Double Sided Printing on the Epson 2200/3800

**Greg Lockrey** · 11-Jan-2007, 00:13

Originally Posted by Kirk Gittings

I understand Greg, but Frank was talking about printing images on both sides right? It sounds like he needs a paper which is coated on both sides.

Not arguing that. I thought you were responding to me too.

I was responding to Frank's concern if the 3800 would index accuratly enough to print both sides. At least that's how I took it. Which I hope I answered. Added the part about my need for an economical heavy weight stock to see if there were any suggegestions while I was at it. That's all. Thanks!

**Greg Lockrey** · 11-Jan-2007, 00:31

Originally Posted by Steven Barall

The Inkpress paper will work for you and it is reasonably priced. You can get it from B&H Photo. If you want to avoid bleed through, use a thick paper.

That's what I'm looking for. Thanks Steve. It doesn't always have to be high end stuff to get the job done.

**photographs42** · 11-Jan-2007, 09:12

Hi Frank,
I have printed thousands of book pages and can give a few pointers. The books I produced were 9 ½”x13” plastic wire spiral bound on the short side with a leatherette cover. In the beginning we were going to make four books. To date, I have made over 100 books. They are printed on Epson 1280 printers, full color. These are for Architectural promo use. The 2200 and 3800 are pigment ink printers so some of my experience won’t apply.

Paper: I used 196 gsm Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Duo. This is an expensive paper but I tried several others (including some already mentioned here) and found that the Photo Rag Duo was the only one that was the same on both sides. The two sides of most double sided paper look the same but they don’t take the ink the same way. This may not be a problem for you but several of my images bleed over to the facing page and that didn’t work if the pages didn’t print the same.

Printer and printer issues: The 1280 is a dye ink printer and as such does not have a smearing problem. The pigment ink prints don’t dry as fast but you shouldn’t have a problem with smearing if you print several pages on side A and print side B after side A is dry. The 1280 is slow. At the peak of production I was using three of them at the same time.

Paper feed is also a problem on the 1280 and I don’t see where it would be any different on the 2200. What happens is that the feed rollers pick up powder from the paper and after a time will no longer draw the paper into the printer. When that happens, the only solution I was able to come up with is to wet a piece of cloth and hold it against the rollers while pressing the paper feed a couple of times. I never have this problem with glossy paper. Also, the printer will occasionally draw two pieces of paper in at the same time. This happens more often when printing side B but, of course, that’s when it’s more of a problem. My solution to this was to print several of each page rather than print pages in sequence. That way, if it double feeds, it doesn’t print the wrong image on the backside thereby ruining both of them.

Layout: Photoshop has the worst page layout tools imaginable. If you are going to print a book, you should use a publishing program. InDesign is the best IMHO. I used PageMaker for several years but upgraded to InDesign because of its ability to use color printing profiles. You don’t give us much information about your book but it will probably include some text. The Neanderthal text tools in Photoshop don’t even come close to the text handling in InDesign. The first two books I did were 65 pages long and I don’t think I could have handled that without InDesign or some other Publishing program.

If this is a serious book program (in terms of number of books and number of pages) don’t even think about doing it on the 2200. The 3800 I believe has the same paper handling properties as the 4000/4800 which is much more robust and its print head is much larger so it is considerably faster. It also has larger ink carts. I purchased a 4000 when the demand for more books escalated but my boss didn’t like the output compared to the 1280 prints. This was a dye vs. pigment issue where the dye images are much more vibrant than the pigment. So the 4000 is just sitting here taking up space.

If you have any other specific issues, I would be happy to expound further.

Jerome

**Frank Petronio** · 11-Jan-2007, 09:47

Thanks. I am thinking more along the lines of doing portfolio pages printed front and back, with minimal type that can exist as bitmaps for what it is. I work as a graphic designer too so, no I wouldn't begin to consider setting body copy with PS.

A local bookbinder can perfect bind a set of inkjet sheets -- I can print a glossy wrap around cover on a larger printer -- so I think this might be good for a very short run of portfolio books. Of course I think the Epson prints look better than most offset, and certainly better than the POD books I've been experimenting with, so this should be the ultimate (but very labor intensive) solution.