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Author Topic: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)  (Read 20901 times)

John Caldwell

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #20 on: December 01, 2012, 11:26:58 pm »

Mike, I still haven't gotten around to creating a shim to allow for cassette paper feed for the 7x10 sheets. As you know, the left movable divider in the cassette is set for an 8" width, so I'm thinking that a shim 1" in width might allow 7x10 to be fed from the cassette. Understood that the rear feed works, either feeding the 10" dimension as you do, or the 7" dimension with Paper Size Detection Off.

I'll post my results regarding the shim and the cassette.

John Caldwell
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kmhpix

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #21 on: December 03, 2012, 02:17:08 pm »

I have had good success with my 4900 printing note cards on Red River's Pecos River Gloss 7"x10" card stock. I use the cassette tray to hold a stack of paper so I can leave it printing on its own. I load the cassette so the 10" side of the paper leads and set the paper size to 10" wide by 8" high. I use a small block of wood to take up the slack between the 7" paper width and the tray slider. (I tried the other orientation and ran into a problem with the paper curling because of the ink load, which caused the head to smudge the image. That curling is one of the problems with this paper. I recall there was a problem with feeding the paper, as well.)

My printer settings are Premium Glossy Photo Paper (250), Max Quality, High Speed and Maximum Printable Area.  I set the Platen Gap to Wide, with the default Paper Thickness at 3 (x0.1 mm). I use the RR ICC profile for this paper/printer combo. With my printer, the proper Position settings are -0.125 for the Top margin and -0.139 for Left. I make the image size 7x10 in Photoshop and provide a 0.3" margin around a 6.4" by 4.4" printable area. I also add some text on the other side. I have attached a sample image.

The resulting note cards are outstanding. I sell them as Gilcee Note Cards for $4 and they sell well.

One problem I have had is with vertical scratch marks on the gloss paper. They are very faint and can only be seen by viewing the paper at a shallow angle. They are uniformly spaced and so probably caused by the rollers. I would love to hear from anyone who has succeeded in mitigating that problem.


Another issue is that with the ink load, the paper curls in the printer. This hasn't caused much of a problem, except it might exacerbate the above-mentioned problem with scratches.

I too would like to find a satin paper suitable for cards but have not succeeded. The issue is finding a paper with a back surface on which one can write. I like the fact that the satin finish doesn't smudge as easily from dirty fingers and mitigates the reflection from bright lights. Still, the gloss finish can't be beat for sharpness and depth of blacks.

Another nice alternative is be a heavy fine-art paper. I recently bought a box of 8.5x11 Hahnemuhle Museum Etching paper (50% off at Atlex). It is a luxurious paper and I am eager to try it. I'll cut it down to 7x10 after printing and score it. It is very heavy (350 gsm, 15 mil, no OBAs) so I'll have to feed it manually; thus, it will have to be for special cards only.

One other point of information, to score paper for folding, I have found the Martha Stewart scoring board works fine. The trick is to score the proper side of the paper and apply an appropriate amount of pressure to avoid crinkling the paper. Dulling the edge on the scorer can help avoid cutting the paper.

Ken
« Last Edit: December 03, 2012, 11:06:07 pm by kmhpix »
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John Caldwell

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #22 on: December 08, 2012, 01:30:48 pm »

I have had good success with my 4900 printing note cards on Red River's Pecos River Gloss 7"x10" card stock. I use the cassette tray to hold a stack of paper so I can leave it printing on its own. I load the cassette so the 10" side of the paper leads and set the paper size to 10" wide by 8" high. I use a small block of wood to take up the slack between the 7" paper width and the tray slider. (I tried the other orientation and ran into a problem with the paper curling because of the ink load, which caused the head to smudge the image. That curling is one of the problems with this paper. I recall there was a problem with feeding the paper, as well.)...

Ken


Ken, Thanks for this and your mention of the shim you've used in the 4900 cassette to allow for 7", rather than 8", media. Beautiful image you have on your card, Ken.

Thanks,

John-
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John Caldwell

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #23 on: December 08, 2012, 01:56:19 pm »

how do you then crease and fold them?

thank you
p.

Reluctantly I bought a tabletop scoring unit after failing with the (much cheaper) rotary "pizza cutter" scorers. My failures were in attempting to score heavy weight fine art papers. This unit was $210 on Amazon, and it is a "Lever and Anvil" unit, rather than of rotary topology. Scoring our cards, which we wound up printing on 17x22 sheet Epson Cold Press Natural, works pretty well in that the cards are laid out in a 2x2 format, allowing two scores per 17x22 to cover all 4 cards on the sheet. The cards are beautiful, and feel like a piece of art in your hand - for sure. Also for darn sure is that I am tethered to Lightroom, the Epson 4900, the Hanhemühle protective print spray can, the tabletop scoring machine, the rotary trimmer, and the clamp system to firm up the card creases! Making 200 of these cards, incidentally.

