Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Baryta

[shadowfox]

Hey Will,

I don't know how to photograph or scan a print to show how it looks like in the real world.

I checked out your printing site and couldn't tell whether the images were scans of actual prints or digital images or scans of film or....

What am I doing wrong? 🙂

Kully, you can to some degree.
Of course it's not going to be the same as looking at it in person.

The above is actually a digital photograph of an actual darkroom print. Why digital shot? because the print is bigger than what my scanner can handle.

The one below is from an inkjet (lowly Epson R340):

As a rule of thumb, I use a decent flash like Nikon SB-28 on my Fuji S3, put the print on the floor next to a white colored wall. Bounce the flash at 1/4 manual settings (yours may vary depending on your indoor lighting) towards the wall, then adjust the angle of the flash head and/or your position until you don't have either shadow or hot-spot on the image. Crop the rest of the floor and you get something like the above.

If you can spare the space, put the camera on a tripod and make it a stationary setup.

 

[shadowfox]

Will, what advantages does the Canon have over the equivalent Epson? I hope to be buying my own printer (rather than mooching on my friend's school printer) in the near term.

Chris, based on my research, the Canon produces better B&W, has bigger ink tanks, user-installable printer head (unlike Epson), less prone to jamming because of the flat path for thicker "gallery" class papers.

I trust these guys for printer reviews:
http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Canon Pro 9500/page_1.html

The HP B9180 also is a choice of mine, but unlike the Canon, HP seems to have discontinued that printer.

I just hope that we're not stuck with Epson. I'm done dealing with their "professional" printer's inability to work for a week without hiccups.

 

[gnuyork]

I use this paper with the Epson 2400. It's great for both B&W and Color.

 

[RayPA]

I trust these guys for printer reviews:
http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Canon Pro 9500/page_1.html

Thanks for that link, Will. I've been pretty loyal to Epson printers. I was a big fan of the R2200 (wonderful b&w prints with the MIS inks). The R2400 is a different beast. I've gotten some nice prints off it, but there are times when I'd like to just punch it. I'm in one of those states now with the Hahnemuhle paper. I'm not ready to upgrade yet, but after this recent experience I'm willing to widen my scope for printer manufacturers.


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[kully]

Cheers for the advice Will, I'll be giving that a try on a quiet evening.

Chris, to counterbalance the bad Epson experiences, my R2880 has been great, no jams or funny business, not even blocked heads after 8 months packed over Spring/Summer last year when we moved house.

 

[shadowfox]

Cheers for the advice Will, I'll be giving that a try on a quiet evening.

Chris, to counterbalance the bad Epson experiences, my R2880 has been great, no jams or funny business, not even blocked heads after 8 months packed over Spring/Summer last year when we moved house.

Kully, I hope I'm not coming across as an Epson hate-monger 🙂
I'm glad that your 2880 works very well, my old R340 has been a real trooper as well.

My sour experience was with an R 2200 and later a R 1800, both could not pass the ink test (clogged head) no matter what I did to them. To add insult to injury, I can't clean the clogged heads individually without wasting (expensive) ink on the perfect ones. Also I can't replace the heads myself even when I wanted to.

And the output using third-party carbon ink was inconsistent. I was great when it works, but I couldn't print more than three pages before it started to skip and produce banding.

 

[Chris101]

I've gone through several low end Epson printers, and they always seem to clog in a way that is irreversible. I do use the Epson 7800 here at school, and it always seems to work just fine. Every several months it needs cleaned. The school just bought an Epson 3880, and I used it once. It worked as expected.

My girlfriend bought a Canon 9000, but she hasn't hooked it up yet.

 

[Peter S]

I think the older Epson models were prone to clogging. I used an Epson 2200 with a third party inkset and it was a bit of a struggle. I now am using an Epson 3800 and I have never had any problem whatsoever even after 2-3 months of not using it. Switched it on, did a nozzle test, one or two heads not 100%, 1 cleaning cycle, perfect prints thereafter.

I have tried an HP printers (not the newer models I confess) they were ok, but not perfect and I never liked the Canons for B+W. My camera store that supplies a lot of photographers and photography students here in Amsterdam also says that the Epsons by far outsell the Canons at their place. Same story for the place where I bought my Epson 3800.

Getting good B+W prints with the Epson 3800 is easy, but if you want really, really good prints it takes a lot more time and effort, in that sense it is not different than wet printing.

I am curious about this Canson Baryta, anybody here that can give a little bit more detailed comparison between HM Photorag Baryta and the Canson Baryta?

 

[gavinlg]

I had an epson r1900 and I hated it. It was clunky, badly made, noisy, frustrating and just a crappy $1000 piece of gear. Ink problems, head problems blah blah blah.
I now have a canon ip4850 ($99) and I print better 5x7 and 8x10s than with the epson. Not even kidding.

 

[kully]

fdigital - colour or B&W? The cheap(er) printers do nice colour work (I had an ancestor of your printer - IP4000), but it's with B&W that I found I had to splash the cash with.

 

[gavinlg]

fdigital - colour or B&W? The cheap(er) printers do nice colour work (I had an ancestor of your printer - IP4000), but it's with B&W that I found I had to splash the cash with.

Both. I'm finding different casts on different types of paper. Epson paper seems to have a fairly strong magenta cast, canon paper is very close to true black and white but with a very slight cyan cast. I've yet to try any decent paper or custom profiles through it, but I'll end up making a custom profile for printing b&w.

As far as tones for b&w, The ip4850 doesn't seem to be any worse than the r1900, and I get good accurate tones straight out of the box without any tweaking, unlike the epson which was a nightmare to get accurate prints with for some reason. Obviously I can't print larger than a4 with the little canon, but to be honest I barely print bigger than 8x10 in the first place.

 

[shadowfox]

I have tried an HP printers (not the newer models I confess) they were ok, but not perfect and I never liked the Canons for B+W. My camera store that supplies a lot of photographers and photography students here in Amsterdam also says that the Epsons by far outsell the Canons at their place. Same story for the place where I bought my Epson 3800.

Can you elaborate on why you don't like B+W output from Canon printers? which Canon printer have you used?

Sure Epson has the market's favor, but it doesn't mean that it's the best that can be. Just look at their design, not being able to flush and/or replace a single print-head that is clogged is just stupid (or malicious) design in my mind.

Maybe not to them, since they get the money from ink sales, but we as customers are really scr*wed, aren't we?

 

[Peter S]

Sorry Will for replying so late, did not notice your question. It was 2-3 years ago that I compared my HP 8450 with my friends Canon semi pro printer; I forgot the number. What I noticed was a greenish cast printing my file. I have a callibrated workflow and we did use a canned profile for printing on the Canon, but that should not have made such a big difference.

The store considered the Canon printers a bad decision from their side and I would not be surprised if they will be sold at a discount. I agree with you about the design, but to be honest I am just happy I finally have a tool that works for me and that is the most important.

 

[Bob Michaels]

.................. Just look at their design, not being able to flush and/or replace a single print-head that is clogged is just stupid (or malicious) design in my mind. ...............

I am one who is happy that Epson did not bother with the single print head flush / replace. I have had no (zero) clogged nozzles in two Epson 2400's over the last 4-5 years. I have not done a nozzle check or manual cleaning in many years.

The difference is like night and day from the old 1280's that I used to push 3rd party pigment ink through.