New to Digital Printing: What paper and inks for Epson 2200 printer?

filmfan

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I have never printed on an inkjet printer before. I have a lot of experience in the darkroom, but this will be my first time printing digitally myself. A friend gave me his old Epson 2200 printer which prints max 13x wide.

I will be printing both BW and color, but will focus on BW first. Can anyone recommend papers and inks to use for BW and color?

Thanks everyone!
 
The Epson OEM inks are a good start. Jon Cone sells color inks that are compatable with the Epson inks, but there is an initial cost of buying refillable carts. The price of the JC inks is very cost effective, especially over the long run.

I like Canson Platine fibre which is a rag paper, but there is a Canson Baryta that is based on cellulose that has more or less the same look. Both have that Baryta coating to resemble a wet print look.

If you are in NYC go to PhotoPlusExpo and try and get a free sample pack from the Canson booth. Also Robert Rodriguez, the artist in residence, who mans the Canson booth is a great master printer to talk to.

Cal
 
I used a 2200 for several years after it came out long ago. It does best with matte papers, as the original Ultrachrome inkset gives severe 'bronzing' on glossy or lustre surface papers.

The best paper I ever used for it was Epson Velvet Fine Art. Use the Matte Black ink for this paper, and the results are gorgeous.
 
I used (and still have) a 2200 and had to use a RIP to get decent B&W prints with that machine. If I remember correctly, the 2200 driver was not very sophisticated relative to B&W - prints came out with a color cast. I used Quadtone (very inexpensive) for B&W printing, with good results. As someone else said, matte works best. That's quite an old printer and I would be careful about investing in it, as getting it fixed if anything gives out would be very problematical. I haven't run mine in quite a while - all I use it for now, is printing on uncoated water color paper that may leave lint in the machine. Try doing B&W with Quadtone before you invest in another ink set.
 
Thanks for all the info. I plan on using this printer for a while to get the hang of printing digitally, after which I will upgrade to an Epson 3880 or 4990.

I will go with Chris Crawford recommendation of "Epson Velvet Fine Art. Use the Matte Black ink for this paper, and the results are gorgeous."
 
Is anybody still using Piezography? I used it years ago and then moved on to Epson k3 inks with the quadtone rip. At this time I don't have a printer but will start up again in Jan 17. Not sure whether to get an Epson P800 with the quadtone rip or a 3880 and put Jon Cone's inks in. All I do is black and white. I've read a lot of the threads but still can't make up my mind. Has Espon/quadtone equaled piezography yet?
 
Is anybody still using Piezography? I used it years ago and then moved on to Epson k3 inks with the quadtone rip. At this time I don't have a printer but will start up again in Jan 17. Not sure whether to get an Epson P800 with the quadtone rip or a 3880 and put Jon Cone's inks in. All I do is black and white. I've read a lot of the threads but still can't make up my mind. Has Espon/quadtone equaled piezography yet?

Cirrus,

I own an Epson 3880 and a 7800. Both are rigged for Piezography using the Quadtone RIP and Print Tool because I use a Mac.

My friend John has the P600 and the word out on that printer is that Epson has increased the pump pressure and the P600 and P800 are great printers that are not prone to clogging. I know that Jon Cone is a stubborn man and there were difficulties in circumventing using non OEM inks. I believe JC figured out a workaround recently.

Vince, a photographer I deeply respect, says that he can see no difference between a Piezography print and one made with OEM K7 inks. I have seen impressive prints that I would agree are the equal to Piezography. Basically I would agree with Vince, but I do see some advantages if you are a dedicated B&W printer.

First off around 13x19 Epson OEM and Piezography will have around the same IQ, but say you are going to print crazy big, call it Salgado envey, and you print say 20x30 on 24x36. I doubt Epson OEM will scale up as good. I shoot a Monochrom which is an amazing camera, and I would be bold enough to say I'm getting in the range of near large format on some perfect files where everything was perfect.

If you do glossy like I do there is a huge advantage of durability. I had a Symposium at ICP where I allowed a dozen people to handle my prints. I can drool on my prints and wipe off my spit and the print is not damaged. I can stack my prints in archival boxes and feel they are safely stored. The Gloss Overcoat that gets printed effectively protects your prints, and they are not delicate like a regular inkjet print. My friend Joe makes a good point though, "I can always print another one," he says.

Piezography is carbon based inks, and I would expect any color inks to change over time and offer less permanance. To me Piezography is more archival since there are no color pigments and carbon is the most archival pigment.

I would not amplify the cost savings. While Piezography inks are a lot less expensive I do think that Piezography likely uses more ink per print so any cost savings kinda gets consumed. The tonality and detail have to come from somewhere.

