Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: ZoranC on February 02, 2012, 06:20:48 pm
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I have ordered Epson 3880 that should be here soon. One thing I became aware of during my research of the printer is that sometimes it leaves pizza wheel marks. When I talked to Epson pre-sales support about them they claimed that I will not experience them with Epson papers, that they occur only when using 3rd party papers.
Naturally, when my printer arrives I would like to test whether I will be experiencing pizza wheel marks with my copy. For that purpose I would need your advice on following questions:
1. When using which Epson paper I am most likely to end up with such marks? I would like to test with that to check Epson's assertion I will not have problems as long as I use their papers.
2. When using which 3rd party paper I am most likely to end up with such marks? I would like to test with that to check how likely it is I am going to get such marks with my copy.
3. Does paper size affect how likely I will end up witgh such marks? If yes what is the best print size to test with?
4. Any suggestions what testing procedure should look like? What photo I should use, etc?
Thank you in advance!
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I have used the following papers and never observed pizza wheel marks with my 3880: Gloss papers (which I think are the ones people have commented on) Museo Silver Rag, Ilford Gold Fiber Silk, Canson Plantine Rag; matte papers Museo Portfolio Rag, Hahnemuhle Photorag Ultra Smooth, Canson Rag Photographique. I have regularly printed with all these papers on letter and 13x19 sizes with B/W and color images of all types.
Alan
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Epson's first line of defense on any issues with paper feed is that you need to use their papers. It's nonsense. There are configurable settings in the driver, easily accessible - mainly the platen gap and the paper thickness settings, and they even tell you exactly how to use them - that will allow you to feed all the third party papers Alan mentioned and more - successfully. Don't worry about it and don't feel confined to Epson paper.
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Plus, this seems to vary from printer to printer anyway (some people get them, some don't). So print on whatever you want, at the correct settings as Mark suggests, and don't worry unless you have a problem, in which case you can look for alternatives.
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I do not feel confined to Epson papers but pizza wheel marks on 3880 are not something unheard of, people did and do have them, and I am trying to find a way how to see whether I too will be ending up with them, so any input on which papers in particular would be most prone to them at default printer settings would be appreciated.
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From what I've read, and I've been reading about this since I bought my 3800, it more typically visible one gloss paper where a heavy amount of dark ink has been laid down, then then only visible when viewed at a certain angle... much like looking for gloss differential.
You can avoid this using the front paper feed, but you sacrifice printable area.
This had been discussed a great deal in the printer forum at dpreview.com.
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I used a 3800 for three years with a range of media and never experienced pizza wheel marks. But I seem to recall it was known to happen with some of the earlier ones produced.
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From what I've read, and I've been reading about this since I bought my 3800, it more typically visible one gloss paper where a heavy amount of dark ink has been laid down, then then only visible when viewed at a certain angle... much like looking for gloss differential.
Thank you! So something like Premium Photo or Glossy Exhibition would reveal any issues best? Does paper thickness make a difference in general?
This had been discussed a great deal in the printer forum at dpreview.com.
I am trying to find related posts there, found some recent ones but not all.
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I used a 3800 for three years with a range of media and never experienced pizza wheel marks. But I seem to recall it was known to happen with some of the earlier ones produced.
According to posts I have seen on DPR newer ones are not immune to it.
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See Eric Chan's notes on the Epson 3800 HERE (http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3800/faq.html). With few exceptions, they are equally applicable to the 3880 (ink set and print head are different). As others have said (me included) they have not observed this with their printer. If you use third part papers, you need to figure out the thickness of the paper and set that in the print dialogue box since they are non-Epson and the Epson settings are not likely to be the same. For example (and I'm thinking off the top of my head here since I don't have my printer software open) the luster default in the Epson driver is for a thinner paper than Ilford Gold Fiber Silk which also uses the same setting so you need to go in and change it (if I remember correctly the Ilford paper is 4 and the Epson 3). You can also change the platten gap to wide (I do this for all the papers I print on) and I use the rear feed for all the papers I print on. As Eric notes this really is a non-issue if you are printing on matte papers. Ultimately you will have to determine what paper you like to print on and set things up in the print driver software to deal with it.
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Alan - yes, for the thicker papers those settings you suggest here are what I used while I had that printer. Worked fine.
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The 3800 and 3880`s I have seen this happen on it was cured by turning off high speed printing. When a lot of ink is laid down on gloss paper sometimes it is not drying fast enough. Turning off high speed in the Epson driver gives the ink more drying time. Prints only on one pass direction ....not both.
