I'm seeking feedback from anyone
successfully printing digital negatives on an
Epson P900. I'm running into (what I believe are) hardware limitations that don't allow for reliable and reproducible results on transparency films. I've tried several transparent substrates (most of which are "milky") and endless printer and media settings. I have experience printing digital negatives on Epson 4880, 4900 and P5000 printers. Those printers aren't the issue and the settings from those models differ from the P900 (sadly). Even the P800 is different enough. So what I'm really seeking is hands-on, real-world success with printing on transparency films using the P900.
The issue at hand: upon loading transparent film, the printer will successfully bring the media into the printer, but fails to detect the leading edge of the paper and continues to feed until "paper jam" messages are displayed and one must cancel the print. After cancelling, the printer successfully ejects the transparency, with no damage to the sheet (ie, it wasn't actually jammed or stuck). You can actually tell if it's going to happen, either the printer miraculously detect the leading edge and it starts printing in a matter of seconds...OR...you watch the paper continue to feed into the printer, past the print head and platen area.
While trying a multitude of options (see below), I thought I found the solution; enabling the "Thick Paper" setting. This seemed inconsequential at first, as it simply raises the print head. However, it worked a few times and I thought, eureka! Since then, I have been unable to reliably reproduce this success. Last week I got zero prints. Today I got two, followed immediately by the same issues (failure to detect leading edge and "paper jam"). Same settings as the day I had success and same media (Inkpress/Local store).
Here are some settings/things I've tried:
- Disabling "Print Meandering" errors (I was hoping this would be like disabling "Check Paper Skew" on other Epson printers)
- Disabling "Paper Mismatch" errors (I was hoping this would be like disabling "Check Paper Size" on other Epson printers)
- Enabling the "Thick Paper" setting (this is the only setting that has given limited success, but maybe only 5% of the time)
- Rear feed, front feed, front feed without transport guides
- Ultra Premium Luster Photo Paper, Glossy Photo Paper (and a plethora of other) media type settings
Here are the Transparency Films I've tried:
- Pictorico Pro Ultra Premium OHP Transparency Film
- Pictorico TPU-100 Premium OHP Transparency Film
- Inkpress Transparency Film
- Transparency Film sold under a local camera shop name, which is supposedly just rebranded Inkpress Transparency Film
- Apollo Transparency film with sensing strip (this is the only true clear substrate I tried, but has a removable sensing strip)
There are several people out there saying things like: "It should work" or "I see no reason why it would not work" or "It works on my Epson 4900" or "Pictorico will work." But here I am, unable to get reliable and predictable results.
Is anyone out there actually using a P900 and making this work,
reliably??
Thanks all!
