Epson 3800 for digital negatives?

Kees · Dec 21, 2006

Hi,

Who has tried the new 3800 for digital negatives allready? If so, did you find any problems like banding, output roller marks with transparant substrates like pictorico and copyjet? As this printer does not have the vacuum mechanism for holding paper flat there might be problems with OHP curl and output rollers. Are these 2400 like or pizzawheels?

Apart from this the printer looks like a sound investment for the hybrid alt. lab but I like to read some good reports from other digital negative makers first.

kees

donbga · Dec 21, 2006

kees said:
Hi,

Who has tried the new 3800 for digital negatives allready? If so, did you find any problems like banding, output roller marks with transparant substrates like pictorico and copyjet? As this printer does not have the vacuum mechanism for holding paper flat there might be problems with OHP curl and output rollers. Are these 2400 like or pizzawheels?

Apart from this the printer looks like a sound investment for the hybrid alt. lab but I like to read some good reports from other digital negative makers first.

kees

Good questions Kees. I have a friend here locally that has one on order specifically to produce digi negs. As soon as his arrives I'm sure we will hear something. Apparently it may not be delivered until Jan.

Perhaps someone else has already received theirs.

Merry Christmas

Kees · Dec 21, 2006

Don Bryant said:
Good questions Kees. I have a friend here locally that has one on order specifically to produce digi negs. As soon as his arrives I'm sure we will hear something. Apparently it may not be delivered until Jan.

Perhaps someone else has already received theirs.

Merry Christmas

Hi Don,

I allready found out that the 3800 does have pizzawheels but according to this post on dpreview also has an option to retract them.

Merry Christmas to you too from the Netherlands

kees

sanking · Dec 21, 2006

Don Bryant said:
Good questions Kees. I have a friend here locally that has one on order specifically to produce digi negs. As soon as his arrives I'm sure we will hear something. Apparently it may not be delivered until Jan.

Perhaps someone else has already received theirs.

Merry Christmas

Well, I know the person in question and he has already paid for a carbon workshop with me, which we will probably schedule sometime in February after I return from Mexico. I am hopeful that he will have received the Epson 3800 by then and that I can convince him to haul it up I-85 and we can calibrate his PDN negatives with the new printer.

I am especially interested in the issue of venetian blinds since I have a mild case of it with my 2200 and it makes digital negatives of large smooth tone areas impossible. Mark Nelson says that the R1800 is the only printer he has see so far that completely eliminate this problem, but he too is hopeful that the 3800 will eliminate the problem. I am not so concerned about the pizza wheels since there is surely a way to lift them out of the way.

Sandy King

donbga · Dec 21, 2006

sanking said:
Well, I know the person in question and he has already paid for a carbon workshop with me, which we will probably schedule sometime in February after I return from Mexico. I am hopeful that he will have received the Epson 3800 by then and that I can convince him to haul it up I-85 and we can calibrate his PDN negatives with the new printer.

I am especially interested in the issue of venetian blinds since I have a mild case of it with my 2200 and it makes digital negatives of large smooth tone areas impossible. Mark Nelson says that the R1800 is the only printer he has see so far that completely eliminate this problem, but he too is hopeful that the 3800 will eliminate the problem. I am not so concerned about the pizza wheels since there is surely a way to lift them out of the way.

Sandy King

Sandy,

I'm sure Don will have no hesitation to bring the printer up. I've encouraged him to pick your brain about using PDN for digi negs. Sounds like you guys will have fun.

Don

Kees · Feb 9, 2007

Any new 3800 digital negative reports?

Hi,

I saw some remarks about 3800 digital negatives elsewhere on this forum but thought it might be a good idea to 'bump' this thread to get an overview of user experiences of 3800 diginegs on various substrates.

anyone?

kees

donbga · Feb 9, 2007

kees said:
Hi,

I saw some remarks about 3800 digital negatives elsewhere on this forum but thought it might be a good idea to 'bump' this thread to get an overview of user experiences of 3800 diginegs on various substrates.

anyone?

kees

Hi Kees,

I've seen the 3800 in action and IMO, it's the best Epson to date for making digital negatives. I've looked at silver gelatin prints made with Pictorico OHP and White Film and the results are excellent. The negatives were made with Mark Nelson's PDN software using the Epson driver so I have no idea how well it will produce digital negs. using QTR but I expect they might be very good also.

