Epson 4800 negatives, K3 Ultrachrome ink

[jimcollum]

Am moving from the 7600 to a 4800 for negatives. Have no idea if the quality will improve.. but am currently testing with the PDN method.

so far, i have two curves so far

Green 255-B20
and
Green 255-R90.

have just finished getting them.. now on to testing each for noise/smoothness. Once i get them dialed in, i'll post them

(testing for Ziatype, cot320, Pd:Pt 2:1, 65%hum
dmin .06, dmax 1.45)

anyone else using PDN and the 4800? results?

i should be getting Ron/Brad's book tomorrow, and will give that a try as well

jim

[Ray Heath]

Am moving from the 7600 to a 4800 for negatives. Have no idea if the quality will improve.. but am currently testing with the PDN method.

so far, i have two curves so far

Green 255-B20
and
Green 255-R90.

have just finished getting them.. now on to testing each for noise/smoothness. Once i get them dialed in, i'll post them

(testing for Ziatype, cot320, Pd:Pt 2:1, 65%hum
dmin .06, dmax 1.45)

anyone else using PDN and the 4800? results?

i should be getting Ron/Brad's book tomorrow, and will give that a try as well

jim

g'day jim

so why are you moving to a new printer?

what quality are you hoping will improve?

[jimcollum]

g'day jim

so why are you moving to a new printer?

what quality are you hoping will improve?

well.. i have the new printer cuz of the K3 inkset (better for inkjet images than the original Ultrachrome)

why test the negs?
the new printer is much faster than the 7600.. and.. curiosity, i guess.. checking to see if there are differences. I get pretty good quality negs from the 7600.. but who knows

[Donald Miller]

Jim, I am sure that you have the answer to this, Does one gain anything in ink economy by moving from the R2400 to the larger Epson printers? This is of course predicated on the same size image or negative.

[Helen Bach]

You can, of course, use ink from the 4800 in the R2400, via refillable cartridges or a CIS. It approximately halves your ink costs if you use the 110 ml cartridges, better if you use the 220 ml cartridges.

[Donsta]

Jim

I am using the 3800 which has the same K3 inkset. I found the green to be very dense to UV but produced horrible grainy looking prints (pretty odd given that almost every previous Epson produced the smoothest digital negs prints from greens...). I subsequently have been using a Red and red/green mix and I'm getting very smooth prints. The red green mix (255R 140G) gives about 1.7 in UV density, pure red around 1.6. Also, the black appears to be very smooth too and you can get up to 2.35 from that.

There are some interesting things on the 3800 - I tried the ultrafine material from photowarehouse and initially had pizza wheels all over the place (wouldn't affect you with the 4800, because it doesn't have ejector rollers). The Epson driver offers you two workarounds for this - you can tell the printer to not use the ejector rollers and you can also have the printer pause after each path of the printhead. This allows the ink to dry a bit more before it gets to the ejector rollers. This method works perfectly for me on my 3800 with this material. Not only is the ultrafine material way cheaper than the pictorico OHP (about 30-40% of the cost), it is faster too - even when underlaid with a sheet of 3 mil mylar, it has a UV density of 0.6 vs the 0.14 for pictorico....

Am moving from the 7600 to a 4800 for negatives. Have no idea if the quality will improve.. but am currently testing with the PDN method.

so far, i have two curves so far

Green 255-B20
and
Green 255-R90.

have just finished getting them.. now on to testing each for noise/smoothness. Once i get them dialed in, i'll post them

(testing for Ziatype, cot320, Pd:Pt 2:1, 65%hum
dmin .06, dmax 1.45)

anyone else using PDN and the 4800? results?

i should be getting Ron/Brad's book tomorrow, and will give that a try as well

jim

[Donald Miller]

would the same work around apply to the 2400?

[Donsta]

I can't see why not - if you have the ability to slow down the printing, it should work just fine. You just need the ink to be a little bit more dry when the ejector rollers get to it. Ink obviously dries more slowly on the ultrafine than on Pictorico (which is why the ultrafine is more prone to the pizza wheels), but the end result seems identical in quality.

[Don Bryant]

would the same work around apply to the 2400?

I beleive the 2400 has a setting in the Epson driver (as does the 2200 and 3800) that slows the speed of the printer down to allow the ink to dry on the substrate.

If you use a RIP such as Quad Tone RIP to print with, this feature will not be available.

Don Bryant

[Donald Miller]

Thanks gentlemen.