Scanner/ Printer setup for 8X10 Promo Prints

[Brian Vuillemenot]

I'm looking to buy a scanner/printer combo for making smaller prints to use for submissions, samples, gifts, etc. It only needs to be capable of printing up to 8X10 in size, but I want results that are comparable to those acheived by drum scanning and light jet printing (at this small size). For my larger work, I will still rely on drum scanning and light jet. According to the article on scanners in the latest issue of View Camera, 8X10 inch prints produced from scanning 4X5 inch transparencies on the Epson 4990 are not distinguishable from those created using a higher resolution scanner. Can anyone confirm or refute this? How much difference is there at 11X14? Any recommendations for a printer to go along with this? Thanks for any and all advice!

[Ted Harris]

Brian,
We didn’t say they aren’t distinguishable but that the differences are difficult to distinguish. The biggest differences between the 4990/i900 and the ‘higher priced spreads’ is in DMax and accuracy of the scanning motors. The consumer scanners (Class I in the article) have significantly lower Dmax. Second, they are not sturdily enough built with stepping motors that have sufficient accuracy to consistently permit multiple passes to improve scans. The differences between the scanners becomes more apparent at larger sizes; some may not, but you likely will see these differences. Hard to say what your clients will notice. The differences are in the shadow detail more than anything else at smaller sizes.

Having said that I would strongly suggest, for your purposes, looking at the next step up, the Microtek 1800f or 2500f. The 1800f, at still less than $1000, is a real step up in performance over the Class I group.

Printing is another issue entirely. Do you want to print matte or glossy or semi-gloss/luster? The consumer printers such as the R800 arguably outperform the commercial printers for small size high gloss output but they don’t even come close for matte prints.

A lot of this, of course, is in the eye of the beholder so you need to decide the minimum quality that will be tolerable. Personally I am very picky and have not generally satisfied with the output of the 4990 or the i900 do use the 1800f and find that, carefully used, it generally produces adequate to much more than adequate scans if I am printing 16x20 or smaller. As far as printers go I would think that for samples and submissions, at least, you would want the best possible prints, likely those from an Epson 4800.

[Kirk Gittings]

Brian,

From my experience, I think you will find the 4990 and an 1800 printer more than adequate for the purposes stated above (though I use a 4800). My rule of thumb is for prints larger than 16x20 or with significant shadow detail on color prints I need a drum scan otherwise I can make the 4990 with Silverfast AI Studio do the job. I have done much comparison based on what I can do in a print (not abstract numbers for test purposes) against the scans of two local drum scanners with great reputations. One of them is also a guy who does alot of large printing for me. He agrees with my rule of thumb above, that in print comparisons there is no real difference on 16x20 or smaller (unless there are large open areas of shadow in color images).

Most of the new work for my retrospective show are digital prints. About 1/2 are done from my scans (all the b&w and some of the color) on the 4990. They stand up very well or trust me I would not do them this way. Money is no object on a project like this. Quality work can be done on the 4990 with SF but you have to calibrate your scanner, know how to use your software and have a very very careful workflow.

[Edward (Halifax,NS)]

Are there any good, relatively archival, printers for lettersize matte prints? I have been looking at the R300.

[Ted Harris]

Kirk is absolutely right that you CAN do good work on the 4990 but have to be very careful and need to know your software well. Calibration of both the scanner and the monitor is important too IMO. I still think you canget better results from a beetter scanner but YMMV and, as we have been saying, the differences are hard to see in smaller prints.

Edward, "good" is a relative term. In any event the R300 is not likely to be the answer. The R800 is as archival as you can get. It performs better on gloss papers than on matte but the matte performance is quite satisfactory. At the moment I use one as a production printer for matte notecards (although I will probably start running them on the 4800 when I get it to save on time and ink costs).

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Thanks for the advice, Ted and Kirk. I can see I have a bit more to think about before I make my choice!

[Kenn Rabin]

Just a quick reply, as I read the discussions of the various scanners with great interest and have some thoughts about printers. I have a Microtek Scanmaker 6700 and have clearly outgrown it -- very unsatisfactory shadow detail when scanning 4x5 negs (especially b/w). I'm looking at the Microtek i900 and the Epson 4990 for better density range, but will look further also, maybe spend a little more $$ based on what I read here. BUT, regarding printers, take a look at the new Epson R2400, which I recently got and LOVE, especially for b/w. It is FINALLY the printer for b/w, as far as I'm concerned, and I also (so far) love how it does color. The K3 inks are everything Epson promised as far as I can tell, no metamerism to speak of and the b/w workflow built into the driver is effortless. My b/w prints from 4x5 scans look good first time out IF my scanner can handle the scans -- as I said, now I want a better scanner to handle the negs that I know from printing them in a conventional darkroom have more tonal range (esp in the shadows) than I'm getting -- but it's not the printer, it's the scans . . .