Printing w/Hybrid Film-to-Digital B&W

I've been printing with an Epson P800 and Imageprint, but thinking this may not be the long-term thing. Love the printer, but wondering about the next step up in printer ink whether to look seriously at the Jon Cone and/or Paul Roark inks. Wondering whether folks have been down this road? My P800 is now out of warranty, and Cone has a breadboard circuit for getting around the "Epson ONLY" chip restrictions. But it ain't free, nor is it necessarily forever. Cost is about $300. Ditto for a set of inks. Like the whole cartridge bypass that Inksupply.com has come up with, but not for my Epson.

So I've thought about buying an old Epson 3880 or an Espon 1430 to experiment, but y'know... I wonder whether it's even worth it. Some of the guiding lights in the digital printing crowd over at Lumionous Landscape have suggested the new Epson P800 is so good these carbon ink approaches just ain't worth the squeeze. Not sure about that. And so rather than throwing money at this, thought it might help to find what folks here think. THanks!

I've done the Pizeography thing with Epson printers and found it to be tedious. I've also tired of Epson printers and their head clogging problems. I had to throw out 2 Epson 3800 printers when the printheads clogged beyond repair. I now use a Canon Prograf 1000 which is a 17" wide printer like the 3880. The Canon inks are expensive, but I've had no clogged nozzles in 1 1/2 years time. BW prints are beautiful using standard inks and Canon papers. regards, john.

I cannot speak to the Cone Inksets, or Roark inks as I do not use them but I have had prints made from Cone Sets so I have some background.

but I do print Silver Gelatin from digital files using Ilford Galerie Digital Silver paper, and I do print Black and White ink jets from a Canon IPF 9400 with their 12 ink sets.

FWIW - both methods make great prints - I think if someone says that X product is better than Y product we are starting to walk down the Magic Bullet wormhole. I have been lucky to see prints from all the various methods from the same files, as well I also took this approach when purchasing my Scanners... This allowed me to carefully look at images from a common platform... So IMHO I would say today we are lucky that technology has caught up to our perceived print expectations in many platforms...

The main reason for me to use one over the other is the attended audience or better yet buyer and their needs, and I make the type of print that fits those needs and expectations.
Also I would add that the type of equipment one uses must match your skill sets, without a huge learning curve to get over.

I have Epson C88+ purchased new in 2016 for 100CAD. No problems with clogging or non Epson cheap inks, cartridge. Very easy to print in BW mode.
But it is not for one who thinks what large prints are better .

Cone is popular with the photographers in this area because he is local, and he and the folks working with him have a reputation of being very supporting. I've seen some stunningly good prints made with his ink sets.
Bob makes a good point about matching equipment to your skill sets, while "learning experiences" can be fun and rewarding, great equipment that requires days or weeks of study can suck all the fun out of doing this stuff.

FWIW my indirect experience with 3880's that don't see regular use hasn't been positive, at the gallery I work with we had to ditch a 3880 that had clogged nozzles that couldn't be cleared. The P800 that replaced it has been churning out prints with no problems.

This is a helpful thread. Thank! Yes, the learning curve thing...is well... there are only so many we want to climb, huh? Agree with this 100%. I'm happy with the Epson. Inks are pricey, and even Cone's ink sets are less expensive. Don't know much about his color inks and/or whether you can switch back and forth or not, but it makes it intriguing. Imageprint has been relatively painfree ... most of the time. Problems typically relate to MS Windows "updates" disabling the Key Insert, so that you have to redefine the printer over and over. But other than that, it's not been all that hard to produce work that gets good comments ... more on my printing skills than my photos. Hmmmm.... maybe a compliment... maybe not, huh? Least I can do something right. At any rate, Jon Cone wrote right back so that's a coupla points in his favor, they offer classes, and it can help you get your way up the curve. Not a small matter... but very worthwhile. Thanks for your comments. And no, I'm not seeking the silver bullet wormhole.... been there, done that. Too many times.

My recommendation is to get the 3880 and use the Epson K3 Ultrachrome inks. If you print something once a week you should be okay avoiding nozzle clogs. The experience with mine has been positive. I scan negatives (2 1/4 and 4x5) with an old 4870 and can make prints easily equal to silver gelatin which I also do in my wet darkroom. Briefly, I edit as RGB in PS, then change to grayscale and tweak if necessary, then change back to RGB and with a Pixel Genius plugin add sepia 2 @60fill and brown tone @30fill and then merge to the RGB background layer. When printed on Hahnemuhle Baryta 100% cotton paper gloss (but similar surface to air dried silver gelatin fiber base) with my particular printer get a very slightly warn neutral B&W tonality.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

ImagePrint software is hard to beat IMO. However, and I don't know what the licensing verbiage states nowadays, but back when I used it it was tied to a specific printer and was hardware dongled. Great software...great paper profiles and lots of 'em, but... When my printer died I was out of luck with spending quite a bit more to "re-up" my license. As I said, this was many years ago and this all may have changed by now.

