HP or Epson for b&w and transparents

[Erick Boileau]

What is the best pro Printer A2 or A1 actually  for Black and White and transparent (digital negatives)   ? HP or Epson ?

thank you

[Ernst Dinkla]

There are special media presets for the Z3200 and Z3100 for that purpose. Developed by a HP R&D man Angel Albarrán who had a personal interest in alternative processes. The Z models can be calibrated with their onboard spectrometer which should improve consistency. No personal experience with the process though.

http://bit.ly/aQSNbt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8HroH1Leio


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst

Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/

[Erick Boileau]

thanks  a lot

[deanwork]

I've found it extremely easy to work with the Pictorico OHP Transparency film, the DCP roll transparency film, and the Epson backlit transparency film on the Z3100. I just use the installed HP transparency media preset and their generic profile for that stuff and adjust the density with levels adj layer. If you had a transparency spectro you could linearize even better, depending on how much of this you plan to do. Personally I don't think that is necessary at all for alternative process work.

Having said that, all the Epson large format printers apparently do an excellent job as well and probably most people are doing it that way. For black and white we even used the old Epson K2 printers out of rgb mode with great results for making OHP transparencies for platinum prints. I'm sure the Canon printers will do just fine as well, though I haven't done it yet with mine.

j

[deanwork]

I've found it extremely easy to work with the Pictorico OHP Transparency film, the DCP roll transparency film, and the Epson backlit transparency film on the Z3100. I just use the installed HP transparency media preset and their generic profile for that stuff and adjust the density with levels adj layer. If you had a transparency spectro you could linearize even better, depending on how much of this you plan to do. Personally I don't think that is necessary at all for alternative process work.

I was not able to calibrate transparency material of any kind with the onboard spectro however. Ernst how in the world can that be done??? Did he develop a method for attaching it to a paper backing that I'm not aware of? That would be very nice if possible.

Having said that, all the Epson large format printers apparently do an excellent job as well and probably most people are doing it that way. For black and white we even used the old Epson K2 printers out of rgb mode with great results for making OHP transparencies for platinum prints. I'm sure the Canon printers will do just fine as well, though I haven't done it yet with mine.

j

[Erick Boileau]

thanks deanwork , actually I have an Epson 3880   and not yet tried to print transparents but I have heard that they are not so good than on HP

[Ernst Dinkla]

John wrote:
>>>I was not able to calibrate transparency material of any kind with the onboard spectro however. Ernst how in the world can that be done??? Did he develop a method for attaching it to a paper backing that I'm not aware of? That would be very nice if possible.<<<

These days I write replies on virtual messages :-)

Actually I did not check thoroughly but expected a calibration on a paper substitute, when looking through the PDF of the workflow fast. You removed your comment from the message so I may have been right :-) Could be that the alternative process print is measured which is feedback from the end of the total workflow, something I would not prefer as consistency in the actual print making will be less than in the film printing stage.

I have to read it more carefully again as he made extra linearisation/calibration targets. Something similar I did some months ago (but still have to put in practice) where I created a 15 patches linearisation target to correct the Z3200 B&W output that it resembles a Z3100 B&W linear output. 15 patches so I can use Qimage's editing curves to make a print filter to get linearity back on top of the Z3200 calibration.  So far quite a manual affair but the 15 patches target is at least measured by the Z3200 itself. On top of that I can use QTR greyscale profiling in Qimage. Mike at last has taken out the flaws there too. It would be all much easier-nicer if the Z3200 was as linear as the Z3100, Qimage had a curve control of 21 points and more like that. But I intend to make a page on my site describing the method if it works.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst

New: Spectral plots of +250 inkjet papers:

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.ht

[Erick Boileau]

thank you

[artobest]

John wrote:
But I intend to make a page on my site describing the method if it works.

Please do!

[Scott Martin]

My bud Dan Burkholder and I have been making digital negs for contact printing since 1991. These days it's easier than ever and you can print them on any brand inkjet printer (HP, Canon, Epson). HP has some neat stuff built-in which is impressive but kinda overkill. You can calibrate/linearize any negative from any printer by making a QTR greyscale profiles (tip of the hat to Roy!) by printing the QTR target on Pictorico film, printing from this and measuring your final print (not the neg). Once you've got a QTR profile you can print with it to get consistent tonality and you can use it for incredibly precise soft proofing.

You can either drive your printer with the driver (easy) or the QTR rip (advanced). The QTRrip gives us fine Dmax and per ink channel controls which, while nice, is arguably unnecessary. Naturally QTR's list of supported printers becomes important then. I like the simplicity of profiling driver output and encourage new users to start with this before moving on to more elaborate processes.

I'm actually in-route to an international alt-printing convention in Xalapa, Mexico where I'm teaching a workshop and just posted some thoughts and reflections on 20 years of making alt-process negs. http://bit.ly/iFtcw9

[Erick Boileau]

very interesting

[deanwork]

Yes very nice Scott. I'm so glad we still have Bostik and Sullivan to depend on and thank goodness they are thriving. It's nice to see an American company that can keep innovating while keeping their traditional niche alive.

By the way your evaluation of the Canon IPF 8300 was spot on. I was so pleased to see the outstanding fiber gloss rendition with the Harmon Baryta. It's just perfect and in a class totally removed from my HPZ or anything else I've seen . This is the first combination that I haven't had to spray or overcoat with a second pass varnish.

john

[Scott Martin]

Thanks for the comments John.

A few more thoughts on making alt-process negatives using the regular drivers: Canon's Special 1-5 media settings and (even better) Epson's "Color Density" slider gives us excellent variable control over the DMax values we get on these negs. So if you're printing negs Cyanotypes and need a gentle DMax of 1.7 for example, you can crank the Dmax down in the driver. QTR let's us do the same thing but if the driver can do it I'll vote for simplicity and less complication every time.

I love it that we can just use the regular driver from any of these inkjet printers and quickly make a QTR profile that allows us to print a neg with the optimal tonality and soft proof in PS complete with paper and process coloration. And all of this with shareware software. [Need to write something more lengthy on this]