The latest version of QTR now supports the 3800.

Epson is also slated to release the 1400 using dye based inks. It is a more affordable ($400) 13x19 model with a 1.5 pico-liter dropplet size so it could also be a printer to watch.

Don Bryant

sanking · Feb 10, 2007

Don Bryant said:
Hi Kees,

I've seen the 3800 in action and IMO, it's the best Epson to date for making digital negatives. I've looked at silver gelatin prints made with Pictorico OHP and White Film and the results are excellent. The negatives were made with Mark Nelson's PDN software using the Epson driver so I have no idea how well it will produce digital negs. using QTR but I expect they might be very good also.

The latest version of QTR now supports the 3800.

Epson is also slated to release the 1400 using dye based inks. It is a more affordable ($400) 13x19 model with a 1.5 pico-liter dropplet size so it could also be a printer to watch.

Don Bryant

Don,

I worked with Don this weekend in making digital negatives with the 3800. Here are my observations.

The 3800 is definitely a great printer, and an image that I could not print with a digital negative from the 2200 because of Venetian blinds printed great with a digital negative from the 3800.

Although this 3800 is very smooth in making positive prints on paper some of the colors that produce a lot of UV blocking gave a very grainy look with digital negatives on Pictorico. This may or may be true of other 3800 printers. For example, G=255 plus other combinations gave a very grainy look on Pt./Pd and carbon. The best combination for smoothness was R=255 + some Green to give a DR of about 1.70. Printing a grayscale image in RGB using all of the inks gave fine grain and UV blocking of about 2.15, more than enough for pt./pd.

Based on what I observed I am very seriously thinking about purchasing a 3800, but because of the grainy look with some colors I have decided to also look at the 1400 before making a final decision.

Sandy King

donbga · Feb 10, 2007

sanking said:
Don,

I worked with Don this weekend in making digital negatives with the 3800. Here are my observations.

The 3800 is definitely a great printer, and an image that I could not print with a digital negative from the 2200 because of Venetian blinds printed great with a digital negative from the 3800.

Although this 3800 is very smooth in making positive prints on paper some of the colors that produce a lot of UV blocking gave a very grainy look with digital negatives on Pictorico. This may or may be true of other 3800 printers. For example, G=255 plus other combinations gave a very grainy look on Pt./Pd and carbon. The best combination for smoothness was R=255 + some Green to give a DR of about 1.70. Printing a grayscale image in RGB using all of the inks gave fine grain and UV blocking of about 2.15, more than enough for pt./pd.

Based on what I observed I am very seriously thinking about purchasing a 3800, but because of the grainy look with some colors I have decided to also look at the 1400 before making a final decision.

Sandy King

Were you able to resolve the wierd speckles he was getting on some of his palladium prints? I was kind of mystified by them. Interesting note about the Green ink branch and the Red too.

Don Bryant

sanking · Feb 10, 2007

Don Bryant said:
Were you able to resolve the wierd speckles he was getting on some of his palladium prints? I was kind of mystified by them. Interesting note about the Green ink branch and the Red too.

Don Bryant

Don,

I can not remember disucssing the speckles. Perhaps I was simply too focused on the very grainy look produced by the green ink. No question but that the red branch gives a much smoother look, but the DR in UV is limited on that track to log 1.7, ok for pt./pd. but a bit low for processes such as albumen, salted paper and VDB.

Sandy

davidb · Feb 11, 2007

Hmm, when I was choosing a colour for my negs on the 3800 I tried both the Red and Green branches and couldn't see much difference between them - in the end I went for a G:255+B combination.

I am using a different OHP material though (Agfa Copyjet) so maybe that explains why I wasn't seeing the difference - if anything the Red negs looked a little less smooth. Also, if there is a difference presumably it's primarily down to how the 3800 lays down ink, as the inkset itself is the same as the previous generation Epson printers.

donbga · Feb 11, 2007

davidb said:
Hmm, when I was choosing a colour for my negs on the 3800 I tried both the Red and Green branches and couldn't see much difference between them - in the end I went for a G:255+B combination.

