Epson 3800 Digital Neg Success

[BillSchwab]

Well... my excitement over the digi-neg with this machine has quickly gone away now that I find it prints with much less density on the OHP than did my 2200. I was able to leave black borders on my negs that worked as a border mask quite well. With the new negs I am noticing substantial fogging around the borders. A check on the densitometer showed the problem. Black borders on the 2200 yeilded a 3.5 - the 9800 gets only 2.3. I still get a DR of a little over 2.0 which is still good. Anyone notice this with their X800??

Bill

 

[mkochsch]

(Hand in the air) I have a question. What is the effect on the print when we start to bumped the contrast inchemistry so we can print negatives at lower and lower contrast ranges? Does going from 2.3 down to 1.9 really matter once recurved?
Second thing I'm noticing here is really one of the big problems is low UV yielding inks. I think you need to start looking at a different ink. I haven't had time to order them yet but I know they're out there (re: ArTainium Ink may be the silver bullet). Just my two-bits.
~m

 

[sanking]

Michael,

The reason you want to match the exposure scale of your process to the density range of the negative is to retain all 256 tones in Photoshop. If the DR of your negative is 2.3 and the ES of your process is 1.9 you will lose about 18% of the tones in Photoshop wiht the adjustment curve. In other words, you willl only have about 209 tones to work with. You could probably still make a pretty good print with the negative but it would not be optimum. The situation would be much worse if the ES of the process was 1.8 and the DR of the negative was 3.6. In that case maximum density would extend from 256 to 128 so your curve, and image, would have only half of the potential tones. With the older Epson printers, 1280, 2000P and 2200, this was almost exactly what happened if you made a negative in composte black because the mximum denisty was around log 3.3 - 3.6.

Low UV blocking is definitely a problem of the ink sets of many current Epson printers. The best approach with these printers appears to be the use of QTR to control the distribution of ink, or using QTR and Piezography.

The pigment ink set of the HP B9180 has very good ink blocking.

Sandy King

(Hand in the air) I have a question. What is the effect on the print when we start to bumped the contrast inchemistry so we can print negatives at lower and lower contrast ranges? Does going from 2.3 down to 1.9 really matter once recurved?
Second thing I'm noticing here is really one of the big problems is low UV yielding inks. I think you need to start looking at a different ink. I haven't had time to order them yet but I know they're out there (re: ArTainium Ink may be the silver bullet). Just my two-bits.
~m

 

[sanking]

Well... my excitement over the digi-neg with this machine has quickly gone away now that I find it prints with much less density on the OHP than did my 2200. I was able to leave black borders on my negs that worked as a border mask quite well. With the new negs I am noticing substantial fogging around the borders. A check on the densitometer showed the problem. Black borders on the 2200 yeilded a 3.5 - the 9800 gets only 2.3. I still get a DR of a little over 2.0 which is still good. Anyone notice this with their X800??

Bill

Bill,

The DR of about 2.0 is about normal when printing composite black with the current generation Epson printers. However, if you have your process adjusted to an ES of 2.0 the black border should still mak and not allow any printing through.

Are you printing straight pallaidum? If so, you may need to reduce the contrast of the ES with dichromate of Na2.

Sandy

 

[BillSchwab]

Are you printing straight pallaidum? If so, you may need to reduce the contrast of the ES with dichromate of Na2.

Hi Sandy, Yes.. I am printing with straight palladium and have tried using a little Na2 to success, but I try to stay away from the Na2 due to it compressing my exposure scale slightly. I just love the warmth and feel of pure palladium. Where the Na2 shines for me is in printing in camera negs not ideally exposed for the PD/PT process. With digital negs I have been spoiled by the ability to bend them ideally for pure palladium.

Thanks to Clay, I have begun working with QTR and am now getting much better results. I have to agree that the PDN process I was using with great success on my 2200 is just not suited for use with the X800 series of printers without some serious tweeking outside of the normal procedure. I am also noticing that I am getting much more smooth negatives using this method and have been able to bump my black borders back up to a UV density of 3.5. Coupled with a new film I am using by Sihl that has a base fog of only .17, I am getting a much wider DR to work with allowing me more use of palladium's larger ES. Still tweeking, but again very happy with this printer and pretty much sold on QTR with the K3 inkset on this monster.

Bill

 

[mkochsch]

Michael,

The reason you want to match the exposure scale of your process to the density range of the negative is to retain all 256 tones in Photoshop. If the DR of your negative is 2.3 and the ES of your process is 1.9 you will lose about 18% of ....
Sandy King

Not exactly what I was asking, but thanks for the reply Sandy. I think Bill actually answered in his reply somewhat but I'm still quizzical about the topic. Bill said he liked the "warmth" of "pure" palladium. So maybe what I'm hearing is palladium looks "warmer" (colourwise) at 2.3 than it does when it is chemically altered to print at 1.9 which to me is a fair comment. What I was asking is if the process is altered down to 1.9 (and the correct negatived is made to match i.e. Photoshop will still be getting "100 per cent") does the loss of a stop-and-a-bit of density really affect appreciable tonality in the print? Or are we in dog-whistle territory here? I guess this is coming back to the wee tests I ran on silver paper last month where I printed one photo using a #5 VC filter and another using a #2.5. The look of the tones seemed the same. The only appreciable difference was it was more difficult to make the negative for the #2.5 VC filter and the highlights were more susceptible to banding or "patterning".

Low UV blocking is definitely a problem of the ink sets of many current Epson printers. The best approach with these printers appears to be the use of QTR to control the distribution of ink, or using QTR and Piezography.
The pigment ink set of the HP B9180 has very good ink blocking.
Sandy King

I need to update to a bigger printer soon. Are you using original HP inks in that beast? Does anyone make a CIS for it?
~m

 

[sanking]

Sorry, I misunderstood your question.

Yes, there is a difference in tonal values between long ES and short ES palladium, though it might be hard to see between an ES of 2.3 and 1.9. With a long ES you get a longer toe and more highlight compression. A short ES mix gives a curve not unlike a silver curve.

There are many families of curves in Dick Arentz' s book on platinum and palladium printing that illustrate these differences.

Color is a factor of type of developer and the temperature of the developer. Ammonium and sodium citrate used at room temperature give neutral tones. Potassium oxalate used at temperatures of 120 F or more gives very warm tones. The use of warm potassium oxalate also increases the ES compared to the same developer used at room temperature.

I am using the HP inks with the B9180. Not sure if any third party inks are available as of yet.


Sandy King

Not exactly what I was asking, but thanks for the reply Sandy. I think Bill actually answered in his reply somewhat but I'm still quizzical about the topic. Bill said he liked the "warmth" of "pure" palladium. So maybe what I'm hearing is palladium looks "warmer" (colourwise) at 2.3 than it does when it is chemically altered to print at 1.9 which to me is a fair comment. What I was asking is if the process is altered down to 1.9 (and the correct negatived is made to match i.e. Photoshop will still be getting "100 per cent") does the loss of a stop-and-a-bit of density really affect appreciable tonality in the print? Or are we in dog-whistle territory here? I guess this is coming back to the wee tests I ran on silver paper last month where I printed one photo using a #5 VC filter and another using a #2.5. The look of the tones seemed the same. The only appreciable difference was it was more difficult to make the negative for the #2.5 VC filter and the highlights were more susceptible to banding or "patterning".



I need to update to a bigger printer soon. Are you using original HP inks in that beast? Does anyone make a CIS for it?
~m