I had an Epson 3880 that died after about 3 years of fairly light use; it started "bleeding" pools of ink all over the paper! I tried EVERYTHING to save it, but had to toss it out. For me, that's quite an expense that I will not repeat! If I buy another 17" or larger printer it will be a Canon. I have a Canon PRO-100 that I picked up dirt cheap and I've never had a single issue with it. As another comment stated, the inks are on the more expensive side, but how much ink does one waste running head cleaning cycles on an Epson. Some have no clogging issues with Epson...I've had a LOT and I run my remaining Epson printer about every 3-4 days.

Many, many years ago I used the Roark inks and they're perfectly acceptable, but to get the best out of them you'd probably want to use QuadToneRIP and build paper profiles. It's not hard to build these profiles, but it's also not for the weak of heart.

One reason for Epson would be that digital negatives are easy to manage with QTR , I have not heard of people printing with a lot of luck on the other machines, may be wrong .

Epson burned a lot of people with their head clogging problems, but I've had an R3000 for years with no clogs. Even after months and months of sitting idle. I think the problems have largely been engineered out! *knock on wood* I personally do not think the Cone inks are worth the hassle. I make some pretty stunning prints with the standard K3 Ultrachromes by profiling papers, and then optimizing those profiles further. If I wanted to go vastly far out of my way to make a superior print, I'd do it in the darkroom.

Alan9940 said:

ImagePrint software is hard to beat IMO. However, and I don't know what the licensing verbiage states nowadays, but back when I used it it was tied to a specific printer and was hardware dongled. Great software...great paper profiles and lots of 'em, but... When my printer died I was out of luck with spending quite a bit more to "re-up" my license. As I said, this was many years ago and this all may have changed by now.

I had an Epson 3880 that died after about 3 years of fairly light use; it started "bleeding" pools of ink all over the paper! I tried EVERYTHING to save it, but had to toss it out. For me, that's quite an expense that I will not repeat! If I buy another 17" or larger printer it will be a Canon. I have a Canon PRO-100 that I picked up dirt cheap and I've never had a single issue with it. As another comment stated, the inks are on the more expensive side, but how much ink does one waste running head cleaning cycles on an Epson. Some have no clogging issues with Epson...I've had a LOT and I run my remaining Epson printer about every 3-4 days.

Many, many years ago I used the Roark inks and they're perfectly acceptable, but to get the best out of them you'd probably want to use QuadToneRIP and build paper profiles. It's not hard to build these profiles, but it's also not for the weak of heart.

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The imageprint RIP is still has a hardware dongel, but i,s not printer specific, it is width based. Eg you licence it for 17",24",48" etc.

Question at hand is given the complexity, whether it's better to just have at it, or to take a workshop and see what you learn. One thing that might be learned is that this is too much bother. That might be cheap tuition. On the otherhand, if the output is worthwhile, the tuition might crank you up the mountain fast enough to avoid some of the problems. Still pondering this, but from what I can see, Piezography is definitely a road less travelled. Doesn't make it less worthwhile... just means that it is a "look" or output beyond what many want to mess with. This could actually be a good thing as it puts you into a niche where you can have fun all on your own walking in the footsteps of giants. For those of us in the hybrid life with very little interest in darkrooming it, this might be the way to go... or at least A Way to go.

My Epson 3800 lasted 6 years and over 6000 prints with little trouble. Its replacement P800 is even easier to use. Rather than keep trying after market inks and paper for marginal advantages, relying on the expertise of Epson to make their products right seems logical.

Jim Jones said:

My Epson 3800 lasted 6 years and over 6000 prints with little trouble. Its replacement P800 is even easier to use. Rather than keep trying after market inks and paper for marginal advantages, relying on the expertise of Epson to make their products right seems logical.

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Only too true. The search for magic bullets has transitioned from special developers and additives to special inks and software. In reality, the time spent setting up 30 inks in shades of grey and blue would be better spent making pictures that engage the viewer on their own merit. The fine-art printing process should come later. Personally I have no problem with the luxury of paper choices these days. Meseo, Hahnamuhle and Canson make excellent stocks and I feel lucky to use them. Color prints on fiber paper. with the theoretical permanence of some silver prints, I'll take that.

I've got an Epson P9000 and a 9880. The 9880 clogs a good bit, but is easy enough to clean. If it ever gets seriously clogged, ammonia will dissolve the ink and bring it back to life. Of course, then you have to clean the ammonia, so it's a pain in the butt to deal with, but after years and years of using it, I'm quite familiar with it and don't mind its quirks.

