Page 3 of 8 FirstFirst 12345 ... LastLast
Results 21 to 30 of 75

Thread: Affordable printer for digital negatives

  1. #21

    Join Date
    May 2016
    Location
    Austin, TX
    Posts
    27

    Re: Affordable printer for digital negatives

    Quote Originally Posted by lucasleroy View Post
    Perfect ! Thank you
    No luck. Just tried so many different settings. It randomly made a print negative and I was so relieved. I used the same settings the next time and it didn't print. No idea what's going on. Looks like I'll have to go back to the 1430 and see if I can make them look good. Please do let me know if the P800 works as I might have to get another printer. Best of luck!

  2. #22

    Join Date
    May 2016
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    3

    Re: Affordable printer for digital negatives

    Quote Originally Posted by LesleyNowlin View Post
    I decided to purchase a SureColor P600! It was working great for about a week w/Pictorico OHP Transparency Film (TPU100). Then all of a sudden it started going through the printing motion but nothing was coming out on the paper. Then it started printing a strip on the side. I read on here yesterday that maybe I should try using Pictorico Ultra Premium OHP Transparency Film (TPS100). I just ordered some and I will let you know how it goes. Has been a very frustrating process. I had an Epson 2400 but it got old on me and broke. I really don't want to have to buy another printer.
    Dear Lesley, dear Lucas,
    I can confirm the experience with the Epson SC P600. It is a wonderful printer for all kind of papers and I am very satisfied with the results. But for digital negative transparencies I have exactly the same issues as Lesley:
    - time by time good results
    - frequently, unpredictably and pretty often transparency is accepted, printer is doing printing motion, but nothing or only a strip on the side is printed
    - MD ink is not working at all, PK ink time by time
    - transparency material I tried: Pictorico TPU100 and Avery Zweckform 2502 (office supply transparencies that worked well with my old printer)
    - tried systematically a lot of settings, but could not identify a parameter with significant influence
    I printed digital negatives for about 1 year successfully on an Epson 1500W with monochrom 3rd party inks, that worked pretty well.
    Any advice is very welcome, but at least I want to share my experience. Very frustrating for me as well, I am happy to read in this post that I am not the only one.

  3. #23

    Join Date
    May 2016
    Location
    France, Paris, Tours
    Posts
    12

    Re: Affordable printer for digital negatives

    Hi Stewe, thanks for sharing your experience, now i know i won't buy the P600, i wonder if the P800 has the same issue, i'll do some investigations and let you know what i find, otherwise maybe i'll buy it.
    Did someone try the Canon Pro 1000? I'd prefer to buy epson but if they don't work.. and i'm not sure about buying an old second hand epson..

  4. #24

    Join Date
    May 2016
    Location
    Austin, TX
    Posts
    27

    Re: Affordable printer for digital negatives

    Quote Originally Posted by stewe View Post
    Dear Lesley, dear Lucas,
    I can confirm the experience with the Epson SC P600. It is a wonderful printer for all kind of papers and I am very satisfied with the results. But for digital negative transparencies I have exactly the same issues as Lesley:
    - time by time good results
    - frequently, unpredictably and pretty often transparency is accepted, printer is doing printing motion, but nothing or only a strip on the side is printed
    - MD ink is not working at all, PK ink time by time
    - transparency material I tried: Pictorico TPU100 and Avery Zweckform 2502 (office supply transparencies that worked well with my old printer)
    - tried systematically a lot of settings, but could not identify a parameter with significant influence
    I printed digital negatives for about 1 year successfully on an Epson 1500W with monochrom 3rd party inks, that worked pretty well.
    Any advice is very welcome, but at least I want to share my experience. Very frustrating for me as well, I am happy to read in this post that I am not the only one.

    Hi stewe,
    thanks for the feedback. i'm glad to know that maybe now I need to move on to another printer. the P600 though prints beautiful negatives...when it would work, i agree! i tried the Artisan Epson 1430 and they print okay negatives...but not great ones. was going to see about the Piezography inks...but they only come in matte black for the 6 ink printers...so I wouldn't be able to print negatives. Lucas just told me that maybe the P800 is the way to go, with some input from someone who has printed negs on the P800 very often with great results. Might be selling this P600 for a P800 soon. Or maybe having one printer set up with b&w inks and the other one for color would be a good option...we'll see.
    thank you!
    lesley

  5. #25

    Re: Affordable printer for digital negatives

    Folks,

    I have a P800 printer here, but I haven't tried to print a negative with it because I decided to keep my old 4800 and convert it to black-only tuned for digital negatives. That printer is working really, really well, and I'm having great success with it.

    However, there are a few things that I learned long, long ago (starting with the old 2000P printer) that my be helpful with the P600 and also the P800.

