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How well would Epson 3880 cope with being unused for 6 months?


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For colour I like the accurate colour and crispness you get from resin coated paper. For B&W I prefer the Baryta paper, as Jeff says, just like using an enlarger (not that I ever had much success printing colour :o ). When you only have a single bath heater, which is 4 x 60 watt bulbs mounted in an aluminium oven dish, with a concrete asbestos sheet at the bottom, trying to keep four baths at the correct temperature is tricky. 

 

Wilson

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I used to intern at a photo studio where the owner bought a Epson 3880.  It was after that purchase where I received a great education on the importance of profiles for different types of papers, monitors and the equipment used to make those profiles along with the importance of making sure everything is set up correctly for it to all work together.  Even making the test color print (to create the paper profile) is a mind twist in itself, making sure to tell Photoshop to let the printer manage the color and at the same time telling the printer to turn off it's color management (though only for the test charts.)  Then of course, letting that test chart dry, and then manually scanning it to create the profile.   

 

Before I get started, to answer the question of the original poster; in Arizona the climate is very dry.  If business was slow, the printer would sit unused at least a couple months at a time.  Even at that, I don't remember having any ink problems.  Early on, we did have problems with roll paper in the form of the printer just kept spitting out the paper and we'd have to roll it up manually as it kept coming out.  It was a nightmare.  That only happened a few times though.  When we switched to individual sheets, we no longer had any issues with the paper feeder.

 

The rest of this is only if you want to read.  It's basically good for only for those who may think getting a printer might be a good idea!  As long as someone knows what they're getting into and is willing to take the time to learn, the benefits are very rewarding.   

 

The headaches I do remember (besides all I mentioned above) was having to learn how to CORRECTLY soft proof the photo in Photoshop before printing (and always remembering to go to "Image" "Duplicate..." for a copy of your image) before making any final adjustments for comparisons to your original, otherwise the original will always be changing with each adjustment you make on the soft proof!  You'll never get the soft proof to look anything like the original if you don't make that duplicate image. And don't forget to choose the ICC paper profile for the soft proofing properties.

 

And then of course, working with Adobe 98 (or higher color spaces) images in a sRGB environment.  Again, learning about the differences between color spaces and making sure when opening up a file, it's very important to always kept that file in it's own color space (as apposed to having it changed to the working environment unless the working environment is the same.)   

 

The paper we finally settled on was the Epson Exhibition Fiber Paper, as that paper was closest to the performance we were used to like traditional high quality photo paper.  Unlike other brands of paper we tried, the Exhibition Fiber's white base is actually white, not bluish white or any other color and it's thickness and texture was on par again as to what we were used to working with in the darkroom. 

 

After this HUGE learning curve, we were finally able to get the results we were looking for.  The color matched EXACTLY as to what we saw on the monitor and the prints were beautiful. 

 

By the way, we were working with images scanned from medium format transparences.  And we always used 300 dpi as the resolution of the image file.  I think the Epson 3880 is capable of printing resolutions (from the image) up to 360 dpi, but we didn't know that.  Of course we would always use the highest printing resolution the printer was capable of when laying down the ink of (2880dpi?)  I know we didn't know we could use a file with a resolution of 360dpi, otherwise we would have done that.  And in fact, I think the Epson 3880 can also print image files at 720dpi.  If we had known that, we would have used that file resolution.   

 

I do know (from what I just read) that the SureColor P80 can use image files at 720dpi, and print at 2880 ppi. 

 

And in the case of the scans we were using, I'm using the example of sizing a large scan to 720 dpi, not resizing from 300dpi (or 360dpi) up to 720dpi. 

 

Anyway, the biggest headache after all that (even with perfect color matching) was the brightness of the print VS how it looked on the monitor.  Of course we wanted the print to not only match the color, but to also match the brightness of what we were looking at on the monitor.  Of course there's all this information on the web about the environment the image is in and what kind of lighting is used to view the image.  We didn't care about that.  After color matching, we simply wanted the image to have the same brightness as to what we saw on the monitor. So we got very good at looking at the monitor at a low level (at a point where the image looked very dark) and then we would turn continually turn the brightness up and make test prints till the image looked like how it looked on the monitor at the normal viewing angle. 

 

At the time, we didn't have a monitor where we could have multiple brightness settings.  We always calibrated the monitor to have a intensity of 120 cd/m2 and we'd have to do that little trick of sitting low and brighten up the image during soft proofing till it looked liked the original working brightness. 

 

Luckily, today I now have a monitor that can have multiple settings.  And for those do and for those who may be looking to get a print that matches the brightness of the screen, may I suggest soft proof the image with a screen brightness of about 90 cd/m2 and turn that up till your happy with how it looks on the screen. 

