Digital negs for pt/pd on Epson P900 challenge

LaniD · Nov 3, 2023

Hello,
Got ideas? After printing several digital negs (from scans of 4x5 negs and digital files) for platinum/palladium alt prints on an Epson P900 with pictorico I noticed "tractor lines" going thru horizontally about a third up on the long side that are about a half inch tall. I've tried Epson tech support 3 times and the first person had me do maintenance which is fine but it didn't help then the second person not so much and then I asked for pro tech and he told me they won't support film in the p900 so try something other than pictorico and they definitely wont give me another printer. He was pretty adamant. Although fixons is thinner I'm willing to try it but I don't see how that will change the problem although one other person suggested it too. This printer is brand new at 35 days old and I'm not an expert at these printers. Any suggestions?

LaniD · Nov 3, 2023

One other note is that the glossy color and b and w prints I printed out don't show those marks...

LaniD · Nov 3, 2023

One other note the film is being rear loaded...maybe try front loading?

koraks · Nov 3, 2023

Welcome to Photrio, @LaniD
The bad news is that the pizza wheel problems have haunted these 'pro-sumer' level Epsons for, well, forever, basically. I have a 3880 and it's also prone to giving them. If you google a bit, you'll find many (many!) websites and forum threads dealing with this issue. Two possible workarounds come to mind:
1: Use the rigid media option. Tape the film onto e.g. a piece of matte board and make sure the image is positioned correctly so that it ends up on the film. I understand this works for many people as it should disengage the pizza wheels.
2: Remove the pizza wheels altogether. Apparently, some have found that they're not as crucial as Epson makes them out to be and the printer will work fine without them. I imagine this will naturally affect your warranty options.

So I'd suggest option #1, first.
I know there are several other suggestions out there, including adjusting settings like printing speed, platen gap, pause between head passes etc., but in my experience none of them really help (much).

Alan9940 · Nov 3, 2023

I assume you've checked for any clogged nozzles? Have you checked for head alignment? If both of these are good, I'd suggest playing around with various settings in the driver: try different media selections, print head gap, unidirectional printing rather than bidirectional, etc.

I doubt that Fixxons would change anything, but if you can't get it figured out I'd certainly give that media a go. FWIW, I print digital negs on a P700 with both Pictorico and Fixxons without issue.

Alan9940 · Nov 3, 2023

If it's pizza wheels, as koraks suggests, then I'd recommend printing with wider borders to avoid these marks. For example, I print 5x7" negs on 8.5x11" Pictorico or Fixxons and have never experienced pizza wheel marks.

LaniD · Nov 3, 2023

OMG I have the dreaded pizza wheel marks that I've been reading about I thought those were something else. Thank you all for replying. I've done maintenance checks and all is good there. I guess it's down to trying different things. When you print are you front loading or real loading?

nmp · Nov 3, 2023

Pizza wheels should be vertical, i.e. in the direction of the paper movement. You are saying horizontal. Would be better understood if you show a picture.

:Niranjan

koraks · Nov 3, 2023

Alan9940 said:
I assume you've checked for any clogged nozzles? Have you checked for head alignment? If both of these are good, I'd suggest playing around with various settings in the driver: try different media selections, print head gap, unidirectional printing rather than bidirectional, etc.

None of these things help fix the pizza wheel problem in my experience. Still worth checking for optimal print quality...

fgorga · Nov 3, 2023

I have a P800 but I imagine that my solution may well work with the P900.

To minimize the pizza wheel issue, I have increased the drying time from the default of zero to a value of 10.

This, of course, greatly slows down the printing of a negative. However, I don't print large numbers of negatives in a single session so this is not really an issue to me.

In the Windows driver, the drying time setting is found by clicking on the button labeled "Paper Config...". No clue about the Mac driver but I'm sure the setting is in there somewhere.

Also, I have found that it is best to wait some time (at least an hour? I have not done any systematic testing.) before assessing a digital negative. I have found that some minor flaws (including faint pizza wheel marks) in the print which are seen immediately after printing even themselves out (for lack of a better way of putting it) and disappear after letting the negative sit.

