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/ImCo...de_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
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)?
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.
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.
Last edited by PhotoToyo; 29-Jul-2021 at 15:08.
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?
Have you looked here. https://groups.io/g/QuadToneRIP
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.
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