Epson 3800: Gamut Examples

Last modified: Mon Oct 08 17:21:36 Eastern Daylight Time 2007

I put together some interesting gamut plots for my Epson 3800. The purpose of these plots is to gain some insights into the suitability of various RGB working spaces, monitor gamut limitations (based on my own Samsung 19" 191T LCD display), and paper color ranges for two papers, Premium Luster (based on the Epson-supplied Pro38 PLPP.icc profile) and Velvet Fine Art (based on a custom profile that I made for this paper). All plots below are in CIE Lab.

Example 1: Premium Luster (eight plots)

First, let's compare the gamut of Epson Premium Luster (with the 3800, K3 inks, and the Epson-supplied Pro38 PLPP.icc profile) against various other gamuts: my monitor (first row), sRGB (second row), Adobe RGB (third row), and ProPhoto RGB (fourth row). Within a given row, the two columns provide different views of the same plot. In all eight plots, the Premium Luster gamut is shown in color, whereas the other gamuts are shown in translucent gray.

Premium Luster is a resin-coated E surface (luster) paper. Luster papers are known for high contrast and vivid, saturated colors (large color gamuts).

It is sometimes thought that printer gamuts are smaller than monitor gamuts. This may be true, but we can see from the first row that this idea is misleading. My LCD (which is an average performer and roughly matches the sRGB color space) certainly contains some colors that my 3800 can't reproduce on Premium Luster (see the light gray areas that poke out of the colored volumes), but similarly PL can hold many colors that my LCD can't show (see the light yellow, mid green, and dark reds and magentas that are poking out of the gray blob). Which gamut is bigger? The answer doesn't matter. The important point is that neither gamut contains the other: each one has colors the other can't reproduce.

Comparing the first and second rows shows that my monitor's gamut is a rough match to sRGB (see the gray blobs). As before, notice the large colored volumes poking out of the gray mass: this indicates that there are many colors that I can print on Premium Luster that won't fit into sRGB. This implies that if I use sRGB as my RGB working space, I will be limited to the colors that lie inside both the gray volume and the colored volume; I don't get to use the colors of that lie outside the gray volume. In other words, I'm not taking advantage of the 3800 + Premium Luster's full potential.

The third row does a similar gamut comparison with Adobe RGB. Although Adobe RGB has a noticeably larger gamut than sRGB, the plots clearly show that Premium Luster can still hold some colors that Adobe RGB cannot. This is most pronounced in the light yellows and the mid-to-dark greens and red/magentas.

The fourth and final row shows a gamut comparison with ProPhoto RGB. This RGB space is enormous and completely contains all the other gamuts considered earlier, including the Premium Luster gamut.

Premium Luster (color) vs. Samsung 191T LCD (gray) - View 1	Premium Luster (color) vs. Samsung 191T LCD (gray) - View 2

Premium Luster (color) vs. sRGB (gray) - View 1	Premium Luster (color) vs. sRGB (gray) - View 2

Premium Luster (color) vs. Adobe RGB (gray) - View 1	Premium Luster (color) vs. Adobe RGB (gray) - View 2

Premium Luster (color) vs. ProPhoto RGB (gray) - View 1	Premium Luster (color) vs. ProPhoto RGB (gray) - View 2

Example 2: Velvet Fine Art (eight plots)

Next, let's compare the gamut of Epson Velvet Fine Art (with the 3800, K3 inks, and my own custom profile) against various other gamuts: my monitor (first row), sRGB (second row), Adobe RGB (third row), and ProPhoto RGB (fourth row). Within a given row, the two columns provide different views of the same plot. In all eight plots, the Velvet Fine Art gamut is shown in color, whereas the other gamuts are shown in translucent gray.

Velvet Fine Art is a lightly textured matte paper. It is widely known that matte papers have noticeably less contrast and smaller color gamuts compared to luster papers. Nonetheless, we can see from the first three rows that VFA can still hold colors that the other gamuts cannot. Since the VFA gamut is smaller, the differences are less pronounced. For instance, in the third row, we see that it is only the light-yellow region of VFA's color gamut that pokes out of the Adobe RGB gray plot. As before, the ProPhoto RGB gamut (fourth row) completely contains the VFA gamut.

Velvet Fine Art (color) vs. Samsung 191T LCD (gray) - View 1	Velvet Fine Art (color) vs. Samsung 191T LCD (gray) - View 2

Velvet Fine Art (color) vs. sRGB (gray) - View 1	Velvet Fine Art (color) vs. sRGB (gray) - View 2

Velvet Fine Art (color) vs. Adobe RGB (gray) - View 1	Velvet Fine Art (color) vs. Adobe RGB (gray) - View 2

Velvet Fine Art (color) vs. ProPhoto RGB (gray) - View 1	Velvet Fine Art (color) vs. ProPhoto RGB (gray) - View 2

Example 3: Velvet Fine Art vs. Premium Luster (two plots)

Finally, let's compare the Velvet Fine Art and Premium Luster plots against each other. While it is true that Premium Luster has a significantly larger gamut overall, notice that VFA still has some colors (however few) that lie outside of Premium Luster's gamut. In general, the two plots below show that VFA is better able to produce light saturated colors, and Premium Luster has a larger gamut everywhere else.

Velvet Fine Art (color) vs. Premium Luster (gray) - View 1

Velvet Fine Art (color) vs. Premium Luster (gray) - View 2

Summary and Conclusions

From the examples above, as well as additional tests that I've performed on many other inkjet papers, I would conclude:

If you use sRGB or Adobe RGB as your working space (e.g., in Photoshop), then you won't be able to access all the colors the 3800 is capable of printing. These missing colors are usually the light yellows and the mid-to-dark greens and red/magentas. Use a wider space such as ProPhoto RGB to unlock these colors and make full use of your printer and paper's gamut!

There are many colors that glossy, luster, and semi-gloss papers can reproduce that matte papers cannot. However, perhaps surprisingly, there are also some colors that matte papers can reproduce that glossy, luster, and semi-gloss papers cannot.

There are many colors that the 3800 is capable of printing that cannot be displayed on normal monitors. Even the high-end monitors that cover approximately the Adobe RGB gamut cannot show all of the 3800-printable colors. This makes image editing on a display seem strange, given the inability to preview certain colors. It means, for instance, that it's possible for a color to appear more saturated in the print than it does on the display!

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