An update on Epson's 6 color dyesub printers

I’m a dyesub nerd. I love the look of dyesub, and the challenges involved with achieving exquisite print quality. Epson proved you could get better color with only 4 inks years ago and now they are improving upon that with two more inks. Epson’s new 6 color dyesub printers like the 44” F6470H and upcoming 64” F9470H printer have 3 inkset options that determine which extra two inks you get, in addition to the standard CMYK inks. Light Cyan and Light Magenta for less printer dot and increased smoothness, Orange and Violet for expanded color gamut, and the crazy option: Fluorescent Pink and Fluorescent Yellow for expanded gamut and pop but less longevity. The printer has lots of nice improvements over the previous generation.

Advantages
Ink bags in horizontal shelves are more easily shaken
An enlarged touch screen LCD screen
Take up reel for high volume workflows
Enlarged print head translates to higher print speeds
Available in 4 color CMYK inkset (ex: F6470) or three different 6 color inksets (ex: F6470H)

CMYK
CMYK+Light Cyan and Light Magenta
CMYK+Orange and Violet
CMYK+Fluorescent Pink and Fluorescent Yellow

Disadvantages
Current driver for the 6 color “H” printers delivers unacceptable print quality
Cannot be calibrated with current driver
Ink Density Factor (IDF) cannot be adjusted

The “Fix”
Epson’s 44” F6470H printer has been shipping with a substandard RIP driver that inserts some wacky curves after linearization and profiling (as illustrated above). The end result is that it can’t be calibrated and the print quality is unacceptable. I’ve been working with Epson and Shades of Paper on a fix for this and am happy to be able to say we’ve completed our testing and it does indeed work. With this new LUT fix we are able to linearize the printer perfectly in any RIP and get the kind of results you’re used to seeing from Epson’s dyesub printers. 

The one remaining problem is that the Ink Restrictions, or what Epson calls “Ink Density Factor” (IDF) can’t be increased past 100% (either individually or together) for these new printers with the new fix. While 100% provides great results on products like Chromaluxe and SupernovaChrome, pros like to determine the optimal IDF settings for these and especially for unusual substrates. I really like the new 6 color printers and all the many advantages they offer, and this one limitation is my only complaint with them. 

Epson will release a new RIP driver that you’ll be able to update through your RIP when it becomes available. Check their support page for the latest on this.  In the meantime, I can install this fix on client’s workstations and get them up to speed with this and calibrated for optimal results. This fix, along with optimal transfer paper, the ChromaMax calibration method, and heat press operational training, are the key to perfect dyesub results with minimal waste. 

May 2025 Update
So I’ve been working with the F6470 and F6470H printers a long time now with a variety of RIPs and thought it might be good to make some observations.

It’s informing to work with the F6470 and F6470H side by side on the same RIP. The F6470 is very much a continuation of the F6300 and previous printers in that it uses a 4 color inkset, has similar saturation (chroma) levels as it predecessors and calibrates as expected with the Ink Destiny Factor sliders behaving as expected using the traditional “Thick Paper – Rigiid” setting in any RIP. I love calibrating this printer as I can tweak the Ink Destiny Factor sliders to maximize saturation levels on the color channels and set Black Dmax where I’d it to be prior to linearization and profiling. The end result makes all the difference.

The F6470H continues to have a number of drawbacks and frustrating bottlenecks. To start with, the use of light Magenta and Cyan inks translates to a loss of saturation in these two channels. The number of passes chosen has an effect on the saturation levels (and print speeds) but even at the highest setting the saturation levels don’t quite hit what we’ve seen with the four color F6470 and previous printers. Still, I have found that I can get excellent matching between the F6470H and epson’s 4 color printers when playing close attention to the per channel CMY chroma and K Dmax levels. There will be a measurable, but hard to see difference in saturation levels in the cyans, magenta, blues and reds. To achieve this match I calibrate the F6470 in a 6pass HD mode and the F6470H in a 12.9 pass HD mode in Wasatch for example, with equivalents in other RIPs.

While the benefit to these extra inks is a less obvious printer dot, or graininess in the final print, products like Chromaluxe incorporate a dot smoothing coating technology which negates the need for these extra inks. Mugs and the many other products do not incorporate this dot smoothing coating technology will show less graininess because of these light inks. The Ink Density Sliders don’t behave as expected or at all on this printer so the RIP’s Ink Restrictions can only be used to reduce, not increase, per channel ink consumption.

I’ve worked with Epson to develop and test new drivers for the F6470H and have lost confidence in their ability to develop a good RIP driver with working Ink Density Factor sliders for the 6 color printers.

My gut feeling here is to encourage clients to skip the 6 color F6470H printer and get the 4 color F6470 instead. There may be a small number of users that might be willing to sacrifice some saturation for less printer dot graininess on non-chromaluxe substrates but I think this is a very small minority.

I do love optimizing dyesub workflows. Please let me know if you’d like to discuss this further.