Over the past two weeks I have had a chance to test two of the new
Epson printers with digital negatives, the 3800 and 1400. There is
good and not so good news.
First, the 3800. The 3800 has a 17" carriage and comes in a
relatively small footprint, just a tad larger than the 2400 and costs
just a tad more at $1300. It prints very smooth monochrome and color
prints with great detail. The pigmented ink set also gives good UV
blocking, so at first glance it might seem ideal for Mark's PDN
system. However, what I found with the printer tested was that the
Green branch, where UV blocking is greatest, gave a fairly grainy
look with both pt/pd and carbon. Quite a bit more than my 2200, for
example. Choosing another color in the Red branch that gave a maximum
density of about 1.7 gave very smooth prints. However, from what I
observed with this printer the options for alternative work are
somewhat limited. Perhaps the grainy look from this printer was an
anomaly, or if not, maybe there is a solution.
OK, then there is the 1400, a 13" carriage printer that uses Claria
high definition dye inks. The dye inks have very low UV blocking, for
example a density in green that reads in UV about 2.3 with the 3800
reads only 1.05 with the 1400. Same low values for all of the other
colors. However, printing a B&W negative in RGB with color chosen on
the print menu gave a maximum density to UV light of about 1.8. This
turns out to be almost exactly I have been using for digital
negatives with various processes. However, the lack of UV blocking in
the Green and Red branch makes impossible the use of many of PDNs
features. Still, the 1400 prints with a lot of definition, and when I
printed a 100 Step Table (in Photoshop percentages) the mid-value
high tones, which look fairly grainy with my 2200, were smooth as a
baby's butt, and there is also good definition even in a 1 pixel grid
on the scale. This is one of Mark's earlier step tables (prints about
7" X 7") so he will know what I am talking about in terms of the
detail.