 

My suggestion about screen/print brightness is certainly different than other suggestions.  It's a huge issue.  It's even talked about within this Leica forum http://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/197909-monitor-brightness-print-brightness-problem/    

 

Or in Lightroom, use a setting that will help make those adjustments http://www.photokaboom.com/photography/learn/Lightroom/g_print_module/6_printing_tips.htm#Dark  under Prints Are Too Dark

Edited by thebarnman
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Colour I rarely have much of a problem with, as I only ever use papers for which I have a specific profile for that specific printer. Brightness I find much more of a problem, as it varies according to the brightness setting of your screen and if like most of us using Macs, you have the brightness set to auto, it make the problem that much worse. However, I usually just up the brightness of the image more than I think looks quite correct, as I find for every one that is too bright, I probably get four or five that are too dark. Black and white is much easier as the brightness latitude seems wider. With the quality of screens nowadays, which are wider than sRGB and approaching Adobe 98 for gamut. I rarely get a "throw away" in black and white. 

 

I could not find a supplier of Ilford Gold Fibre Silk A2 cut sheet in France so I have gone for Hahnemuhle Photo Silk Baryta 310gsm, which the seller assures me is very similar. Hahnemuhle kindly supply a free ICC profile for the Epson 3880 for this paper. 

 

I was going to get a set of refillable cartridges to use with flushing fluid and have been saving up the old ones I have replaced. However I have just seen that you have to have 10% of the ink left in the cartridges for the chips to reset when those chips are moved over the refillable cartridges. I would have hoped that the chip resetters were a bit smarter than that. 

 

Wilson

Edited by wlaidlaw
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I could not find a supplier of Ilford Gold Fibre Silk A2 cut sheet in France so I have gone for Hahnemuhle Photo Silk Baryta 310gsm, which the seller assures me is very similar. Hahnemuhle kindly supply a free ICC profile for the Epson 3880 for this paper. 

 

 

I agree with Michael Reichmann's 2009 assessment that Canson Infinity Baryta Photographique is a close match to Gold Fibre Silk.  I tend to use the latter for color, the former for b/w, but that could easily be reversed.   https://luminous-landscape.com/a-tale-of-two-papers/

 

Jeff

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I have never had great success with either Lyson or Canson papers, which is unfortunate, as they are what my local paper specialist,Marrutt in Uckfield, UK, stocks. Lyson very kindly wrote me a special profile for the Canon Pixma Pro-1 printer I use in the UK and their satin RC paper but I find the colours a touch muddy compared with my normal Ilford Smooth Pearl. I had the same problem with Canson on the Pixma Pro-1 with the profile they said was near on some of their Aquarelle A4 paper I bought. The reds were too harsh and then the greens/browns not quite right - I assume a profile issue. Everyone says how good the Hahnemuhle profiles are. If they are as good as I have found the Ilford profiles to be, I shall be very happy. At least everyone and their uncle has profiles for the 3880. The profiles for the Pixma Pro-1 and my previous HP B9180 were harder to find and more limited. 

 

Wilson

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With the quality of screens nowadays, which are wider than sRGB and approaching Adobe 98 for gamut. I rarely get a "throw away" in black and white. 

 

About B&W.  I personally don't know if B&W images are capable of having wider areas of gray within different color spaces.  However, I have tested two copies of the same B&W image with two different color profiles by comparing the differences within one color space on a computer monitor.  Different color profiles do effect the effective luminance (brightness and/or black level) along with it's contrast of that image if that image is not viewed in it's correct working space, though by only a very slight margin.  The differences are slight enough, chances are it would not even be noticed if not compared side by side.    

 

So regardless if a computer monitor is capable of reproducing 100% of the Adobe 98 color space or not, it's still important keep the B&W image's color profile to one of the profile standards regardless of the current RGB working space. 

 

In fact for best effective use of a B&W file, use a grayscale ICC profile for B&W printing.  http://www.outbackphoto.com/artof_b_w/bw_09/essay.html  or http://gerryeskinstudio.com/ABW_sept08_paper/index.html

 

And then of course, there's always the Advanced Black And White section of the Epson Driver.  In this case, as long as the images has a gamma of 2.2 (either sRGB or Adobe 98) the conversion should be fine.  If you want to soft proof for ABW, Eric Chan has many grayscale ICC profiles for the Epson 3880 http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3880/abwprofiles.html

Edited by thebarnman
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I have never had great success with either Lyson or Canson papers

Canson Infinity Baryta Photographique?  I've never known a person to try this paper and not be happy…and I know a bunch. My 3800 likes the feed better than some Hahnemuhle papers, and it's reminiscent of some of my old silver print stock.  Most folks I know either generate custom profiles for each paper used (as I do), or else go with ImagePrint.

 

Jeff

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