[Leica] Printing on Glossy Paper

[leicachris at worldnet.att.net (Christopher Williams)]

Dave,

I purchased an Epson R800 during Katrina last year as I needed a printer was
not sure when I'd see my 2200 again. Color prints matched my 2200 prints
easily. Not one for glossy, but the Ilford Smooth Pearl paper worked great
in the R800. I got some "okay" BW's out of it using profiles, but I was just
printing business cards so it did not have to be perfect.

My BW's are now all on the Epson 2400 using Museo Silver Rag "feels and
looks like FB" paper.

Chris


----- Original Message -----
From: "David Rodgers"
Subject: [Leica] Printing on Glossy Paper


> I just thought I'd share a recent experience. I've never been a fan of
> glossy prints. But my recent purchase of an Epson R800 changed that
> opinion.
>
> I bought a Refurb R800 from Epson intending to print BW with K7 inks.
> But before even ordering the inks from Cone, I used the UltraChromes
> that came with the R800 on some glossy paper samples that I've had since
> forever.
>
> My first attempts on glossy were a disaster. The problems turned out to
> be software related. Once I got everything configured properly the
> results were amazingly good.
>
> Setting up and using profiles can be tricky business. I had multiple
> problems which I won't go into here. I almost gave up.
>
> I finally struck gold on my last sheet of glossy paper. Color glossy
> prints from the R800 are superb. They're as good as the best color
> darkroom prints I've made. The blacks are deep and rich. The colors are
> bright. Best of all they don't look like inkjets. There is no sign of
> bronzing. Most amazing is that this is from an inexpensive printer (the
> refurb R800 was $200 delivered from Epson).
>
> I tried BW on the R800. Daniel Ridings mentioned he'd had problems
> getting consistent BW from the R800. I had problems getting uniformly
> neutral prints with the color inkset. Using Epson supplied profiles and
> PS color management (the method I use for color printing) was a complete
> waste of time for BW. However, I figured out how to make rich neutral BW
> prints using only the Epson driver. It's not 100 percent successful but
> I'm getting close. Only one print in 10 that I made yesterday had any
> sign of green cast in the highlights.
>
> I'm so impressed with the results from the R800 that I'm going to keep
> it for printing color and for printing bw on glossy. I bought bulk R800
> inks from MIS and refillable carts. I bought several boxes of Kirkland
> Pro Glossy letter sized from Costco (great stuff) and several boxes of
> Epson Pro Glossy in 4 X 6 (which right now is 2 for one at Office Max).
> I spent yesterday printing 4x6 borderless prints of numerous images.
> I've gone through a lot of printers over the years. I think I'm going to
> really like the R800.
>
> I plan to print a lot and these will keeps the costs down. I haven't
> used the MIS inks yet but I will be soon. Some people say they look
> better than Epson's inks.
>
> I'm going to have to figure out another solution for BW. I'm probably
> going with an Epson 220 with UT3 inks and QuadToneRip.
>
> daveR