r800 and digital negatives

[Perikles]

Hi,
I finally got an r800 and trashed my old 1290. Here are my first impressions about digital negs: I made a colorized (orange) negative 6.4 x 8.5 inches on a4 size ohp pictorico. Just increased the density a bit, I have not increased contrast (I use an empirical method, no books.. ). Contact printed on MGIV warm tone 2 1/2 got an excellent picture with good sharpness and tonal range. No dots or artifacts at all, I am very satisfied of the results.
By the way, anyone ever tried this colorizing method?
http://www.zianet.com/jkschreiber/ar...oDigiNegs.html
Regards
Antonio

[peanut]

This is very interesting. I have the PDN on order and will be using the R800 as well. I am so hoping that this will work to give me fine Silver prints with PS control. If it works, my intention is to upgrade to the new R1800 (which will replace the 2200) to getting at least 11x14 prints. PDN is now suggesting using Pictorico Photo gallery Hi Gloss white film for the silver process because of increased sharpness. The exposure times will have to be lengthened significantly however. (Boy, images printed on this stuff are vibrant!)

How has your silver printing gone since your last post?

Anyone else having experience with PDN and silver printing?

[donbga]

This is very interesting. I have the PDN on order and will be using the R800 as well. I am so hoping that this will work to give me fine Silver prints with PS control. If it works, my intention is to upgrade to the new R1800 (which will replace the 2200) to getting at least 11x14 prints. PDN is now suggesting using Pictorico Photo gallery Hi Gloss white film for the silver process because of increased sharpness. The exposure times will have to be lengthened significantly however. (Boy, images printed on this stuff are vibrant!)

How has your silver printing gone since your last post?

Anyone else having experience with PDN and silver printing?

I've asked Mark Nelson about the R800 and he does not recommend using this printer or the new 1800 for UV based processes. The 2200 is an excellent printer for silver based processes and UV based processes. I don't see that replacing the 2200 with the new R series printers will be an improvement over the R series printers.

Good luck,

Don Bryant

[peanut]

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I own the R800. I am considering owning the R1800. I do not own the 2200. I am only interested in printing silver and not UV based processes. My dealer tells me that the 2200 is going to be discontinued soon (quote from his Epson rep - who knows how reliable). The inks in the R800 are almost identicle to those used in the 2200 and therefore there should be no significant problem using an "R" series printer for both UV and silver if the 2200 worked OK for these in the past.

My real question is whether anyone is having any experience to report doing silver with the R800 printer. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Cheers

[donbga]

The inks in the R800 are almost identicle to those used in the 2200
Cheers

It's my understanding that the inks ain't the same. I could be wrong but I think there is a considerable difference since the R800 and 1800 are made for use on glossy substrate.

Anyway it should work ok for gelatin silver prints, sorry I mis-understood.

Don Bryant

[Perikles]

This is very interesting. I have the PDN on order and will be using the R800 as well. I am so hoping that this will work to give me fine Silver prints with PS control. If it works, my intention is to upgrade to the new R1800 (which will replace the 2200) to getting at least 11x14 prints. PDN is now suggesting using Pictorico Photo gallery Hi Gloss white film for the silver process because of increased sharpness. The exposure times will have to be lengthened significantly however. (Boy, images printed on this stuff are vibrant!)

How has your silver printing gone since your last post?

Anyone else having experience with PDN and silver printing?

Hi Peanut,
I printed a pair of digital negatives (orange-colorized) on pictorico and had very nice results, I'm really satisfied. But I must tell that I'm not using any PDN system, just experimenting on the basis of what I have read on internet.
Exposure time was 13 seconds with multigrade IV FB, filtered 2 1/2 and the light came from a DURST 370BW enlarger.
P.

[Perikles]

also, in a month or so, I will try with UV processes and let you know

[peanut]

No problem Donbga and thanks Perikles. I will be experimenting hopefully this weekend when the PDN book arrives.

As for the R800 and R1800 printers, there seems to be a lot of strange information out there about these printers which I think is coming from Epson sales folks (rather than their tech folks). The inks are only slightly different (they are essentially the same Ultrchrome pigment formulation). These printers use C,Y,M,Red, Blue. Then they add in Matt Black for matt papers or Photo Black for glossy papers (just like the 2200, but here you don't have to physically switch the cart). If you choose a gloss paper, the gloss optimizer cart can be used to even out any bronzing that might occur. If you use a matt paper, the gloss optimizer is not used.

While this printer was developed to solve some of the problems that the 2200 had in making nice gloss prints, its matt capabilities are in no way diminished. It prints matt prints just as nice as the 2200. Unfortunately some Epson sales people are touting the gloss features and therefore people are getting the impression that this is not a good matt printer. Not so; works great. (My dealer tells me that from his Epson supply people, he has been told that this R1800 WILL replace the 2200 as soon as they get their production up and then they can drop the 2200 - of course we never know if comments like this are really true, but it certainly makes sense since the R1800 can do everything the 2200 can and more - except no paper cutter for roll paper)

Just thought I would supply these comments to clear up what seems to me to be a misconception about these printers.

For us analog (silver + alt process) printers, the 1.5 picoliter dot size may be a huge advance over the 2200 in that we may now get such fine dot size that our diginegs now have the fineness for silver printing and even better alt printing.

We shall see, and hopefully others who try this can chime in with their results. I will post as soon as I have some results.