The P9000 on the other hand never clogs. In the year that I've had it, with over 3,000+ feet of roll paper that I've ran through it, I've only seen it clog twice. Both times were easily fixed through the printers nozzle head cleaning function.

And in all honesty, I can't see any reason to change from the original Epson ink in either. Sure you may get a technically slightly larger gamut if you did. But I doubt that difference would equate in in a difference in the number of prints you sold or how your prints were viewed or judged. For all practical purposes, having the machine properly calibrated (using custom profiles and keeping them up to date) and using high quality papers (with custom profiles for each) give you results that are way beyond good enough for me. Aftermarket inks are a waste of money if you're after color accuracy, in my opinion. I'm sure other's have other experiences and opinions. But based on what I've experienced, I would avoid that route and invest that money in better RIP software and profiling tools (or a better printer).

Now I do use aftermarket inks in my tiny 4-in-1 desktop printer. But that's to save money, because genuine Canon/Epson/whatever brand inks are expensive, and I just use that thing for general purpose printing like invoices and shipping labels. No photos. All of the aftermarket inks I've tested in that thing fall somewhere between passable to terrible. So I'm not all together thrilled with the prospect of some third party being able to make a better ink when the quality of the print depends so much on how the drivers and print heads control the ink. It's like a band. You can replace the lead singer with a technically better lead singer, but that doesn't always make for a better band. It's not the individual performances that matter, but their collective performance that makes or breaks a song.

I appreciate the comments here. Quite helpful. FWIW, I even appreciate the "magic bullet" comment. But this somewhat misses the point of my inquiry. Yes, my current equipment is quite capable of producing very satisfactory prints. I'm happy with that. Fact is with color, I am quite capable of producing ooh-ahh prints that may suffer only from a need on my part to produce more equally good inputs (to your point indeed!). But what I would like to open up is the texture-ish carbon print in B&W which I shoot more and more of these days. I have not pushed the boundaries of ImagePrint as hard as I can in all fairness, but it is one heckuva program for creating prints, and I should try some of the toning variations that I've been reluctant to use before moving on. And that is the likely next step.

I find I'm curious about the Cone carbon aesthetic, and don't really see this with the Epson inks. Not that it isn't there, but the cadre of piezography photographers out there may be the only ones interested in it. Self selection perhaps, and it comes at a cost. Following a different thread, seems like you need 2 sets of cartdridges to adequately maintain the printer heads clean and clear, inks, syringes... it's a real commitment not just of funds but of keeping up with it. I don't have enough of what I'd call "qualifying images" to justify pushing in this at the moment. But I like to look long term... which is what this inquiry is about, and there is a link between the ability to produce images and the mind's eye that feeds back into the shooting process. Nothing like a print! JBRUBAKER's comment is particularly a caution. I've read elsewhere that the bang for the buck ain't as appreciable with small prints. This ups the ante quite a bit. On the whole, this is an Exploratory Inquiry for 2019 or so rather than a hot button. But thanks for the input.

Final note: Truth is that ALL digital printing is pretty much a time sink. That's why so few people do it. And for all the good that ImagePrint does, one update to the Microsoft Windows system and you're back at square one re-authorizing the computer. The doggone dongle is a PIA. But is the output worth it? When another photographer whose work I admire pauses to comment on the output and color tweaking... yes, I think so. But is it all a PIA nevertheless? Yep. But the shoot-develop-scan-post-print cycle is such a virtuous thing, leaving out a step is a downer... and not doing the best you can along the way? Ditto.

Epsons fail if they're not used constantly. Forget 3rd party sources, switch to Canon, be happy. Canon likes my pigment orders (Pro 10) so they've swamped me with their excellent papers for free for the past two years. Order direct online, free shipping. Epsons only advantage is printing on aluminum according to the local pro lab that operates 2 giant Canons but has to put up with Epson for aluminum orders (beautiful stuff).

jeffreyg said:

if necessary, then change back to RGB and with a Pixel Genius plugin add sepia 2 @60fill and brown tone @30fill and then merge to the RGB background layer.

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Are you applying the Brown Tone to the Sepia 2 layer or to the base grayscale layer

JWMster said:

one update to the Microsoft Windows system and you're back at square one re-authorizing the computer.

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I've had a similar problem in the past. My solution is to have a 2nd system that is never online. I got an old ex office Dell licensed for XP. Plenty fast enough for what I need from it. It currently runs my cnc machine and a box camera scanner that I seriously suspect of having malware in the driver disk.

If no room to setup a 2nd system, then a KVM switch will let you easily flip from one box to the other. Future proof.