LaniD · Nov 3, 2023

Thank you again for your comments! In answer to the vertical printing note yes they are 'vertical' and going in the same direction as the paper movement. And yes I look at them again after they are really dry and the issue is still there even in the final prints. And I'm printing 6x9 on 8.5x11.

nmp · Nov 3, 2023

LaniD said:
Thank you again for your comments! In answer to the vertical printing note yes they are 'vertical' and going in the same direction as the paper movement. And yes I look at them again after they are really dry and the issue is still there even in the final prints. And I'm printing 6x9 on 8.5x11.

You should be able to reproduce the pizza wheels on a glossy paper. If so, then you can call Epson and complain about that. Don't talk about transparencies. I would be surprised if pizza wheels don't show up on other glossy media.

Speed as noted above can make a difference as the ink gets longer time to dry before it comes in contact with the star wheels. So suggestion to use the finest setting and longer drying time is a good one.

Other than that the only sure fire ways to avoid the pizza wheels are:

a) Take the damn things out - which is what I have done on my P400 - but then there is the question of the warranty of the brand new printer. Also the printing can be affected in the last few inches as the bottom edge of the transparency comes off the back rubber rollers making it un-moored in absence of the star wheels, which could cause problems. Printing smaller image on a larger sheet would alleviate this problem. I add an extra bit of security by taping the transparency on a larger sheet of paper at several spots all around and feeding normally from a sheet feeder.

b) Use the front loader. In this mode, the star wheels are moved up out of the way. There you would have to use a carrier made of a rigid sheet, like a 4-ply cardboard (works on my P400 but check the specs on the P900) and tape the transparency as above.

I don't know if you have printed the negative yet, but chances are that, depending on how smooth the paper is, the pizza wheels won't show up in the final print. So it would be good to check that as well, before making changes.

Good luck!

:Niranjan.

Rolleiflexible · Nov 3, 2023

I print negatives onto Fixxons with a P900 and have never had this issue. Try turning off bidirectional printing in your Printer Options print menu, and see if that helps.

I am surprised that the Epson support line is not more responsive. I posted a thread earlier about my problems with P900 paper path misalignment issues. The silver lining was that the Epson telephone support line people were unflaggingly helpful, even out of warranty.

The best solution, for you, is to try to exhaust every avenue for curing this problem without returning the printer for another. Epson sends out “refurbished” printers as replacements. In my experience, the “refurbs” are just repackaged defective units. Forewarned is forearmed.

LaniD · Nov 3, 2023

Thank you: Epson wont "support" my printer if I'm running film they'll only support problems with paper so they say. So they won't consider a replacement and I definitely heard about the "refurbished" units - aweful. I was surprised by epson as well maybe he was having a bad day since I did mention 'film'. oops - that is what I bought this for. I'll look for bidirectional/multidirectional. And yes the marks show up on the prints which are platinum palladium prints. And the marks don't show up if I print on regular glossy paper but I'm printing from a digital file there. And I am on the finest setting and slow speed with the negatives. I will try all of the suggestions here that I haven't tried yet thank you all so much for your help. I used to belong to APUG so it's been awhile and I'm glad you're here!!!

Dan Pavel · Nov 4, 2023

If it doesn't show on other media the problem could also be the Pictorico film being too old or improper stored. I only had such marks with an old, expired, set of DN film. The DN film emulsion is designed to absorb ink (and water, as well). If it's too old or/and stored in a humid and hot place it may become softer and easier to scratch. The remedy may be to store, for a while, the sheets of film in a dry place face-up. That did the job for me.

Rolleiflexible · Nov 4, 2023

LaniD said:
Epson wont "support" my printer if I'm running film they'll only support problems with paper so they say.

Your experience with Epson support is completely different from mine, and I spent months on the phone with them, and went through a number of "refurbs" along the way. Are you calling the support line for commercial printers? Epson considers the P900 a commercial printer, and I found their telephone reps uniformly helpful. I believe that number is (562) 276-7272, but I could be mistaken.

And that bit about not supporting printing on transparency media is nutty. Epson clearly does support printing on transparency media. In my case, it helped that my issues also arose with plain typewriter paper. But no one ever said that transparency media was not an appropriate material for the printer.

I have my issues with Epson's quality control with "refurbished" printers. That said, I was thunderstruck by how hard Epson worked with me to solve my P900 issues. I hope they did not change their practices after my experience.

LaniD · Nov 4, 2023

Thank you. I checked the film and it looks fine plus it's new from Free Style.

