High Quality Digital Photographic Printing at Home
Saturday, June 26, 2004
This post on Yahoo DigitalBlackAndWhiteThePrint group suggested that Epson recommends using Printer ICC: Off and Color Controls/Automatic Mode in driver setup for printing B&W. I tried it, and indeed, the resulting B&W gray wedges and Tanya III came out much more neutral (almost ideally neutral), compared to the output produced by configuring the driver for No Color Adjustment and using the the supplied printer profile. While I find this aesthetically disturbing, I'll take the superior (in neutrality) results produced in this way over the highly-non-neutral results of the more "kosher" way of doing things any day.
Further, other posts on the group suggested that B&W prints on Epson 4000 (apparently, those folks used the No Color Management setup as I did, and then used the printer-supplied profile in the printing software) are very far from neutral, in contrast to what Luminous Landscape review stated.
Friday, June 25, 2004
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Epson 4000 came.
Installation woes:
Epson has updated driver, some additional software, and firmware on the site. I downloaded it all, but the instructions in the zip files are not valid (i.e., they tell you to use Control Panel Add/Remove section
to remove the old driver, but the driver does not show up there). I first installed the supplied-CD version
of the software (Driver versoin 5.30), and then installed the updated driver (5.34). Unfortunately, this resulted in the Epson Monitor (which shows ink levels) disappearing from the icon set at bottom right of the screen (where the clock lives). Further, when I print from QImage now, the ink levels are NOT displayed. This is very irritating, but I guess it is better to have the latest driver.
Tests I have done so far:
* Bronzing on Premium Luster Paper:
Present as on R800 w/o using gloss optimizer. This is expected.
* Gray wedges on Enhanced Matte and Premium Luster.
Far from neutral, possibly worse than R800 in this regard. Strong magenta cast in upper midtones, and strong cyan cast in lower midtones/shadows. Very disappointing, especially in lew of Luminous Landscape description of the B/W results from default Epson 4000 profile being very neutral. The paper choice hand little to no effect on this.
* Choosing highest quality and slightly lower quality (e.g., trying with/without SuperX microweave).
No perceptible difference.
* Comparing 1440dpi (max for Epson Enhanced Matte paper) and 2880dpi (max for Epson Premium Luster Paper)
The resolution of the latter is preceptibly better than the former, but this is probably only visible because I used extremely fine detail test pattern, and is unlikely to be easily detectable in a regular photo print.
Admittedly, this is not a very thorough test.
* Printing BO (Black Only) gray wedge.
It is not neutral -- it has a warm cast, and the dot pattern, especially in highlights (as predicted) is quite noticeable. However, at least the cast is uniform, which is far preferable for the ugly non-uniform casts of my gray wedge test above.
* Printing BO (Black Only) B/W photograph.
Horrible results. The print looks completely washed out, with extremely low tonal resolution, i.e., patches of gray showing up where on display there are numeous clearly discernable shades of gray. Unless I am doing something terribly wrong, therefore, BO printing more is unusable.
Friday, June 18, 2004
Justin at Digital Art Supplies (877-534-4278) was very helpful in answering my questions about different kinds of paper, roll vs. sheet, etc., in preparation for my soon-to-arrive Epson 4000.
* They will have Epson Ultra Smooth in 17" rolls in a couple weeks (or so says Epson).
* Epson Ultra Smooth has a much better Dmax than Epson Enhanced Matte. In fact, it holds up well when compared with such Dmax monsters as Hahnemuhle Photorag 308, though it is admittedly a little weaker.
* Roll is much more economical when printing custom size prints, but sheets are actually easier when one needs to print out lots of same-size photos, e.g., 8"x10".
* The heavier the roll paper (e.g., Photorag 308 is much heavier than Photorag 188) the harder it looses its curl after being printed.
* Light weight paper has a good chance to loose its curl during the printing, and if not, will do so after sitting out on a flat surface for a while, possibly under weight.
* Hahnemuhle 188 and 308 are not different in any way other than weight. Same goes for Epson Ultra Smooth different weights.
Based on this information, as well as multiple recommendations of Epson Ultra Smooth by others, primarily due to its excellent Dmax and no flakiness, I have decided to standardize on Epson Ultra Smooth. This will mean, alas, some wait, until it becomes available (I have about 100 sheets of Photorag in 8.5x11 to keep me busy till then), but is definitely the way to go because:
1) I don't want to deal with flakiness.
2) Photorag is more expensive, especially when not on sale.
3) I want to use Epson brand paper (smaller likelyhood of problems).
4) I can order custom spectrophotometer-based profile made for it.
