Perhaps I might add my thoughts too.
I've seen quite a few prints on various water colour papers from Epson
Inkjets - including some were the same or similar work has been printed on
both Iris and Epson - and tried a few myself on Rives BFK using the Epson.
There are so many possible settings on the printer driver that the results
are quite variable. My thoughts to date are very much of a preliminary
nature:
I've found that without extra sizing the Rives is pretty hopeless -
unsharp and dull. With a couple of brush coats of 5% gelatin size the
results are similar in sharpness to using a coated paper - not quite up to
the level you can get with Epson glossy, and the prints are beginning to
look ok. The colours are still not quite as intense as with the Epson
paper, and there is a slight colour shift; reds in particular are
noticeable less intense.
Looking at the prints with a microscope the dots on the Rives are much
less well-defined and the ink is clearly being absorbed into the fibres
and spreading. One coat of gelatin gave some improvement, and those on the
double gelatin coat are clearly more localised and intense - though much
less regular than on the Epson gloss paper.
The best result I've got with this is using the settings for photoquality
glossy at 1440dpi. If you don't compare it with the glossy you would think
it acceptable.
I haven't tried other papers yet, but will do so. Some general thoughts
based on seeing work by others on Epson and Iris:
1. In all Epson prints that I've seen there still seems to be a slight
'dottiness' in some areas that you don't get with the Iris prints.
2.. Very dark areas in some Epson prints have a sort of 'bronzing' effect
- I think where too much ink is being applied. It seems difficult to
retain the kind of shadow detail I like in a good silver print.
4. There is a noticeable loss of sharpness if you compare the
inkjet with a silver print (not necessarily a problem of course.) I've
tried using some fairly large file sizes - which help. I don't know what
the optimum resolution is. The Iris prints also don't produce the sort of
sharpness you can get with silver.
Of course Iris prints can be made with inks that are far more permanent
than the Epson ones. There are replacement inks available which can be
used to refill Epson cartridges, but so far as I know these are only
designed to be cheaper and not more archival.
I'd certainly be interested in knowing the details of how others are
making good prints from the Epsons - paper type and any preparation, file
sizes/resolutions, driver settings, any Photoshop tips, etc. And - if I
get further results worth sharing I'll do so.
Peter Marshall
On Fixing Shadows and elsewhere:
http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~ds8s/
Family Pictures, German Indications, London demonstrations &
The Buildings of London etc: http://www.spelthorne.ac.uk/pm/