[alt-photo] Re: Epson 3880 and Snow Leopard

[Jeremy Moore]

The inkset of the 2400 is, I believe, incredibly similar to that of the 7800
I use for printing. My printer prints "normal" CDRPs. I am not on Snow
Leopard or I would run a test for you. I think if you are having the exact
same problems with the 2400 and 3880 that is enough circumstantial evidence
to rule out the inkset of the 3880 as the source of the problem. Is it
possible that Epson changed how or which setting accomplish tasks what tasks
with the new driver? Have you rechecked all of the sub-menus to see if there
is something checked on/off that maybe should or shouldn't be? (They often
add new default "features" which screw up what we're trying to do with )
Have you printed any photographs--not digital negatives--with the printer?
If so, how did they look?

A good test might be to shoot a jpg of a scene with a good range of bright
colors and tones with your digi-camera. Download this jpg to the computer,
open it up with an internet browser and print it on your 3880 using the
default Epson settings--I'm talking go 'idiot mode' on this. These printers
are all consumer models, which usually means the software is targeted at the
lowest common denominator technician. If the photograph comes out looking
"pastel" like the CDRP then your printer may be faulty. If the result is a
photograph with normal looking colors then we add a new variable: print the
jpg again via Photoshop and immediately print it (i.e. absolutely no
editing), still using the default settings. Bad and we've found the problem:
Photoshop. Good and you do your normal process for working with a photograph
for digital negatives--do everything before you do the stuff that converts
it from positive complete, ready image to a digital negative (i.e.
inverting, flipping, process-based adjustment curve, etc)--and print with
the default Epson driver settings. Bad and you know it's something you're
doing in photoshop as part of how you process photographs and you can break
that down step-by-step to test, but no reason to test it all at once. Then
again, you could also jump straight to printing the photograph using your
regular process on the images and the Epson default suggestions--that's why
I asked about the regular printed photographs. I think this is a good
experimental model for anyone having problems with digital negatives when
they think a repeatable problem might be anything but user error in
work-flow. I find that the technical level of those printing in digital
negatives and frequenting this list are above the lowest common denominator
and many of our problems are caused by struggling to use software not
designed with our needs in mind.

When one makes digital negatives using the Epson printer driver and we're
forced to update driver and/or we change operating systems we have to test
out and try a whole new host of workarounds to use software to print
something it wasn't designed to do. Printing digital negatives with the
Epson printer driver is an endless cycle of hacks to forceThis is due to
Epson only giving us partial access to what we need as digital negative
printers: precise control over how much ink is deposited on the page. I
believe this in and of itself is a great argument for printing with QTR. QTR
was not designed to print digital negatives specifically, but its design
more closely matches our needs. It was designed from the ground up to give
the printer (you, not the machine) full control of each individual ink. Due
to this you always have more control to directly address your problem with
by using the precision at your disposal to linearize your inkset. This won't
affect the quality of the prints at all as long as you stay within the
printer's acceptable gamut, but you're not reliant on someone else to fix
your problem so you don't have to wait for a fix to be found. If you put in
the work to learn how to properly use QTR you can linearize your inkset to
fix software issues outside of your control and get back to printing
photographs again--the whole point here. QTR is still at fault, though as it
is designed for a very savvy computer technician--no fooling, big learning
curve here for the techno-feeble. Ike Eisenlord has graciously provided a
Photoshop script to the community at HybridPhoto that automates quite a bit
of this process. The problem here, though, is that you are then back to
having something else mediate your direct control of your most fundamental
need: precise control over how much ink is deposited. Then again, if Ike's
script works for you then let it automate the process and spend the time you
would have spent learning QTR making prints instead--the whole point here!
The benefit with QTR is you always have the option to get under the hood, so
to speak, and modify the nitty, gritty to make the software work for you--as
opposed to the mysterious 'black box' your data is chugged through with the
Epson driver--I would think this is a sentiment many in the alt community
could embrace. This is analogous to a part of what I enjoy about working in
alt.

So Alan, in answer to your question--"Must I stay with QTR?"--no, but you
should =)

-jeremy-

On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 10:31 PM, Christina Anderson <zphoto at montana.net>wrote:

> Eric,
> the pastel tonal palette is what is printed in gum below it.  It held back
> NO light.  Usually on the color palette I get strips of white to black
> varying on each row according to the color.  As you can see, no variation in
> tonality.  No holding back enough UV light at all. So yes, the "print" aka
> gumprint is "dark".
>
> I can say that this easter egg phenomenon happened on the 2400 and the 3880
> with Snow Leopard and CS4.
>
> So it goes...
> Chris
>
> Christina Z. Anderson
> christinaZanderson.com
>