Double Sided Printing on the Epson 2200/3800

[Frank Petronio]

As part of a book-making project I'm going to need to print images on boths sides of a sheet. Right now I have a Epson 2200 with QTR but I'm considering getting a 3800 soon.

Any advice in general? And specific...

- Which matte papers have you used successfully?

- What is the best way to avoid getting ink smears on the second run through? The few times I've tried it I have occassionally gotten a smear on my 2200.

- I can handle the "flip" layout by trial and error and a ruler. Any other layout hints?

Thanks

[Greg Lockrey]

My first job with the 3800 was making 300 @ 2 sided holiday cards four to a sheet. The front was EEM and I used the plain paper setting for the reverse (inside). To my surprise, the indexing was spot on and I did not have any smears, wheelmarks, or the like for the entire run. As for actual two sided papers, I haven't used any yet. Since I was making cards, I needed as heavy as stock I could get for the cost. I wish there was an economical 300 gsm paper though. BTW, I do all of my layout work with Qimage.

[Kirk Gittings]

Crane makes a good double sided paper. Museo II ?

[Bill McMannis]

Frank,

I have had a lot of luck using Red River's 50# Premium Matte. Item #1510. I probably have run 1500 sheets (most two-sided) though my 2200 with no problem as far as smearing. Red River recommends reducing the ink 10% for this paper, but I felt it gave the images a washed out look. I just created a profile and have pretty good vibrancy.

[Brian Ellis]

Moab Entrada Fine Art Natural is a double-sided paper that I've used with my 2200.

[Helen Bach]

Frank,

I've used Epson Ultrasmooth Fine Art (also Premier Art Hot Press, which is available in lighter weights and in bright white) double sided in a 2200 with no problems, always using the rear feeder of course.

Innova supply double sided Photo Smooth Cotton in 225 g/m². I haven't used the double sided, but I know that the 215 g/m² single sided is available in grain short for letter and grain long for 17 x 22 (I cut it to 11 x 17 grain short), which may be an issue depending on how you bind the pages.

Best,
Helen

[Ron Marshall]

I've used Moab Entrada FAN in my 2200 doublesided without any flaking.

[Greg Lockrey]

Crane makes a good double sided paper. Museo II ?

I appreciate your suggestion Kirk, but with my clientel, I struggle with charging $.75 per A6 card with envelope. This is Toledo, not Chicago.:) The paper does look like a good one for Frank's purpose as well as the Moab Entrada and Epson Ultrasmooth. I'm sure the Red River is good as well, though I never used it.

Helen brought up a really good point Frank, how are you going to bind these? Simple combs? How large will the final page be?

[Steven Barall]

The Inkpress paper will work for you and it is reasonably priced. You can get it from B&H Photo. If you want to avoid bleed through, use a thick paper.

[Kirk Gittings]

I understand Greg, but Frank was talking about printing images on both sides right? It sounds like he needs a paper which is coated on both sides.

[Greg Lockrey]

I understand Greg, but Frank was talking about printing images on both sides right? It sounds like he needs a paper which is coated on both sides.

Not arguing that. I thought you were responding to me too.

I was responding to Frank's concern if the 3800 would index accuratly enough to print both sides. At least that's how I took it. Which I hope I answered. Added the part about my need for an economical heavy weight stock to see if there were any suggegestions while I was at it. That's all. Thanks!

[Greg Lockrey]

The Inkpress paper will work for you and it is reasonably priced. You can get it from B&H Photo. If you want to avoid bleed through, use a thick paper.

That's what I'm looking for. Thanks Steve. It doesn't always have to be high end stuff to get the job done. :)

[photographs42]

Hi Frank,
I have printed thousands of book pages and can give a few pointers. The books I produced were 9 ½”x13” plastic wire spiral bound on the short side with a leatherette cover. In the beginning we were going to make four books. To date, I have made over 100 books. They are printed on Epson 1280 printers, full color. These are for Architectural promo use. The 2200 and 3800 are pigment ink printers so some of my experience won’t apply.

Paper: I used 196 gsm Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Duo. This is an expensive paper but I tried several others (including some already mentioned here) and found that the Photo Rag Duo was the only one that was the same on both sides. The two sides of most double sided paper look the same but they don’t take the ink the same way. This may not be a problem for you but several of my images bleed over to the facing page and that didn’t work if the pages didn’t print the same.

Printer and printer issues: The 1280 is a dye ink printer and as such does not have a smearing problem. The pigment ink prints don’t dry as fast but you shouldn’t have a problem with smearing if you print several pages on side A and print side B after side A is dry. The 1280 is slow. At the peak of production I was using three of them at the same time.

Paper feed is also a problem on the 1280 and I don’t see where it would be any different on the 2200. What happens is that the feed rollers pick up powder from the paper and after a time will no longer draw the paper into the printer. When that happens, the only solution I was able to come up with is to wet a piece of cloth and hold it against the rollers while pressing the paper feed a couple of times. I never have this problem with glossy paper. Also, the printer will occasionally draw two pieces of paper in at the same time. This happens more often when printing side B but, of course, that’s when it’s more of a problem. My solution to this was to print several of each page rather than print pages in sequence. That way, if it double feeds, it doesn’t print the wrong image on the backside thereby ruining both of them.

Layout: Photoshop has the worst page layout tools imaginable. If you are going to print a book, you should use a publishing program. InDesign is the best IMHO. I used PageMaker for several years but upgraded to InDesign because of its ability to use color printing profiles. You don’t give us much information about your book but it will probably include some text. The Neanderthal text tools in Photoshop don’t even come close to the text handling in InDesign. The first two books I did were 65 pages long and I don’t think I could have handled that without InDesign or some other Publishing program.

If this is a serious book program (in terms of number of books and number of pages) don’t even think about doing it on the 2200. The 3800 I believe has the same paper handling properties as the 4000/4800 which is much more robust and its print head is much larger so it is considerably faster. It also has larger ink carts. I purchased a 4000 when the demand for more books escalated but my boss didn’t like the output compared to the 1280 prints. This was a dye vs. pigment issue where the dye images are much more vibrant than the pigment. So the 4000 is just sitting here taking up space.

If you have any other specific issues, I would be happy to expound further.

Jerome

[Frank Petronio]

Thanks. I am thinking more along the lines of doing portfolio pages printed front and back, with minimal type that can exist as bitmaps for what it is. I work as a graphic designer too so, no I wouldn't begin to consider setting body copy with PS.

A local bookbinder can perfect bind a set of inkjet sheets -- I can print a glossy wrap around cover on a larger printer -- so I think this might be good for a very short run of portfolio books. Of course I think the Epson prints look better than most offset, and certainly better than the POD books I've been experimenting with, so this should be the ultimate (but very labor intensive) solution.