« Last Edit: December 08, 2012, 02:02:32 pm by John Caldwell »
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Mike Guilbault

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #24 on: December 09, 2012, 08:51:09 pm »

John, are you trimming those cards afterwards or leaving them with the border?  What's the finished size?
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Mike Guilbault

John Caldwell

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #25 on: December 09, 2012, 10:09:52 pm »

Mike , The finish card size is 5x7, to fit inside an A7 envelope which, in the US, incurs no extra postage. The four images are 7x10 before folding, laid out 2x2 on the 17x22 sheet. The sheet is printed card inside first; then card outside. Then the 17x22 sheet is scored on the tabletop scoring deck, shown above; with 2 scores that run the 17" dimension of the paper. This allows two cards to be scored in one stroke. Then the sheet is trimmed: It's a total of 9 cuts to discard the edges of the large sheet, divide the large "central canvas" into the four cards, and then final trim each card. The actual folding of each card is done one card at a time. After folding and final trim, the folded cards are stacked pretty precisely, usually a stack of 16 cards - and then clamped into a "vise" arrangement to tighten up the crease. Bear in mind, I'm using 340 weight fine art paper, so the fold doesn't "come easy". The final result is very crisp and feels great in your hand. I made 216 of these cards this weekend while I was doing other chores. That's giving both sides of each card spray protection with a print shield once the 2nd side emerges from the 4900. Honestly if there were no rear feed paper path issues with teh 4900, the job would have taken notably less time than it did.

Don't hesitate to PM if you want more detail for a similar  project of your own. We can talk on the phone if you like.

So long,

John Caldwell
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Mike Guilbault

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #26 on: December 10, 2012, 10:00:09 pm »

Thanks for the extra detail John... very much appreciated and it answered all my questions.  I don't do enough cards to warrant a phone call, yet, but I'll be sure to look you up if I do.  Up until now I've kinda avoided doing cards but a portrait client asked for some and I used the Moab 7x10 stock, but I do prefer the Epson CPN paper - my favourite so far (got the sample packs of Hahnemühle to try out).

Hmmm... just realized something.. I didn't know that the CPN was printable on both sides?
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Mike Guilbault

John Caldwell

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #27 on: December 11, 2012, 08:17:45 am »

Hmmm... just realized something.. I didn't know that the CPN was printable on both sides?

Yes, it is a dual-sider paper and it was Chris Wood at Atlex that brought this to my attention. Oddly, it's not advertised. The Hot Press and Cold Press (Bright & Naturals) are dual sided. The Hahnemühle Photo Rag Duo (276 weight I believe it is) seems to be the only dual from HFA. I've made cards from the Photo Rag Duo, but they're not as interesting to me in terms of gamut, dmax or hand feel. The Cold Press surface finish is slightly machine-like, and this would be my only reservation with this paper. The Moab Entrada Natural and Bright are dual sided, and are also very nice papers.

I wish HFA would make a dual-sided William Turner or Museum Etching, or Canson a dual BFK Rives. Those would be great too, but in the interim I think I'll just stick with Cold Press for cards when the situation calls for it.

John Caldwell
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Dan Wells

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card) - 3880 is nearly ideal for this
« Reply #28 on: December 13, 2012, 11:35:47 am »

I'm doing runs of cards on my 3880, which is probably the best card printer on the market (only one I can think of that supports small sizes in the sheet feeder, yet still has big ink tanks, reducing running costs to 1/2 of what you'd pay for a smaller printer). I realize this doesn't help people who already own the 4900, but if you're looking for a printer and cards are part of your output, the 3880 deserves a very serious look, because it is the only inkjet around that really handles them in production quantities. Note that the 3880 is a pain at the other extreme end of its output range - it prints 16x24, but only by cutting paper down from rolls because the standard paper size is 17x22, rather than 17x25 and the 3880 lacks a roll feeder. Probably the ideal combination of printers for a small studio is a 3880 for cards through 8x12 or 12x18 prints and a 7900 or 9900 for large prints - an iPF would also work, but the two Epson stablemates keep the Epson look - this is expensive, and I don't have the big printer - I print 16x24 on the 3880 by cutting paper down, and I send the big stuff out. If I get the volume to make two printers worthwhile or get into a situation where I can share a 9900 with another photographer or two, that's where I'll go.
I run Moab Entrada natural prescored stock in the sheet feeder, using the settings I'd use to make a regular print on the same paper (Moab's icc profile, print settings for Epson Ultra Premium Matte (Moab's recommendation), 1440 dpi). At these settings, the output time is about 1 minute per card, and the sheet feeder holds between 25 and 50 cards at a time. I'm generally sitting next to the printer doing something else on the computer (I'm running 250 cards in the background while posting on LuLa right now), in order to keep an eye on the process, but I am pretty sure I could also leave it completely unattended and go for a walk). I buy the Moab paper in 250 sheet boxes, for about 60 cents per card.
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John Caldwell

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #29 on: December 13, 2012, 11:56:06 am »

Did not know the Moab Entrada was available in pre-scored cards. Tests I ran of that paper looked, and felt, good. Thanks, Dan.