Peter
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See Eric Chan's notes on the Epson 3800 HERE (http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3800/faq.html). With few exceptions, they are equally applicable to the 3880 (ink set and print head are different). As others have said (me included) they have not observed this with their printer. If you use third part papers, you need to figure out the thickness of the paper and set that in the print dialogue box since they are non-Epson and the Epson settings are not likely to be the same. For example (and I'm thinking off the top of my head here since I don't have my printer software open) the luster default in the Epson driver is for a thinner paper than Ilford Gold Fiber Silk which also uses the same setting so you need to go in and change it (if I remember correctly the Ilford paper is 4 and the Epson 3). You can also change the platten gap to wide (I do this for all the papers I print on) and I use the rear feed for all the papers I print on. As Eric notes this really is a non-issue if you are printing on matte papers. Ultimately you will have to determine what paper you like to print on and set things up in the print driver software to deal with it.
I certainly hope that this turns out to be a non-issue and that it is all addressable through print settings, but then reports of people not being able to address it through any of the settings, like one bellow, make me scratch my head:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1003&message=40343749
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Zoran, the internet is a huge universe where you will read about everything and anything that has happened to anyone. My advice: ignore it. When you get your printer, try it and see what happens. Only if you encounter problems then you need to resolve them. and Peter: interesting observation about the High Speed. As I never print with High Speed On, I wonder if this could be one reason why I never had the problem, though I strongly suspect the main reason is that not a large proportion of these machines experienced that issue.
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I always print with high speed on since my testing shows no visible difference (and I think the recent C2P&S that Jeff and Michael did recommends doing the same thing for the printers they used in the tutorial. This may a printer dependent issue like the clogging on the 7900 that is being discussed on another thread.
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Alan, yes, I'm, well aware of what they recommend in C2P, but for higher quality Epson continues to recommend leaving it off. From page 96 of the 4900 Manual: "High Speed for fast, bidirectional printing. For higher quality, make sure you deselect this option." Note they say "make sure". To be honest, I'm in no rush so I just leave it off. I haven't blind-tested for quality difference.
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But by similar logic, Epson says only Epson paper will work in their printers ::)
I've had a 3800 since 2008, use HS pretty much all the time and have not seen any pizza wheel issues at all on lustre/baryta papers (or any others in reality).
As Bill said 'Much ado about nothing' :) If it's a real (vs hypothetical) problem then deal w/ it.
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Howard - no it is not "similar logic" - they don't say only Epson papers work in their printers. It's true that if you have paper feeding or paper-related issues, the first line of defense from their tech support is that you need to test using Epson paper. They do this because the characteristics of their own papers are known and predictable to them, so for trouble-shooting purposes it could make a certain amount of sense to start from that base. I have written confirmation from Epson that the printer should be perfectly capable of using numerous third-party papers.
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I encountered the "pizza wheel" marks when printing black and white on my 3880 using Baryta Photogrphique paper. Turning off high speed cured the problem.
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Zoran, the internet is a huge universe where you will read about everything and anything that has happened to anyone. My advice: ignore it. When you get your printer, try it and see what happens. Only if you encounter problems then you need to resolve them.
That is exactly why I started this thread, to find out best way to try for myself.
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What settings did you use on the Baryta Photographique? I would use Wider (Platen Gap) and 4 or 5 (Paper Thickness). FWIW, I have never gotten marks on any paper I have run through my 3800 and I have run a wide variety of media through mine since I got it in October of 2009.
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Zoran, you are sitting in the chair before you are even in the dentist's office. Why make yourself nuts about a problem that you don't even know if you have? Sheesh.
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But by similar logic, Epson says only Epson paper will work in their printers ::)
No, they don't. They say that their papers are specifically tested and have all the appropriate settings to perform correctly. They, understandably, can't comment on third party media and if you're having a problem they may ask you to baseline on an Epson media so they can check against a known constant. That's just common sense.
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No, they don't. They say that their papers are specifically tested and have all the appropriate settings to perform correctly. They, understandably, can't comment on third party media and if you're having a problem they may ask you to baseline on an Epson media so they can check against a known constant. That's just common sense.
Yes, pretty much what I had in mind above.
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Zoran, you are sitting in the chair before you are even in the dentist's office. Why make yourself nuts about a problem that you don't even know if you have? Sheesh.
It is prudent and smart to inspect your new expensive purchase against any known issues upon arrival, don't you think so? I do.
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I think it's always good to be aware of any known issues, but from my experience, not to worry about them unless they happen to you. Then if they do, intensify the research to resolve it, which in your case would be to call tech support.
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I haven't had a chance to update my own thread with my own finding but now that I have an opportunity here they are:
I wish I could report what others are saying but fact is that my 3880 does leave pizza wheel marks.
When I printed first few prints on gloss and semi-gloss paper I was ecstatic as I couldn't see them and was ready to call it a day. But then I re-read statements on 3800 FAQ page that were indicating they are visible only under certain lighting and from certain viewing directions.
