Thanks Dano, I wouldn't have gotten as far as I did without your help on this forum.
1. Please pass along to the appropriate people in your organization that the Exhibition Canvas Satin box insert says "Matte Black (ink) ... is recommended by Epson", and the "Epson Exhibition Canvas Printing and Finishing Guidelines" from your website says "For Exhibition Canvas Satin, use Photo Black ink only". Luckily, I found this forum and read what you said. It would be nice if Epson's own documentation was consistent, and even nicer if it was as informative as you.
See:
http://www.epson.com/_alfresco/proimaging/media/EPSON_Exhibition_Canvas_Printing_and_Finishing_Guidelines.pdf?BV_UseBVCookie=yes2. The Satin Canvas printed box insert says "Increase leading edge margin to more than 1.4 inches (35 mm)." My 9900 menu gives me a choice to only go to exactly 35mm for the leading edge, and no more. I don't know how to get to "more than". Maybe they meant "exactly"?
3. The Satin Canvas is roughly twice as thick (23 mil) as the Premium Luster (10 mil), but none of the documentation says anything about changing the paper thickness in the advanced media control dialog box. I set mine to 6. The paper thickness field shows "(0.1 mm)" and a default value of 3 for Premium Luster, which I assume means that the value is in 0.1mm units, so that would equate to .3 mm, which is 11.8 mil (close to 10 mil). So I doubled it to a value of 6, which if that means .6 mm as I assume, equates to 23.6 mils. Did I do the right thing? If so, it would be nice if the icc pdf and the printed insert both called this media thickness value out.
4. I did experience very bad head rubbing before setting the media thickness to 6. I also set the platen gap to "wider" at the same time. After that I did not experience any noticeable head rubbing. I did not try changing only the platen gap or only the media thickness to see if I still experienced rubbing (my head had endured enough punishment). The printed box insert says "If you experience head rubbing...increase your printer platen gap to WIDER". I don't see how anyone couldn't experience head rubbing. The question I have is: What are the correct settings for the combination of media thickness and platen gap for the Exhibition Canvas Satin media? I wonder if I even needed to go to "wider" on the platen gap if I had the correct media thickness set in the first place.
Isn't the head's flying height a function of both these parameters? I know that sharpness will be degraded if it flies too high. I want to set it as low as I can go without rubbing to achieve maximum sharpness, don't I? Is it a function of relative humidity? When you're dealing in thousands of an inch, it seems like it should be a precise setting.
5. I observed a noticeable difference in sharpness in detail going from Matte Premium Canvas to the new Exhibition Canvas Satin (matte ink to photo ink also). Should the resolution be lower? There were other variables involved (up-res, sharpening s/w, platen gap) which I attribute the difference to, but I would like to know if the any of the lower apparent resolution might be attributed to the media/ink differences. I'm also wondering if I'm flying my head too high (see previous question), which could also cause a loss in detail.
Thanks in advance for anyone that can help.