High volume small pigment print production?

[Richard.Wills]

Having reread this very interesting thread this morning, here some additional cents:

First: I assume, our clients look for outstanding quality.  Surelab/Fuji is dye. Marc from Aardenburg did tests on Fuji some time ago: Between 17 and 43 MegaLux, depending on media. Not sure whether that has changed in the meantime. Not to forget the high amount of OBAs.
 
2. I have a deal with a very good wet lab for small prints. I can rely on their quality 100%, and that is what my customers want. They pay me the lab's price + my manipulating fee and are happy. I am not afraid to loose them to that lab - customers come to me for quality, advice, image manipulation/optimization, not for cheap prizes.

3. I own a P800. More than 5 small pre cut papers (< A5) often cause troubles, so I have to babysit such jobs. Could be the same issue with new P700/900...

4. AFAIK (from the manual) you can change hanger space & -size in cut-it-out. I'd call Imageprint to be sure, but in my understanding, if you put a slim roll into the graphtec with just one column of images on it, perhaps one could reduce hanger size to zero. Having a Graphtec and Imageprint at hand (don't you?), this could be the easiest solution.

Best regards, Michael

Thanks Michael,

Clients are looking for good to very good, but at a price point that works for all of us. There's one lab in town who have a ?Lambda? rigged up to a fibre base B&W line. This is good for the independently wealthy. Still thinking along the lines of a surelab, but onto a paper that's not loaded with OBA's.

Not looking for a system that needs baby sitting.

I haven't run imageprint since we got our 8300, when it first came out, though do still have the dongle from ?version6?, and for that matter, still have the 9800 in a hallway, waiting to chop it in against the next 44" printer. So I'm not sure that imageprint is more than a source of inspiration, given that we are way outside any upgrade path.

I'll try to run some tests on various paper bases over the coming weeks. I've plenty of dog ends of rolls of paper sat gathering dust (too long to throw, too short to use except for on tests). I'll see how the cutter handles things. I feel a crash course in Illustrator coming up, so I can work out how to properly place the cutting positions, without having to manually guide the cutting boxen into place.

∏

[Richard.Wills]

So an update.

Our Graphtec is not a true tangential cutter (it doesn't lift the knife and preset the rotation angle before dropping it). I tried kiss cutting on a number of papers, resin and matt, cotton and wood based, and could not get a really clean corner on any of them. As this is for small hand held prints, this is not a good start. I also tried the longer sandblast blade in the perf channel. Perf cut does look like an option, but the damage to corners, where the blade re-enters the paper was not pretty. It may be possibe to get around this by starting the cut outside of the print area.

Only quick plays, fitted in around an awful lot of scanning work. The down side of our Graphtec is that even with a new blade, just kissing the print surface, I had to dial the speed down to super low, to avoid tearing the print surface. This coupled with the need to load individual cut jobs makes this look like it is not the solution I'm looking for. There are plotters out there that will run with a barcode on print cut jobs, from rolls of media, but they, along with the software to drive them, are heading into second user Fotoba digiprint territory, and aren't really designed for printed paper based activities.

[mearussi]

Would something like this work on a Epson P800?

https://www.amazon.com/Promaster-Glossy-Inkjet-Photo-Paper/dp/B00LPSWS4W

https://www.promaster.com/Category/5017

[StuartR]

I have been in this situation myself, but have not found a perfect solution. Generally I talk with the client and basically give them the choice...either pay me to do the cutting, or take the uncut work. Generally people are fine with one or the other. I only have the 44" printers, so I tend to print from a roll in strips and let the printer cut the one edge, and then trim them in the other direction. Thinking about this slightly more deeply, it seems there is fairly reasonable opportunity to work with A sized sheets and a printer that can take a stack of them. For example, with an A3 sheet of something like Decor Smooth Art (nice paper, btw), with proper layout you would only need two cuts per sheet to make 4 A5 prints. With a decent cutter and a paper stop in the right place, that could be done in a matter of seconds. You could either use two cutters with different stops or just cut the job in one direction, adjust the stop and do the other direction. Sure, it is not fully automated, but it does not have to be as tedious as trimming every edge individually. The main thing would be to indicate to the client that it is a set size...
I realize this is not a fully perfect solution, but I imagine it would work pretty well for a decent volume. It just depends on how many of these small prints you wind up doing in a given batch.

[Richard.Wills]

I've just been running some tests on a 10" roll of Permajet Drylab matt 230, and at least for 10"prints. Tried a couple of print profiles I had on hand - closest looks to be a profile I made for Fuji Matt Bond paper - and first results look promising. So this could be me covered for 10x8 and 10x10" prints with minimal finishing. This paper obviously has a certain loading of OBAs, so not perfect, but a nice first option.

Our Canon is not a volume sheet printing machine (hate using cut sheet with it...) Still toying with getting a new Rotatrim Technical, as the cut mechanism actively raises the clamp bar at either end of the cut (and our current rotatrims are from the 90's), for the nicer archival materials. And yes, production stops may well play an enhanced part in my life - thinking about building a jig with t-tracks and the like...

And a D800 for the run of the mill stuff.