So I went back and re-examined prints from all angles with magnifier under harshest light I could throw at them and sure enough, pizza wheel marks were there.
I wouldn't be able to see them 99.99% of the time under normal viewing conditions (like diffused light and normal viewing angles) but when examined under the sharp angle and high contrast light in direction of paper path I would see them.
They were most visible on glossy paper, less visible on semi-gloss, and very rare but still some of them there even on fine art paper.
I then tried already prescribed "remedies" and nothing change that. Changing of print speed did not make them go away. Nor did change of platen. No matter what I tried they remained there.
At that point in time I had to stop and ask myself what I should do as so many people were reporting no pizza wheel marks at all on their 3880's.
While mulling over that I remembered I had some of sample prints Epson sent me from their 3880. I went back, found one that was on semi-gloss paper, examined it carefully and lo and behold there were pizza wheel marks even on Epson's sample.
Sure they were in smaller amount than on mine but they were there and that was on printer that printed who knows how many pages so far while mine is brand new.
That made my decision making much easier. I have decided to stop wasting time chasing pizza wheel marks, as it was obvious even Epson's own prints have them, and to instead be pragmatic about them, minimizing them by avoiding high gloss paper when possible, ignoring them where I can do that (as they are not visible practically all the time under normal viewing conditions), and when I don't want to ignore them using paper path that does not result in them.
And as for question why my Epson and my copy have them while many claim theirs don't, I don't know the answer, and probably never will. It could be due to manufacturing tolerances and it could be that many didn't expect their prints as strictly as I did.
In any case I plan to have fun with my 3880.
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Unless you have someone request a print be made that is specifically to be viewed at a very odd angle in high contrasting light, I wouldn't worry (which is the approach you're taking, which I think is exactly correct!).
I mean, if you look close enough at an LCD TV you can see these strange, coloured dots and gaps in between! :-)
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Unless you have someone request a print be made that is specifically to be viewed at a very odd angle in high contrasting light, I wouldn't worry ...
To me this is about implied expectations that I want to deliver on. Nobody will make kind of request you used as an example, but certain profile of sale implies as high quality deliverable as possible.
I mean, if you look close enough at an LCD TV you can see these strange, coloured dots and gaps in between! :-)
LOL
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There's certainly nothing wrong with wanting to provide the highest quality. The only point I'm making is that if you look close enough, everything is "flawed".
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Having just bought a 3880 ad using Canson Rag Photographic matte and Ilford Gold Fibre Silk semigloss papers. My observations seem to be consistantly repeatable. Every time I turn on my printer after a few days being off, I run a nossle check and almost always the pizza wheel marks are there. So, I run another nossle check and its gone. As long as i run a nossle check i don't have any images affected adversely.
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Zoran, I sporadically saw what could be the marks you describe, in my case, they printed across the to part of the image in the sky. What I did was set up the Epson driver to rotate the print 180 degrees, so that if they do occur, they are not in an area of (relatively) even tone like sky, but in the foreground which has lots of fine detail and tonal variation. That way it is even harder to see them if they occur.
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There's certainly nothing wrong with wanting to provide the highest quality. The only point I'm making is that if you look close enough, everything is "flawed".
Yes, I do agree with your point :)
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Having just bought a 3880 ad using Canson Rag Photographic matte and Ilford Gold Fibre Silk semigloss papers. My observations seem to be consistantly repeatable. Every time I turn on my printer after a few days being off, I run a nossle check and almost always the pizza wheel marks are there. So, I run another nossle check and its gone. As long as i run a nossle check i don't have any images affected adversely.
I personally do not see how nozzle check would make them go away but I am willing to try it.
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Zoran, I sporadically saw what could be the marks you describe, in my case, they printed across the to part of the image in the sky. What I did was set up the Epson driver to rotate the print 180 degrees, so that if they do occur, they are not in an area of (relatively) even tone like sky, but in the foreground which has lots of fine detail and tonal variation. That way it is even harder to see them if they occur.
Cool idea, thank you :)
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Slightly OT, but with the dyes I'm starting to use, pizza wheel marks appear to be one of the pigment artifacts that largely disappears. (Bronzing and gloss differential are also gone.) See http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/BW-Dye.pdf for general information about the Epson-Noritsu dyes. I've now scaled up to an Epson 4000 and the dyes appear to work well with wide format.
The longevity is not good enough for color fine art work (comparing the Conservation Display Ratings at http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/cgi-bin/mrk/_4899c2hvd19kb2NfbGlzdC80), but the dyes may well be better than some third party color pigments. Of most interest to B&W photographers (like me), with a Print Shield spray black-only Claria is in color UltraChrome territory. Not too shabby for many uses. More fade testing is needed, but where visual impact is primary and the product is not intended for the collector market, fighting the pigment artifacts may not be the best strategy.
Paul
www.PaulRoark.com