I am using a different OHP material though (Agfa Copyjet) so maybe that explains why I wasn't seeing the difference - if anything the Red negs looked a little less smooth. Also, if there is a difference presumably it's primarily down to how the 3800 lays down ink, as the inkset itself is the same as the previous generation Epson printers.

So are you using Precision Digital Negatives?

Also what process are you testing for? The process tested with will have a large effect on the colors that you find usable or acceptible. IOW, one color combination doean't fit all.

Don Bryant

davidb · Feb 11, 2007

I ordered PDN, but it took a reeeally long time to arrive, by which point I'd sort of muddled through the process by myself.

And, sorry, yes - should have specified I'm only talking about negs for pt/pd printing.

donbga · Feb 11, 2007

davidb said:
I ordered PDN, but it took a reeeally long time to arrive, by which point I'd sort of muddled through the process by myself.

So why don't you join Mark's private support group on Yahoo? You can get a lot of good help there, IMO.

Don Bryant

sanking · Feb 11, 2007

davidb said:
Hmm, when I was choosing a colour for my negs on the 3800 I tried both the Red and Green branches and couldn't see much difference between them - in the end I went for a G:255+B combination.

I am using a different OHP material though (Agfa Copyjet) so maybe that explains why I wasn't seeing the difference - if anything the Red negs looked a little less smooth. Also, if there is a difference presumably it's primarily down to how the 3800 lays down ink, as the inkset itself is the same as the previous generation Epson printers.

I want to make it very clear that the observations I made were based on just a couple of days of working with the printer. Nonetheless I am certain that the printer tested, using both Pictorico and the inexpensive OHP material sold by PhotoWarehouse, gave much smoother results in carbon printing with the Red branch and with black than with the Green branch. And I did use PDN to establish the best color for a particular process exposure scale, and then actually printed the PDN tonal hue palette to verify smoothness. I will also add that for both pt/pd and carbon I go for a very high ES, at least 1.8 if available. On the 3800 I found this DR available in the Green branch, but a lower contrast (equivalent to maximum DR of about 1.7) in the Red branch gave much smoother tones.

Sandy

davidb · Feb 11, 2007

Don Bryant said:
So why don't you join Mark's private support group on Yahoo? You can get a lot of good help there, IMO.

Don Bryant

I applied - waited several weeks without word - and then had an email saying my application had expired! In any case, as I said, I think I've solved most of the issues myself now and I'm pretty happy with my results.

davidb · Feb 11, 2007

sanking said:
I want to make it very clear that the observations I made were based on just a couple of days of working with the printer. Nonetheless I am certain that the printer tested, using both Pictorico and the inexpensive OHP material sold by PhotoWarehouse, gave much smoother results in carbon printing with the Red branch and with black than with the Green branch. And I did use PDN to establish the best color for a particular process exposure scale, and then actually printed the PDN tonal hue palette to verify smoothness. I will also add that for both pt/pd and carbon I go for a very high ES, at least 1.8 if available. On the 3800 I found this DR available in the Green branch, but a lower contrast (equivalent to maximum DR of about 1.7) in the Red branch gave much smoother tones.

Sandy

That's very interesting Sandy - I might try a real world test when I have a chance. I went through a lot of experiments and got pretty fed up with looking at step charts after a while - not at all impossible that there was an advantage to one of the red combos that I overlooked.

In general though, I should say I'm for the first time getting prints from my digital negs that I'm quite happy with, and the 3800 is proving to be a much better printer for me than the previous 2400 and 2100.

sanking · Feb 11, 2007

davidb said:
That's very interesting Sandy - I might try a real world test when I have a chance. I went through a lot of experiments and got pretty fed up with looking at step charts after a while - not at all impossible that there was an advantage to one of the red combos that I overlooked.

In general though, I should say I'm for the first time getting prints from my digital negs that I'm quite happy with, and the 3800 is proving to be a much better printer for me than the previous 2400 and 2100.

David,

There is no question but that the 3800 is an excellent printer, and perfectly capable of making great digital negatives. I made a negative with the 3800 of a subject with a lot of high value even tones that was absolutley impossible for the 2200 and it prints great. That feature alone would make it a best buy IMO, even though the grainy look in the Green branch (which may or may not be specific to the printer I was using) limits somewhat our options.

Sandy King

Epson 3800 for digital negatives?

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