[Richard.Wills]

Just bit the bullet - new D800 should be landing with me tomorrow. I've shifted my own goal posts, to run this initially as an add on to the film processing. But can't resist the temptation to make it run as well as I can, while using distributor supplied materials, rather than premium paper brands. Decided to go with the order control software, to keep things as automated as possible. First order of the day will be to look at the built in profiles, and then roll my own. Dread to think how long an 8" wide 2371 patch will be.

Does anyone have experience of the Epson Drylabs? And do I need to let the profile targets dry down on a dye based printer, the way I would with a pigment print? And for that matter, are there any branded papers that score highly using the D800 inkset, for longevity? Would be a nice extra to be able to offer a premium, for the grandkids option.

Going through lots of calculations on the packaging and despatch side of the system, and for the first time realised that the little index prints you get with minilab prints is there primarily for the benefit of the operator, rather than the customer. Fun times.

Of course I'm going to have to be patient, and wait for the printer and particularly the materials to come up to temp from an overnight shipping - 200' rolls of RC paper are going to take a while to thaw, but I do have the 10" matt rolls sat at room temp, to get me started.

So I've deviated from my initial thoughts, now a mid volume dye printer (with room for exaspansion, should it require siblings).

[Richard.Wills]

So, it's a little beast. Palett arrived today, with printer and a dozen rolls of media. Epson have done a cracking job with the design - I've never known an ink cartidge (or six) to slot in so smoothly. Solidly constructed, and with really well thought out handling - hand holds in the box (lovely grade of cardboard) perfectly balanced, handholds at the bottom of the machine actually designed, and balanced for one person, great peel to the restraining tape (no resistance, no residue).

But, a few initial niggles. One is the alarm - open the waste tray door - intruder. Misfeed the paper - evacuate the building. Slight exageration, but I guess Epson designed this as an event / kiosk device, so wanted to get people's attention. Yes, it does. And on starting to print, the fans ramp up. Not in an objectionable fashion, but did start to wonder when the afterburners would kick in. But, they are not of an unpleasant pitch, though currently the Surelab D800 is sat right behind me in my little office. Noiser than the 7880, but without the clud thunks of the 8400, and the fans are less irritating than the Noritsu, or the ubiquiti switch.

I'm currently waiting for a license key for the order software, but going through the set up. Out of the box colour images are kind of OK, and the absence of  differential on gloss paper is lovely. But Neutrals have a subtle green/cyan tinge that is really visible on B&W, particularly in the 3/4 tones.

I've created an 1105 patch in profiler on my mac, printed it from the PC the printer is connected to (we're a Mac shop, but I have a W7 PC for running our Noritsu scanner). The Order controller software for the Epson is PC only. I'm battling ACPU on the PC, using the Epson drivers (a decade of running profile targets through the Canon print utility, on the mac has allowed me to forget how to ensure that I get unadulterated target prints). All of my printed targets look like they do on screen, which I don't think is right. And when I've read the targets, I've got "Error creating profile.  There is too much variation between identical patches." which I've never seen before.

I'll contact my supplier tomorrow, and hopefully the order control software will have a profiling option, that'll solve this. Otherwise, does any one have a cheat sheet for using ACPU with Epson on W7?

Some of my mistakes. The printer is USB only - for some reason I thought that reference to network would give me an RJ45, but I guess the network refers to the ordering SW. I got a 10" roll of nice matte paper - the printer is 8" max, but the 8400 will allow me to use the 100m - I'll just make the only option 10" prints. Strip down serviced one of the rotatrims, so Work flow shouldn't be too bad.

Interesting times, sort of first world problems. Any help gratefully accepted!

[Panagiotis]

I'll contact my supplier tomorrow, and hopefully the order control software will have a profiling option, that'll solve this. Otherwise, does any one have a cheat sheet for using ACPU with Epson on W7?

Great! I am eagerly waiting your thoughts on D800! You could try QimageOne (mac or win) to print the targets. I use Qimage Ultimate which is win only.

[Richard.Wills]

Order controller software is on back order! Should be with me next week.Tried printing out from profiler 1.8, but couldn't get it to turn off colour management, so currently rocking a demo of Qimage. Time to fire up the extra long x-rite support backing. Figured 2371should do the trick - It's what I use for most of my Canon profiles, and seems pretty good.

If this works, I'll get Qimage, just for the simplicity of running profiles.

[Richard.Wills]

Panagiotis, you are a genius!
Dealer's supplied profile for their paper was exactly the same as the Epson one - green. Now, new profile rolled out using Qimage is looking pretty nice.
Same profile looks very good on their lustre paper, but for giggles, I ran an 1105 set on that - prints side by side are visually the same, under a variety of light sources (it's dark now, so don't have the big one to test).

So, if you have a use case for small fast prints, I'd say this is a good option. I'm going to order in a couple of matt papers, to see how they quack - I have a good feeling

[Panagiotis]

Panagiotis, you are a genius!
Dealer's supplied profile for their paper was exactly the same as the Epson one - green. Now, new profile rolled out using Qimage is looking pretty nice.
Same profile looks very good on their lustre paper, but for giggles, I ran an 1105 set on that - prints side by side are visually the same, under a variety of light sources (it's dark now, so don't have the big one to test).

So, if you have a use case for small fast prints, I'd say this is a good option. I'm going to order in a couple of matt papers, to see how they quack - I have a good feeling

Good news Richard! Qimage is great software. I use it every day more and more. Now I have to wait a financial opportunity to get a D800 .