks dull (matt) on the surface while all the coloured inks will retain their gloss.  You will notice this when you tilt the image to reflect the light.  The ink will also not penetrate the paper so the black areas can be rubbed off.  Having said that, if you look at the image flat on you will not see any difference in colour or contrast from a glossy print printed with photo black ink and you can solve the rubbing off problem by spraying the image with fixative spray.  You can even get fixatives with a glossy finish so eliminating the matt texture of the black areas.

Verdict.
Swap the ink over if:

• you are going to be printing an image for sale or exhibition
• you are going to be printing a large volume so making it worth changing.

Leave the ink as it is if:

• you are just printing the off image for yourself 
• the images are not of high importance.

Ideally, you need to use the right ink for the right media if you want the absolute best results but we don't always need that level of perfection, do we?

Epson Stylus Photo R3000 printer

My printer died, long live the printer!  Up until recently I had been using an Epson Stylus Photo R2400 A3 printer for all my printing needs.  It was brilliant.  Unfortunately, printers, like all things on Earth, are not immortal and the inevitable happened.  It gave me an error message to say that 'components in your printer have reached the end of their service life'.  Yes there are fixes for this but all are temporary unless you are willing to fork out £200 to have it serviced by Epson.  I decided I wasn't so bought a replacement; the R3000.  

The blurb was impressive.  Droplet size nearly half the size on the R2400 means finer gradients and less gain when it's not wanted.  New Vibrant magenta inks providing better colour and having both the black inks (matt black and photo black) installed all the time meant no messy change overs.  In practice a lot of this appears to be mostly spin.

Good Points

• First I have to say that having both inks installed is a good idea and means I am more likely to print on glossy papers occasionally where as I am mainly a matt paper person.  It has it's drawbacks however which I will list below.
• The LCD display on the printer provides very helpful information with pictorial step by step instructions when needed.
• It's quiet, very quiet compared to the R2400 probably because the ink compartment does not move with the printer head while printing.
• It is easier to load think papers in this machine than it was in my R2400.  No more mis-feeds and if it does it tells you exactly why and how to sort it.
• The ink cartridges are just over twice the size of the R2400's ink cartridges which means less time spent replacing ink cartridges and hopefully less ink wasted in spent cartridges, but they are twice the price. 
• A real bonus - you can keep printing right up to the point the the ink cartridges run out without fear of ruining a print because the printer will just pause the printing while you change the cartridge and then continue where it left off.  You won't be able to tell where it paused.  This saves a lot of wasted ink and or paper.

Bad Points

• Switching between the black inks uses up a lot of ink by default.  The printer flushes the tubes that run from the cartridges to the printer head of any remaining ink and these tubes are quite long because the cartridges do not travel with the printer head as they used to in previous models.  You use 1ml of ink switching between Photo Black and Matt Black but 3mls switching back the other way!  That's a lot of ink from a 24ml cartridge and a lot of money wasted.  
•  The printer does not retain the settings you last used after it has been switched off but reverts to it's defaults once switched back on.  This could be a problem if you wanted your printer to keep to the Matt Black ink as the default is Photo Black.  So once you turn it on it flushes out 1ml of Matt Black ink and there is nothing you can do about it but think about all the money you are wasting and knowing you will have to waste a further 3mls switching back again.
• You can't leave the printer on for more than 8 hours without touching it as it will power off.  It is a good thing to have a auto power off option on a timer but to not allow you to leave it on permanently if wished is annoying especially as it doesn't retain it's last used settings once powered off.  
• It's bigger than my old R2400 which for me is a bit of a problem as it had to fit in an alcove and now it's a bit tight, but at least I don't have to feed paper in from behind.

Fixes

There is a fix for both these issues however but they're not exactly well publicised particularly the ink issue.  If you bring up the printer menu on the printer's LCD panel you can scroll to 'Setup' then select 'Printer Setup' and then 'Black Ink Change Settings'.  Here you can select 'Economy' instead of 'Standard' which is the default.  You will get a warning about possibly losing image quality but believe me, you won't notice it and it will save a lot of ink.  It still performs a short head clean but it's much quicker than it is on 'Standard'.


As for the default settings you can get the printer to stick to Matt Black but you can't save it as a default as such.  To do this in Windows you need to go to your 'Start Menu' and 'Control Panel'.  Select 'Printers'.  find the Epson R3000 and highlight it. Right click on this printer and select 'Printing Preferences'.  You will see the same dialogue box you get when you send something to it for printing but the difference is that here it will remember the settings even after the printer has been switched off.  In fact, the printer doesn't even need to be on to do this.  Set it to Matt Black or what ever default settings you want.  You can even set the paper type you most use but that is not so crucial.   Now when ever you turn the printer on it will remember these settings.  Just remember though, if you change the ink during printing from whatever you have set as the default and turn the printer off when it comes back on it will change back to the default you have set so if, for argument sake, you, like me, have set your default to Matt Black, but you have a stake of glossy prints to print and so you switch it over to Photo Black, should you not finish printing the images but decide to come back to it later, if your printer is switched off in between you will need to go back into your printer preferences dialogue box BEFORE you switch your printer back on to prevent it returning to Matt Black ink.  Why, oh why, could it not simply retain the setting it had when it was last used????

Over-all Impressions

I have to say I was expecting something amazing from this printer on reading the blurb and reviews.  Certainly a big step up in terms of quality from my R2400 so I was a little disappointed when I saw the results.  I printed an image that was identical to the last image I printed on my R2400 using the same paper.  I could see no discernible difference between the two.  OK, maybe if I had taken a strong magnifying glass to it I might have been able to see that the R3000's print was smoother but who looks at photo's that close.  Both images showed excellent detail and colour in my opinion.  The R2400 is no longer in production as it was superseded by the R2880 which is still being sold in tandem with the R3000 but cheaper.  The only real practical differences between the two is that the R3000 carries both black inks where as with the R2880 you have to manually unplug one and plug in the other and the larger ink cartridges in the R3000 but it not certain this will save any money.  So, what it comes down to is how much are you prepared to pay out for these two features?