    The first is that some people used to sandwich a sheet of film with a sheet of paper to get the old printers to print properly. You then have to be careful that the printer can handle the thickness of the sandwich, or you may get head strikes and banding. Not sure if the P600/800 can handle the thickness. I believe the P800 should be able to.

    Second, the Epson settings can be difficult. Some of the settings are specifically not for thick paper, and other ones are. Depending on the driver you are using, you may have problems with the printer getting it to accept and print on the film if there is a mismatch in the type of paper and the print driver settings. I strongly recommend that anyone trying to do digital negatives investigate QTR for printing. It avoids these problems mostly, and ultimately gives you much finer control over your negative than you can achieve using the normal Epson drivers.

    Since I have a P800, I can do some tests, but I won't do extensive tests with the Epson driver, simply because I don't use the printer that way. If anyone wants me to try, let me know, and I'll see about putting a few sheets through the printer as tests.


    ---Michael

  6. #26
    mitch
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Boston, GA
    Posts
    131

    Re: Affordable printer for digital negatives

    I use the P800 for my digital negs and my friend Dan Burkholder does also with no problems .
    mitch

  7. #27

    Re: Affordable printer for digital negatives

    Quote Originally Posted by wager123 View Post
    I use the P800 for my digital negs and my friend Dan Burkholder does also with no problems .
    mitch
    Are you using the QTR driver or the Epson driver? That makes a difference, I suspect.

  8. #28

    Join Date
    May 2016
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    3

    Re: Affordable printer for digital negatives

    Michael,
    thanks so much for the idea of sandwiching!!! I was close to giving up van-Dyke-printing, selling my SC P600 or whatever... with sandwiching my negative printing works again! At least for 2 negatives - I will try more extensive within the next days.
    What I did: "sandwich" my transparency on the lower border to a plain sheet of standard paper with a stripe of double-sided adhesive tape (as I do not use the full size of the transparency sheet, my negative is 1:1, I do not have an issue with the tape on the lower edge of the transparency, I will cut that area away afterwards). I used the standard-Epson-printer driver with my settings for digital negative print and changed only 2 parameters to match the thickness of the sandwich (as my printer driver is German, I can only try to re-translate): section "paper configuration" - paper thickness = max (13 x 0.1mm) / drum distance = max.
    I will keep you updated if that success remains sustainable. And if anyone should have a technical explanation for the success of sandwiching, I am really curious.

  9. #29

    Re: Affordable printer for digital negatives

    The printer may have an 'eye' in it to ensure that there is paper present. That sensor can be fooled by the clear film into thinking that there is no paper present.

    Part of the reason I asked about the driver is that QTR may not test for the paper, so it may work without that approach necessary.

    However, if it is working, then maybe that will be all you need to get it going and you can worry about making good prints

  10. #30

    Join Date
    Jun 2014
    Location
    Philadelphia, PA
    Posts
    18

    Re: Affordable printer for digital negatives

    I have a P800 that I have done a little testing with digital negatives for Pt/Pd—it is a great printer but personally, i think too much printer for negatives alone if you are not going to print 16-inch wide negatives. Even then, a second hand 3800-3880 converted to the new PiezoDN system might be a better bet (you might need to tweak the curves a bit though).

    If you are looking to get with minimal expense, then the 1430 converted to Piezography selenium inks can be a good option if you use a leader sheet to prevent the pickup/feed roller from scuffing the surface of the transparency material (and you will still need to work out the pizza wheels though). The nice thing is that you can use any number of different shades you want by using the EZ fill keys and capsules without wasting too much ink changing from one set up to another. I've used as few as 4 and as many as 6 shades for negatives with that printer for Pt/Pd and Pure Pd prints, and am testing it with Lodima/Azo more next week (the 3800 with 5-6 inks works well, but I'm hoping the smaller dots in the 1430 will be better for gelatin silver). In any case, I did find that I need to print on Ultra PremiumOHP—Inkpress and Premium OHP both bleed with that much ink.

Similar Threads

  1. Affordable digital back for 4X5?
    By John Conway in forum Digital Hardware
    Replies: 25
    Last Post: 1-Feb-2012, 20:51
  2. Affordable + Sharp, analog lenses for digital
    By Anders_HK in forum Lenses & Lens Accessories
    Replies: 22
    Last Post: 6-Aug-2008, 10:17
  3. Epson printer for digital negatives, is R260 enough?
    By Jan_6568 in forum Digital Hardware
    Replies: 10
    Last Post: 11-Mar-2007, 18:45
  4. Affordable Digital LF - How long
    By Bill Smith in forum Digital Hardware
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 14-Dec-2000, 23:04

Tags for this Thread

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •