Anyone tried Epson P906 (P900) printer for digital negatives?

[secondhandrobot]

Hi All -

I am interested in purchasing a printer for printing digital negatives for platinum printing.

The Epson printer that seems to be available here in Australia is the Epson Surecolor P906. As I understand this is the update to the Epson P800 - which as far as I can tell was okay for digital negative printing.

Does anyone have any experience with the P906 for priting negatives?

Thanks in advance.

[Oren Grad]

The P900, as it is branded in the US, hasn't shipped here yet, so it may be a while before anyone has experience to report.

[secondhandrobot]

The P900, as it is branded in the US, hasn't shipped here yet, so it may be a while before anyone has experience to report.

Thanks.

In theory though, there is no reason why it would not work right?

[Oren Grad]

Given the experience with prior printers in the series, it's a reasonable expectation. However, it does use a new inkset, so we can't be sure until someone has a chance to try it.

[secondhandrobot]

Thanks.

[Tin Can]

Our Epson friends do everything possible to thwart non Epson ink sets

The big money is in proprietary ink

[grat]

Our Epson friends do everything possible to thwart non Epson ink sets

The big money is in proprietary ink

It's a consumable, so it's always going to be a revenue stream.

While I despise HP for their inkjet cartridges that hold minuscule amounts of ink, that report they're out of ink when they're obviously not, that dry out and turn into a useless brick after 3 days of non-use, and then the slightest amount of UV light causes a total fade of all color... at the same time, if you don't take any efforts to protect "your" ink, the Chinese factories will knock out something that looks suspiciously like your ink (and might be made during 3rd shift), sells for half the cost, and ruins your reputation as a printer manufacturer.

[Oren Grad]

Please don't hijack the thread and bury the OP's question with non-responsive, irrelevant stuff. The issue on the table is whether the inkset used by the new generation of the Epson printers will do as well as the outgoing one in meeting the specific technical requirements of internegatives for Pt/Pd.

[grat]

Apologies-- ink is an easy topic to get sidetracked on. :)

[Oren Grad]

Apologies-- ink is an easy topic to get sidetracked on. :)

'Tis true... :)

More on point, I'm aware of one third-party ink vendor who certifies and supports some of his products for "digital negative" use - Jon Cone. On a quick peek at his website for the first time in a while, I see that he's managed to extend DN support to the P400/600/800-series Epsons. Whether and when he'll be able to do it for the P700/900 is another "sounds plausible, but remains to be seen" question.

[secondhandrobot]

Our Epson friends do everything possible to thwart non Epson ink sets

The big money is in proprietary ink

Are you suggesting standard Epson inks that come with the P800 and possibly P900 will not work for digital negative printing out of the box?

[Tin Can]

Not at all


Are you suggesting standard Epson inks that come with the P800 and possibly P900 will not work for digital negative printing out of the box?

[secondhandrobot]

After a bit more digging it seems the pro Epson printers I have looked at use 3 different inks:

Epson UltraChrome K3/HDR (sold with P800?)
Epson UltraChrome HDX (as sold with the P5070)
Epson UltraChrome Pro10

I see both the K3 and HDX inks being advertised around the internet as being suitable for transparency printing. But not Pro10 explicitly.

Looking at this link (https://mediaserver.goepson.com/ImConvServlet/imconv/a2b13b6c622dd0f18ef214b36569400798c6695b/original?use=productpictures&assetDescr=Professional_Imaging_Line_Guide_CPD-51784R2) it seems the only printer out of Epson's pro range that uses Pro10 is the P900 (and I assume the P700).

So this leads me to think that Pro10 is a new ink specifically for the P900/P700 range - and given these printers are not in the wild no one is likely to have any experience printing digital negatives with it.

So the question for those more knowledgeable than myself is: how different are the K3 or HDX inks likely to be from Pro10? My guess would be not that different. But I am hesitant to spend AUD$1700 to learn that something has changed and Pro10 is not good for digital negatives.

Otherwise I look in the classifieds and take a risk on an older 3800, 7800 or P800.

I just want to get platinum printing :(

[PhotoToyo]

I realize this is an old thread, but is anyone using a P900 for digital negatives yet? Been struggling with the printer recognizing transparency films (Pictorico & Inkpress), even with all of the "paper check" settings disabled (which are different from previous generations). Had some luck with enabling "thick paper" settings, but even then only prints on Inkpress at that point. Anyone else having success (or similar difficulties)?

[Alan9940]

I can't imagine any reason why the P900 (or P906) couldn't be used to craft digital negatives. If you want to go the software route, I believe Richard Boutwell's QCDN app supports the P900 (see bwmastery.com) or for a more DIY type thing take a look at: https://www.photo-historica.com/digitalnegatives; the curve provided might need a bit of tweaking, but should be pretty close. B&S are very friendly folks and more than willing to help in technical matters so you may want to reach out to them for help.

[PhotoToyo]

I can't imagine any reason why the P900 (or P906) couldn't be used to craft digital negatives.

Thank you for the software recommendations. However, it's a hardware issue that is keeping me from printing on transparency. It seems there's no way to disable the printer from "looking" for the leading edge of the loaded media (unlike all previous generation SureColor printers). While there are options to turn off error messages for "Print Meandering" and "Paper Mismatch," these don't seem to actually disable the print head form looking for the leading edge. Any success in printing on transparency seems inconsistent and is not repeatable. I seem to get 1 or 2 successful prints every so often, but with no rhyme or reason as to why it worked. A variety of transparency films have been tested, as well as varying media type settings.

Anyone actually have a P900 and printing digital negatives successfully and reliably? Also, I have no interest in a "sled" of sorts (mounting transparency film to a piece of matte board and loading as thick media). This just isn't sustainable in my circumstances.

[Greg]

Thank you for the software recommendations. However, it's a hardware issue that is keeping me from printing on transparency. It seems there's no way to disable the printer from "looking" for the leading edge of the loaded media (unlike all previous generation SureColor printers). While there are options to turn off error messages for "Print Meandering" and "Paper Mismatch," these don't seem to actually disable the print head form looking for the leading edge.

My Epson 4900 every now and then looked for the leading edge. I simply taped a 1 inch x width of the film piece of paper to the front edge, and told the printer that I was printing a size 1 inch more the length of the film. I believe that PICTORICO transparency film will work with s P900.

[PhotoToyo]

My Epson 4900 every now and then looked for the leading edge. I simply taped a 1 inch x width of the film piece of paper to the front edge, and told the printer that I was printing a size 1 inch more the length of the film. I believe that PICTORICO transparency film will work with s P900.

I’ve had better success with P5000 than I did with 4900’s. Disabling “paper skew check” and “paper size check” makes the p5000 work fairly reliably (this even worked fairly well on 4900’s). Sadly, this doesn’t help me with the P900.

As for the P900, I’ve tried both Pictorico OHP transparency films (premium and ultra premium), as well as Inkpress and a local one as well (which is rumored to be rebranded inkpess). Sadly, it’s not a matter of substrate. No settings or substrates seem to give reliable results. I’ve been running tests for several days and have maybe managed only 4 prints. That success rate isn’t going to work.

I’ll repeat my question. Does anyone have a P900 and successfully printing digital negatives?

[Besom]

Have you looked here. https://groups.io/g/QuadToneRIP

[secondhandrobot]

Just a follow up on my original question.

I went ahead and bought an Epson P906 to print digital negatives for platinum and palladium printing.

Took a while to make the actual printer work, had to power clean the print head quite a few times. But once that was done it prints beautifully on Pictorico ultra transparency sheets.