You're right, CAD 1650 for those models: https://www.vistek.ca/store/printers/241105/epson-2-year-extended-service-plan-onsite-for-sp7900-9900-scp6000.aspx.
You too Gary, have a great rest of weekend.
My late father was a Rotarian and as a kid I remember helping at some of their fund-raising events - good causes.
I'm interested to hear about your photo restoration technique, but perhaps that would be another Forum topic.
Cheers,
Mark.
Hi again Mark,
I decided to follow up on the restoration reference here, although it might veer off into a separate thread, don't know. There really isn't anything mysterious involved in how I go about restoring photographs at this point. Lots of scanning, and of course Silverfast gets a lot of use in that sense. I use both an Epson Perfection V750 as well as a much older Epson Expression 1680. I'm sure you are familiar with both models. I keep the 1680 in good shape for scanning oversized pieces, since the scanning glass is level with the bed, not recessed as in most scanners now. I have scanned pieces as large as 20x36" on the 1680 without issue, which calls for I believe 10 bites (it's been a while). Of course one has to make sure all scans are well aligned. Otherwise PS can have a difficult time reassembling them. Usually not a problem if I've dome my job properly. And of course the old 8 or 10" x ? panos are no problem at all, although the alignment is still very important. Sometimes if I have more that 6 bites to work with I will first merge each half and the the two halves together, which works very well. Occasionally, on a very large print I will have a friend shoot a camera file. Actually I have him shoot 5 or 6 identical exposures and I then stack them using the Super Resolution Technique. At first I was skeptical of the technique, but I proved it to be of use for my purposes.
OK, that's it as far as creating a digital file of the original. The rest is basic Photoshop, with a bit of LR stirred in as well. I've been doing this for a rather long time, so I seem to have developed a good idea of which tool or combination of tools will work best for any particular situation. That's not saying that the first approach always works perfectly, but often it's a matter of building it up as I go. Obviously none of this work is done on the Background Layer, as I often have at least half a dozen layers just for a rather small part of the image, not including adjustment layers. I recall a very nasty image I worked on a few years ago. It was an old but very well done shot of a large group of people, probably shot with a Banquet Camera. It was not a large print, so no problem scanning. However, it was one of those situations where the print had suffered an uncountable number of striations, or crackling of the emulsion, which required many many hours of work. This image was to be enlarged to approximately 18 x 30, so obviously nothing could be overlooked. I would sit here in the evening after a day at my business location and work on perhaps a 2" square section of the image. After about two months I had to take a break, so I worked on other images. I did finally get it finished and printed and charged $450, including the print. It was worth a lot more, but I knew the customer could not afford it, and she was very please with the final outcome. I have sold about a half dozen more prints to her, so I did at least get a few more $$$.
The largest image for the recent Rotary job will be printed at 20 x 130". I did not do the scanning of the original and there were a number of scanning related issues to take care of before I could work on the body of image itself. Again a pano of a very large group of Rotarians at the 1924 Toronto Convention. That one took approximately 35 hours and more of restoration work, and there were areas with very little image information to work with at all, so I had to improvise. Then there were about 45 other image files for me to assess and make a judgement as to whether they would produce a usable print. In all I worked on 40 images, not including the large pano. Most required quite a lot of fixing, and others just some general "spotting" and colour correcting etc. Basically getting them ready for printing. The printing and assembly for display is being done by a Toronto company, so now they have all of the images I have prepared. It was a lot of work and not a lot of $$$. However, it did carry with it a certain degree of satisfaction. As mentioned, it is for the Rotary Club, so that adds to the satisfaction as well. I'm not a member, but the friend I mentioned who's book I am working on is a Rotarian, and I've done a few such projects for the local Club as well. We have permission to use a few of the images I've just referred to in the semi annual Rotary Directory, which I've been doing for a number of years, and will soon be working on again soon.
And by the way, I also do fine art reproductions for a handful of local artists. I print them on Epson Cold or Hot Pressed Natural and occasionally Canvas, (Not Epson). As mentioned, I have now downsized my business and moved to my home location in Pickering Village, so my volume of work is diminishing to some extent. At this point that's not an issue for the most part. The SC P7000 is doing a great job, as expected.
The only thing I can add at the moment is this. Even though I have been doing this type of work for many years, I'm for ever looking for better and easier ways to get the job done. Tutorials online are a never ending source which I refer to on a regular basis. Always learning and experimenting.
Well Mark, I hope this is what you referred to with your interest in my restoration "techniques". Nothing fancy or mysterious, just a lot of work and attention to detail. I hope you enjoy the read, if you can hang in here long enough. Any further questions, I'm right here.
And cheers to you as well Mark,
Gary