Regarding support I'm hoping that dialog was a one-off. That person in pro-tech seemed like he was tasked with being the "bad guy". I'm thinking about calling back Monday or Tuesday and asking for a supervisor or manager to go through this again. I will definitely go straight to pro/wide tech dept. And I am now working on changing the 'gap' with help and will report back as I know lots of others have run into this.

MattKing · Nov 4, 2023

I wonder if they misunderstood your reference to "film"? Is there another term used in their support material for transparent media?

LaniD · Nov 4, 2023

Thanks for replying and it could be that they misunderstood but supposedly the second person I talked to was in 'pro-tech' and I was clear that I was making digital negatives.

LaniD · Nov 10, 2023

Hello! I'm reporting back about changing the gap for digital negatives on the P900 printer settings and so far the pizza wheel marks haven't shown up thanks to Daniel Gregory. If you go into media installer and copy a paper profile and edit including changing the name, gap (bigger) and drying time (longer) and then pick that paper setting when you go to print which will be the film substrate (pictorico). At first i tried front loading under the artist paper category (in the media installer) but it wouldn't go in unless I taped the pictorico to a thicker substrate so I changed a photo paper category in the media installer and rear loaded and it worked. I've only done one but I'm considering that a victory so far!

koraks · Nov 10, 2023

Good! Glad to hear you seem to have the issue fixed. Let's hope it stays away even if you move to higher ink density levels in case the need arises (or RH in your working environment changes, for that matter). That's where stuff tends to get tricky. Then again, for Pt/Pd, you don't need as much density as for, say, salted paper prints, so maybe you won't run into the issue anymore.

Rolleiflexible · Nov 10, 2023

LaniD said:
Hello! I'm reporting back about changing the gap for digital negatives on the P900 printer settings and so far the pizza wheel marks haven't shown up thanks to Daniel Gregory. If you go into media installer and copy a paper profile and edit including changing the name, gap (bigger) and drying time (longer) and then pick that paper setting when you go to print which will be the film substrate (pictorico). At first i tried front loading under the artist paper category (in the media installer) but it wouldn't go in unless I taped the pictorico to a thicker substrate so I changed a photo paper category in the media installer and rear loaded and it worked. I've only done one but I'm considering that a victory so far!

I just use the plain factory paper setting and feed the substrate (Fixxons in my case) through the rear sheet feeder. That works fine for me. If the new flow works for you, then good enough. But generally the transparency substrate is nowhere near thick enough to require enlarging the gap in the printer settings.

LaniD · Nov 10, 2023

Yes thank you unfortunately that’s what got the pizza wheels to begin with so I needed a new solution plus I have a bunch of pictorico.

koraks said:
Good! Glad to hear you seem to have the issue fixed. Let's hope it stays away even if you move to higher ink density levels in case the need arises (or RH in your working environment changes, for that matter). That's where stuff tends to get tricky. Then again, for Pt/Pd, you don't need as much density as for, say, salted paper prints, so maybe you won't run into the issue anymore.

Yes thank you!

Don12x20 · Nov 14, 2023

I hit the P900 pizza wheel issue while writing the Kallitype, Vandyke Brown and Argyrotype Book. If you are in North America (perhaps elsewhere), the P900 does NOT lift the rollers for front feed. To do this, you will need to go to the Europe Epson support site to download and install new P900 software. You will then see this as the window when you drop the front feeder mechanism. Now you can select no eject roller. You will need to use the media installer software to create the proper paper profile for the OHP.Here is how you do it:
There was a 2022 firmware update that supposedly added a feature to the panel to lift the Eject roller that is causing the pizza wheels. But not available on the USA support site when I did the update in July.

SO….. A quick surf out to the EPSON EU site, and there it is ….

For P900

https://www.epson.eu/en_EU/support/sc/epson-surecolor-sc-p900/s/s1786

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For P700

https://www.epson.eu/en_EU/support/sc/epson-surecolor-sc-p700/s/s1785

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It loaded fine into my P900 – took a few minutes. And I am in the USA - it did not affect the P900 or brick it.
Don Nelson

LaniD · Nov 15, 2023

Wow thank you!

Digital negs for pt/pd on Epson P900 challenge

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Digital negs for pt/pd on Epson P900 challenge

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