Digital negative with Epson's 2100

[Manuel Gomes Teixeira]

Hi all



Finally I’ve bought the Epson 2100 and together with Dan Burkholder Inkjet Negative Companion I’ve tried to make them work together when I realized that the paper settings choices with the 2100 driver are different from the 2200. The settings advised using Pictorico OHP Film are Enhanced Matte Paper at 2880 dpi, but in the 2100 driver the only paper options at 2880dpi are for Glossy Paper- Photo weight and Premium Semigloss Photo Paper. For the Archival Matte Paper and the Watercolor Paper Radiant White maximum print resolution is 1440 dpi.

I’ve download the 2200 Driver but it didn’t work with the 2100. What settings should I use with the 2100 to match the results described by Bourkholder ? Can you help me here ? This can be very useful for me and others european users of this printer at the production of digital negatives with Pictorico.

Kindest regards from Portugal

Manuel Gomes Teixeira Punctum Studios- Primitive Photography Portugal

c

[Roger Hein]

Manual,

I can't help you with your specific question on the 2100 but will add that I've been playing with the 2200/OHP using Burkholders curves as a starting guide. I found in order to get enough density in the printed neg for my application (pt/pd printing on Platine w/minimal contrast additive) required that I use the 'watercolour paper' setting. Right now my density is good, my overall contrast is good but I am having difficulty eliminating the 'grain' seen in the mid to light print tones. I've tried the alternate approach - using a colourized neg but the problem remains. I also tried things like Genuine Fractals to see if the 'upsizing' was the cause but it didn't help. My final print size is not large - only 6"x8". Overall very frustrating.

Cheers, Roger....

[Larry Gebhardt]

I don't have a good answer to your problem. But I have tried to get a decent negative on Pictorico OHP with the 2200 and Burkholder's settings and I couldn't. The negatives had obvious banding issues and were not smooth. So I gave up on making digital inkjet negatives for platinum. If you only want to print on silver paper the Pictorico Higloss White film works very well - but it blocks UV. Good luck.

[tim atherton]

Huh - just checked the specs - isn't that weird about the 2200/2100 - considering they are esentially the same printer.

Have you double checked to see if the latest epson driver lets you print at 2880 with those papers? I also wonder what would happen if you tried to install the latest 2200 driver from the Epson USA site...

Finally - I haven't really fiddled with the digital neg stuff that much yet - it's on the "to do" list. I presume you are using the latest update to the book he has and 2200 settings from his website?

[Manuel Gomes Teixeira]

Tim,

Thanks for your reply. I've tried the 2200 driver from Epson but didn't recognized my printer. But that is not all. I'm using a Mac and my first try was with the driver intalled in the old system 9.1, but after trying the driver with a friend's mac with Phanter System , the paper options were much larger and matte paper appeared with the 2880 option ! In my computer I only had the first version of system X and the available settings were the same as system 9 !!! My god , I have this printer on my desk already for 4 days and only printed a miniature negative with pictorico !!!! I'm going to sell it and return to my pt/pd printing 8x10 Canham in camera negatives :-) !!

And yes I'm using Bukholder's last 2200 settings !

Thanks again

Regards

Manuel