Epson 4800 negatives, K3 Ultrachrome ink

jimcollum · Feb 28, 2007

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, Pdt 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 · Feb 28, 2007

jimcollum said:
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, Pdt 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 · Feb 28, 2007

Ray Heath said:
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

Anonymous · Feb 28, 2007

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 B · Feb 28, 2007

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 · Feb 28, 2007

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....

jimcollum said:
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, Pdt 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

Anonymous · Feb 28, 2007

would the same work around apply to the 2400?

Donsta · Feb 28, 2007

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.

donbga · Feb 28, 2007

Donald Miller said:
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

Anonymous · Feb 28, 2007

Thanks gentlemen.

sanking · Feb 28, 2007

Donald Miller said:
would the same work around apply to the 2400?

I am not sure the work around woud be needed on the 2400. I have used the Ultrafine substrate for several years on a 2200 and never had a problem with pizza wheel marks. I am currently experimenting with an Epson 1400 and so far have not seen any pizza wheel marks with Ultrafine.

Whether you have pizza wheel marks or not you must place a piece of thin mylar between a negative made on Ultrafine and the sensitizer material or you risk damaging the negative, especially if you are exposng with a vacuum frame. Even with the mylar sandwich negatives on Ultrafine still print faster than negatives on Pictorico because there is less UV blocking, as Don mentioned in an earlier post.

Sandy King

Helen B · Feb 28, 2007

Don Bryant said:
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

I've found that IJC/OPM prints significantly more slowly than the Epson driver at its slowest setting on a 2200.

Best,
Helen

jimcollum · Feb 28, 2007

Don,

I can't seem to get enough UV density with the red inks. I'm using the enhanced matte paper setting and a +20% ink when printing. The only areas i get paper white in are what i had posted above (G255+r90, G255+B20). nothing else gives me anything near paper white (i'm printing ziatype with a nuarc @ about 340 units)

Donsta said:
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....

Donsta · Feb 28, 2007

Jim

I am using premium glossy settings at 2880DPI... I'm not sure if there is more ink laid down with the glossy settings, but that may be the case. Plain red gives me just enough density for 6(FeOx):6(Pd):1(10%Na2) solution. With R255 G140, I get about 1.7 UV density. I'd also recommend having a look at using black too. The 3800 seems to be very smooth with black and has loads of density.

jimcollum said:
Don,

I can't seem to get enough UV density with the red inks. I'm using the enhanced matte paper setting and a +20% ink when printing. The only areas i get paper white in are what i had posted above (G255+r90, G255+B20). nothing else gives me anything near paper white (i'm printing ziatype with a nuarc @ about 340 units)

sanking · Feb 28, 2007

jimcollum said:
Don,

I can't seem to get enough UV density with the red inks. I'm using the enhanced matte paper setting and a +20% ink when printing. The only areas i get paper white in are what i had posted above (G255+r90, G255+B20). nothing else gives me anything near paper white (i'm printing ziatype with a nuarc @ about 340 units)

Ziatype likes a very high DR negative and with the 3800 I don't believe you can get enough contrast with any of the PDN colors unless you throw in some black with one of the color, or print the RGB file with all color so as to give a black negative.

Sandy King

rogein · Feb 28, 2007

My results are similar to Don's - the 'red' channel printing smoother than the 'green' on the 4800. I'm using a 255R 10B mix - don't have a densitometer but seem to have sufficient contrast to use a pd/pt 5:1 mix developed in KOX #2 (2d sod.dichro/200ml).

-roger

Donsta said:
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.

Kerik · Mar 1, 2007

I'll throw in a "me too". I recently purchased an Epson 3800 both for prints (amazing!!) and negs. I did a quick test yesterday using Clay's ternary diagram. Avoiding the green ends based on other's results I found that R190 and G32 gives me a UV density range of about 1.9. I plan to make a print tonight and see how it looks...

Donsta said:
Jim

I am using premium glossy settings at 2880DPI... I'm not sure if there is more ink laid down with the glossy settings, but that may be the case. Plain red gives me just enough density for 6(FeOx):6(Pd):1(10%Na2) solution. With R255 G140, I get about 1.7 UV density. I'd also recommend having a look at using black too. The 3800 seems to be very smooth with black and has loads of density.

Epson 4800 negatives, K3 Ultrachrome ink

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