John-
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Czornyj

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #30 on: December 13, 2012, 12:10:44 pm »

I wish HFA would make a dual-sided William Turner or Museum Etching, or Canson a dual BFK Rives. Those would be great too, but in the interim I think I'll just stick with Cold Press for cards when the situation calls for it.

John Caldwell

John, what are you printing on the second side of your cards? I've printed text on the second side of Hahnemuehle German and Musemu Etching, Torchon, Baryta FB and it was OK.

FWIW - I had managed to print cards from roll recently:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=73138.0
« Last Edit: December 13, 2012, 12:12:44 pm by Czornyj »
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Marcin Kałuża | [URL=http://zarzadzaniebarwa

John Caldwell

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #31 on: December 13, 2012, 02:04:41 pm »

I've printed text on the second side of Hahnemuehle German and Musemu Etching, Torchon, Baryta FB and it was OK.

FWIW - I had managed to print cards from roll recently:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=73138.0

Never tried to print the wrong side with text, but I will now given your suggestion. Enjoyed your trip to the dry cleaners with your roll media cards. Very inventive.

Thanks,

John-
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Mike Guilbault

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #32 on: December 13, 2012, 09:00:42 pm »

I'll be trying some double-sided printing on the CPN.  Thanks for the tip!
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Mike Guilbault

Randy Carone

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #33 on: December 14, 2012, 08:55:24 am »

The Epson Signature Worthy matte papers (CPBW, CPNW, HPBW & HPNW) have three coats of emulsion on the 'print side' and two coats on the back. I printed a test illustration with detail and decent gamut and it is impossible to tell which side is the 'front'. I haven't done extensive testing with heavy black and wide gamut photos but for greeting cards they can be considered double-sided papers.
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Randy Carone

Ernst Dinkla

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #34 on: December 14, 2012, 09:35:03 am »

The Epson Signature Worthy matte papers (CPBW, CPNW, HPBW & HPNW) have three coats of emulsion on the 'print side' and two coats on the back. I printed a test illustration with detail and decent gamut and it is impossible to tell which side is the 'front'. I haven't done extensive testing with heavy black and wide gamut photos but for greeting cards they can be considered double-sided papers.

Randy,

To my knowledge they were supposed to be dual sided in sheet sizes, the ones I measured. The samples package I got about 2 years ago said so. Is there a difference between the sheet and the roll versions?

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Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

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December 2012, 500+ inkjet media white spectral plots.


 
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Randy Carone

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #35 on: December 14, 2012, 10:09:51 am »

Epson does not promote the paper as double-sided so I don't know if there is a difference between sheets and rolls. My hunch is that they are the same. The test I performed was on an 8½ x 11 sheet from a Signature Worthy sample pack.
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Randy Carone

Ernst Dinkla

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #36 on: December 14, 2012, 10:46:11 am »

Epson does not promote the paper as double-sided so I don't know if there is a difference between sheets and rolls. My hunch is that they are the same. The test I performed was on an 8½ x 11 sheet from a Signature Worthy sample pack.

Strange that Epson does not promote it that way, I got a sample pack on the Photokina 2010. There was per quality an A4 Epson document that said: "Two sided coating (cut sheets)" for all the four types. That made me think there should be a difference between sheets and rolls.

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Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2012, 500+ inkjet media white spectral plots.



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Czornyj

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #37 on: December 14, 2012, 12:12:40 pm »

That made me think there should be a difference between sheets and rolls.
There may be the anti-curl layer on the back of roll paper.
Some time ago Mark had mentioned, that he likes Hahnemuehle for the lack of anti-curl layer, so he can print informations about samples on the back of the print (what also inspierd me to print on the "wrong" side of Hahnemuehle papers).
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Marcin Kałuża | [URL=http://zarzadzaniebarwa

Conner999

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Re: Epson 4900: 7"x10" Paper (Greeting Card)
« Reply #38 on: December 15, 2012, 05:37:56 pm »

I use Museo pre-creased card (large) stock on a 3800.  I do single sheets (vs card feeder) as only do a handful at any given time, but paper very similar to Epson Hot Press Bright & clients love the look and feel.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/631234-REG/Museo_09793_Inkjet_Artist_Cards.html

Actually, I keep meaning to email Museo to see if they sell that same stock in normal cut sheet sizes -- love it.
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