Re: Digital Negatives and new Epson printers

[SusanV <susanvoss3@gmail.com>]

Sandy,

A little off topic of this thread, but your mention of pizza wheel
marks reminded me.... My 1280 is causing vertical marks on the
Pictorico OHP I'm using.  They are not inked marks, but seem to be
long scratches on the back of the film.  Any idea what those are?

thanks,
Susan

gravure blog at http://susanvossgravures.blogspot.com
www.dalyvoss.com

On 2/21/07, Sandy King <sanking@clemson.edu> wrote:
> Hi Markek,
>
>
> I used the very inexpensive Ultrafine OHP from PhotoWarehouse with the Epson
> 1400 and there was no problem at all. In fact, the Claria inks of the 1400
> appear to dry a lot faster on this substrate than when printing with my
> Epson 2200. I have not seen any sign at all of smearing and puddling with
> any of the colors, nor of any pizza wheel marks.
>
>
> With the 3800 I used both Picorico and the Ultrafine OHP. The inks did noit
> smear or puddle, but there were some pizza wheel marks on the Ultrafine with
> some of the colors, but not on Pictorico. I think this is because some of
> the colors of the 3800 dry slower than others.
>
>
> So far I have not made any color prints with the 1400, but reviews are very
> good. B&W printing will be another issue, however, as so far I have been
> unable to print a neutral tone step wedge, though this is not relevant to my
> anticipated use of the printer for making digital negatives. However, I plan
> to use the 1400 primarily for printing digital negatives  and early tests
> strongly suggest that it will print smoother than the 2200.
>
>
> Sandy King
>
>
>
>
>
> At 3:53 PM +0000 2/21/07, Marek Matusz wrote:
> Sandy,
>
> What transparenices did you use for printing? Did you see any evidence of
> ink smearing and puddling when  printing high density with all colours? I
> would be more interested in hearing if it can handle both cheap and
> expensive transparencies. I use cheap transparencies for negatives for gum
> prinitng and pictorico for palladium and everything else. I currently use
> 2200 so it is a benchmark for me.
>
> This seems like potantially a perfect printer replacement for me as density
> of 1.8 is exacty what I need for Pd and I have been using curves to adjust
> density lower for gum.
>
> How is the quality of the color print on that 1400 printer. Are the dye inks
> producing really deep rich colour?
>
> Marek
>
>  ________________________________
>
> From:  SusanV <susanvoss3@gmail.com>
>  Reply-To:  alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
>  To:  alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
>  Subject:  Re: Digital Negatives and new Epson printers
>  Date:  Wed, 21 Feb 2007 10:25:14 -0500
>  >Sandy, thanks for posting your reviews.  Really helpful info.  I'm
>  >still using my 1280, which seems to work well on OHP for polymer
>  >gravure process, but of course I wonder about the new printers...
>  >It's invaluable to have an alphoto person review them for our
>  >purposes.
>  >
>  >susan voss
>  >Polymer gravure process trials -
>  >http://sssusans-studio.blogspot.com/
>  >www.dalyvoss.com
>  >
>  >
>  >On 2/20/07, Sandy King <sanking@clemson.edu> wrote:
>  >>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.
>  >>
>  >
>  >
>  >--
>  >Susan Daly Voss
>  >www.dalyvoss.com
>
>
>
>  ________________________________
>
> Want a degree but can't afford to quit? Top school degrees online - in as
> fast as 1 year
--
Susan Daly Voss
www.dalyvoss.com