Epson 4880 and Matte black

[gll]

Thanks Norma
Sounds like a cool deal, I went to there web site and checked the price and I think maybe I better wait and get the printer paid for ! thanks for the info. now I'm curious about what spray your using ? I have a show at an Art center coming up next year and I have been trying to get some frames and the price of non glare UV glass is more than I expected, would a spray on a semi gloss paper work and it be durable. I know I could google this but first hand knowledge beat google any day.
thanks

[wburychka]

ImagePrint sounds like a useful product. I can't say for certain, but it seems that the 3880 uses a lot of ink switching to and from matte black--at least based on how much the remaining capacity drops in the maintenance cartridge after a change and change back.

But OUCH! $895 would buy a lot of ink, not to mention another program in the workflow. Is the color matching that much better? I use Red River paper almost exclusively, and their profiles with Epson ink seem to do a pretty good job.

[ChuckW]

Originally Posted by wburychka

ImagePrint sounds like a useful product. I can't say for certain, but it seems that the 3880 uses a lot of ink switching to and from matte black--at least based on how much the remaining capacity drops in the maintenance cartridge after a change and change back.

But OUCH! $895 would buy a lot of ink, not to mention another program in the workflow. Is the color matching that much better? I use Red River paper almost exclusively, and their profiles with Epson ink seem to do a pretty good job.

ImagePrint IS expensive, but I looked at it as an investment that costs less than a Canon L lens that provides just as important a link in a color managed work flow. If you plan on sticking with Red River papers and you are happy with the profiles that Red River provides perhaps you are better off sticking with your existing work flow. However, if you want to branch out to other papers it is hard to beat the ImagePrint profiles. I find, for example, that ImagePrint's profiles for Epson paper beat those provided by Epson.

[jeffkohn]

Imageprint is a bit of a dinosaur IMHO. It offered a lot more value back in the days before the Ultrachrome K3 generation of Epson printers, when Epson's drivers and standard profiles were pretty poor. Back then, buying a custom profiling solution also cost a small fortune. So ImagePrint gave you a nice library of paper profiles that bypassed the Epson driver, as well layout options for printing that could be hard to get otherwise.

Fast-forward to today. For $50 or so, QImage offers all the layout options you could ever need, and up-rezzing and print sharpening that's as good as anything else on the market. The newer printers all have excellent B/W printing modes, and Epson's 'premium' profiles for their own papers are quite good. If you want custom profiles, a Color Munki or Eye One Photo offers an affordable price point for those who want to DIY, and then you can create profiles for any printer you own, now or in the future. The new HP printers even have custom profiling built-in. I just can't see the value proposition for Imageprint, especially with their draconian licensing model that's tied to the printer model you want to use it with.

jeffkohn added 2 Minutes and 22 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

I can't say for certain, but it seems that the 3880 uses a lot of ink switching to and from matte black--at least based on how much the remaining capacity drops in the maintenance cartridge after a change and change back.

I believe a round-trip between blacks (matte to photo and back to matte) uses something like 5ml of ink. Not great, and certainly not something you'd want to do more than necessary; but nowhere near as bad as the 48xx/78xx printers that waste something like $65 of ink each way. Purchasing ImagePrint for the Phatte Black option might make sense with the bigger printers, but not for the 3800.

[venchka]

I ran the numbers on the Epson 3800 ink swap last week. Based on Epson's stated ink useage it was:
$4.50 if you pay list price for the ink
$3.63 if you buy ink from Red River Paper.

YMMV

Update: The rebate on the 3800 is now $300 plus $100 worth of media. Expires the end of May. Do you think a new printer is coming?

Wednesday, April 1, 2009
ANNOUNCING AN ENHANCED REBATE PROMOTION OF THE EPSON
STYLUS® PRO 3800 PRINTER:
END USERS WILL RECEIVE A $300 MAIL-IN COST REDUCTION REBATE ON THE PURCHASE OF AN EPSON STYLUS PRO 3800 PRINTER AND $100 OF EPSON PROFESSIONAL MEDIA.



from April 1,
2009 through May 31, 2009.

http://www.inkjetart.com/cart/wide-f..._901_1421.html

[wburychka]

Epson in the past has been like Canon, with rebates often being precursor to model changes.

[jeffkohn]

Originally Posted by wburychka

Epson in the past has been like Canon, with rebates often being precursor to model changes.

There has been a lot of speculation about a 3800 replacement. It seems likely to me that Epson would release a 4880 replacement first, it wouldn't make much sense for them to release a 3900 before a 4900. I guess they could release a 3880 with the Vivid Magenta inks, but that wouldn't really be much of an update. I'd take a heavily discounted 3800 over a 3880 at full list price, personally.

The 3800 is a great printer, only reason I didn't buy one a long time ago is the lack of roll support. I need to be able to print panos so I went with a used Canon ipf5000. But if you can live without roll paper the 3800 is a no-brainer IMHO. It costs about the same as the 13" model once you factor in all the ink you're getting.

[JNotti]

You can use photo black with standard Matte paper, but if you get into the cold press, water color type papers you will need Matte black. If you are printing photographs of Art, meaning paintings water color ECT.. your prints will look better on matte paper. i use ultra premium presentation matte with photo black and it is just fine. I typically print on ultra premium photo luster and Exhibition fiber and photo black is the correct black ink. If you use any of the papers that are art paper, like cold press you will have to go to matte black.

[Murph]

I use matte black 100% of the time, and it works well for me. However for the non matte papers, use Photo black. I have a photo black ctg that is getting old, I have no desire to use it. The new Epson Hot Press papers look WONDERFUL. See the Paper talk thread.