Is the R2400 an RGB or CMYK Printer

[dtplink]

The movement in color printing over the past decade has been away from CMYK to RGB. There is always some transformation happening that we are not aware of. Scanners are all RGB. Prepress is usually CMYK and so on. All of my images are shot Adobe RGB, manipulated in PSCS2 in RGB (8 or 16-bit) and output to an inkjet (Epson 1280, 900, Canon Pixma i6600). The ink colors on the R2400 are Magenta, Yellow, Cyan, and Black (K), not Red, Green, Blue. So that must mean I should be viewing and altering my images with a CMYK preview on screen rather than the RGB one. Otherwise, "what I'm seeing is not what I am getting." The printer is making the transformation for me and doing what it thinks is best.

[weemannie]

I don't pretend to understand the whys and wherefores, but it is RGB :)

[UncleDoug]

You could classify your printer as a RGB device.
I't is not a true RGB device, like a LightJet or Durst Epsilon, but the software running the printer probably prefers RGB input.
If you soft proof in Photoshop you should get a good rendition of how the image will print, provided you have all your color management ducks-in-a-row.
There's noting better than first hand experience... Try printing the same image, one RGB (AdobeRGB embedded), and one CONVERTED to your favorite flavor of CMYK or the printer profile.

Caveat: Some inkjets are profiled as RGB devices to leverage extra gamut. So the profiles for your printer COULD be RGB profiles.

Once again, into the grey zone of color management.:D

[chriswade]

My understanding is that the native driver for the printer treats it as an RGB device even though printers are variations of CMYK devices. RIPs treat the devices as a CMYK device.

I know with the earlier Epson printers....with the native driver they would convert CMYK images into RGB the back again when processing an image.
Chris

[chriswade]

My understanding is that the native driver for the printer treats it as an RGB device even though printers are variations of CMYK devices. RIPs treat the devices as a CMYK device.

I know with the earlier Epson printers....with the native driver they would convert CMYK images into RGB then back again when processing an image.
Chris

[Bodog]

Since the output is CMYK (or actually CcYMmKk) I would call it a CMYK device. But since the required input is RGB, you need to treat it as an RGB device in your print setup.