Continued thoughts on the Epson 9880

Hi All;
Some further thoughts on the Epson 9880 and my experiences printing with her. Let me start out with “I love my printer” which will show my bias.
I start my day with a nozzle check, it is a simple fact of life that once you have that in your workflow the frustration of a clogged head on a print run goes away (so far). Qimage is the cats meow, the beez knees or what ever cliché you choose to use. My partner and I photographed a 5 day horse show and sold prints. Qimage made their production simple and fast.
I am lucky to have a ink and paper supplier who puts my order in my hands quickly and priced competitively. I live at the end of the supply line and being able to order what I need with no mucking about is pretty skookum. He now carries Galerie Gold in 44 inch rolls.
Illford Gallerie Gold has stolen my heart. I have long been a big fan of matt papers and ink. Now I don’t want to run matt ink and I need another printer since all I want to print with is the Illford Gallerie Gold which runs on photo black inks. We have bumped our rates and now run illford to the clients. Mind you the Illford paper has it down side. It needs at least half an hour dry time before trimming. I have to vacuum my print catcher more than once a day to keep it clean from the shards of paper dropped by the roll. I run the prints through the dry mount press to flatten them for the clients otherwise they have a wicked curl. It is also my most expensive paper but I really like it.
I have been using the printer job logs or CRV files I download from the printer to keep track of my costs. With a little massaging the data set can be imported to excel where I tie the consumables to the spreadsheet with the purchase costs. I haven’t figured out how to find the ink use during the pk/mk change but I have been keeping track of overall ink use before and after the switch to find the use.
A new 9880 is pretty cheep these days with the announcement of the new model. I have now consumed more ink and paper in 90 days than it cost to buy the printer in the first place. No matter the printer size consumables are always the kicker, the bigger the printer the bigger the bill. Did I mention I love my printer?
Mark Prins
www.inandaimages.com

Mark,

Thanks for this detailed insight into your love affair with Epson. I too have been enchanted, LOL! I have a small bunch of questions for you. Your answers would really be helpful.

1. Tell me what do you get from Qimage that is missing from the Epson printing software or from a RIP? Also what profiles do you then use?

2. Now with your choice of the Ilford paper, you say drying is about 30 mins. So can you use an automatic take up roller or would the pics get smudged?

3. Is this printer in your same room as where you work as I heard some concerns about fumes?

4. Lastly, have to tried saving on the cost of printing by using the substitute inks from cone and other fine producers?

I look forward to seeing the kind of pictures you are printing.

Thanks for sharing!

Asher

Hi Asher;
“1. Tell me what do you get from Qimage that is missing from the Epson printing software or from a RIP? Also what profiles do you then use?”

The Epson printer driver works well I have no complaints. I use Qimage as a RIP though it isn’t a rip it works with the current driver. Qimage allows me drag and drop printing that I don’t get from other programs. Currently my work flow is shoot raw, cook in NX2, save as 16 bit tiff. When a print is ordered I use the search function to pull the file from the archive and having pre-set the print size I drop the file onto the Qimage. Once I have enough prints selected for the page size I sent the page to the printer. No muss no fuss. I use the canned printer profiles that came with the printer and will update the profiles as Epson sees fit. In my reading I haven’t found many users who have issue with the current canned profiles. I use the Illford profile with was made with the x-rite system according to Illford.

I find that Qimage makes my workflow segmented and simple. Currently I am shooting six to twenty gigs a day dependent on light and critters. Everyone is fledging out of the nests and the parent eagles teaching their kids how to fish has been spectacular in my failure to capture the action, patience!

With Qimage any file can be drag and dropped onto the printer. In the fine art print work I do for clients I find the ability to keep print jobs allows me to re-send a print as my artists order material. Put the right paper in and re-send the print job, easy peasy.

I have never used a full blown RIP so I lack the reference frame to compare. I was going to go with the Colorburst RIP when I ordered the printer but when I looked at my use and requirements for the printer I found I could get better value without the RIP. Hope that makes sense.

“2. Now with your choice of the Ilford paper, you say drying is about 30 mins. So can you use an automatic take up roller or would the pics get smudged?”

I would not use a take up reel with Illford paper, I tend to pull the prints from the catcher and lay them out to dry. The problem is how the ink makes the page tacky so it holds dog/human hair and white paper dust. Having my heads clog once in the middle of a print run I no longer print un-attended. I would suggest the pages would stick together if a take up reel was used.

“3. Is this printer in your same room as where you work as I heard some concerns about fumes?”

My printer is in another room, my inner office has constant light for monitor calibration and the printer is too noisy for me to have it in the same room. There is a certain smell to the printer, papers have different scents too. Since the inks are water based and the MSDS (Material Safety & Data Sheets) make no mention of toxic out gassing I would suggest that is not an issue.

“4. Lastly, have to tried saving on the cost of printing by using the substitute inks from cone and other fine producers? “


I stay in the Epson OEM inks since I guarantee my prints for lightfastness. I have made the decision to produce what I like not what is cost effective otherwise I wouldn’t be using Illford papers. My experience is that if a client is stressed over print costs they make for poor clients. For myself and now my partner we have found that quality sells much stronger than price. That is the market I like and target. Hope this helps and answers your questions.


Mark Prins
www.inandaimages.com