Because I own a Monochrom I will share two observations; One is with Piezography there is more shadow detail than can be revealed on my 27 inch calibrated EIZO that I purposely dimmed down to only 80 Lux to kill the contrast and kinda resemble the amount of light reflected off ink and paper. Know that I darken the room, and I use a viewing hood. It was an epiphany that I can print more than I can see on the Eizo. Know that you can print what you can't see.

Secondly because of the Monochrom I found that the 3880 was too small a printer to exploit the full potential of the Monochrom.

Another difficulty I experienced with the 3880 was "pizzawheeling" when I tried Canson Platine Fibre which is a paper I favor. It seems the paper transport creates a very bad artifact with Canson papers. Also know that Canson paper reveals to me the most detail, but they are extremely thirsty so not only do you consume mucho ink, one also has to perform two Gloss Overcoats so effectively one is printing the same print three times. On a 20x30 on 24x36 (using my 7800) it is 41 minutes for laying down the seven shades of black, then two times 45 minutes for the two coats of GO.

The 7800 uses a vacuum for a paper transport and is superior. There is no pizzawheeling.

Anyways the Piezography I think is the premium product, but in my case to exploit the great Monochrom files the costs are high. I shot the Monochrome for two years without any regard to printing. I first bought the 3880 ($1000.00 with a $250.00 rebate); $2.3 for a 27 inch EIZO; and $3.2K worth of paper and ink to bulk up on supplies that quickly got depleted. Funny thing is that I bought the 7800 for only $100.00. LOL.

Know that if I had a 9800 or 9880 I would print bigger (24x26 with borders instead of 20x30 with borders). My most common print size (standard size and for proofing) is 13x19.5 on 17x23 1/2 paper.

I believe it pays to go with the large format printers. Currently my 3880 is in storage mode loaded with Piezoflush. One day I will load it with a Selenium inkset and use my 7800 for the application of GO to avoid the pizzawheeling with Canson papers. I created a warm neutral to selenium split-tone that is ideal for night shots. A three way split-tone: true black; warm shadows; and cool highlights. The prints are stunning. Best money I ever spent.

Cal
 
I used a 2200 for several years after it came out long ago. It does best with matte papers, as the original Ultrachrome inkset gives severe 'bronzing' on glossy or lustre surface papers.

I see the big jump in Epson technology, like ABW which is a slightly simpler but quite effective RIP, was from the 2200 to the 2400. After the 2400, it seems most changes have been minor. Back in its heyday, the hot setup with the 2200 was to print b&w using only the black ink, Eboni which was a 3rd party ink.

In the total economic scheme, the printer is the cheapest part. You will rapidly spend more money on ink and paper than your invested in the printer. To start off with, you are going to invest around $100 in a basic inkset just to see if your 2200 has a permanent clog that has developed which sitting, if the paper handler system needs rebuilding, or other potential fatal flaws.

But for $600, you can buy a new much higher quality printer that you know will work well right out of the box. Plus for that price, you will have a complete inkset. And, replacement ink will be cheaper as Epson gradually increases the ink price for older model printers to encourage you to trash you old printer and they will no longer be forced to produce those inks low quantities.

BTW, my words come from using many Epson 1280's which was the predecessor to the 2200. I wore out a number of them.

My advice, which is probably not what you want to hear, is the trash the 2200 printer that was given you and start with a new one.
 
Thanks for the extensive reply Cal..... decisions, decisions. I wont go bigger than 13 x 19 so maybe I'll start with the P800 and if and when Jon makes an inkset for it I will give it an try.
John
 
Thanks for the extensive reply Cal..... decisions, decisions. I wont go bigger than 13 x 19 so maybe I'll start with the P800 and if and when Jon makes an inkset for it I will give it an try.
John

Cirrus,

Not a bad choice, but be aware that the problem doing glossy with Canson papers will likely remain.

I recommend doing the extensive data mining required.

Cal
 
Hi Bob,

I appreciate your honest feedback and totally follow your logic here.

The Epson 2200 came with inks that were only used a few times, but this was about 1 year ago. I'll try working with the 2200 for a while as a "nothing to lose" bid, but can see myself upgrading printers quickly...

I see the big jump in Epson technology, like ABW which is a slightly simpler but quite effective RIP, was from the 2200 to the 2400. After the 2400, it seems most changes have been minor. Back in its heyday, the hot setup with the 2200 was to print b&w using only the black ink, Eboni which was a 3rd party ink.

In the total economic scheme, the printer is the cheapest part. You will rapidly spend more money on ink and paper than your invested in the printer. To start off with, you are going to invest around $100 in a basic inkset just to see if your 2200 has a permanent clog that has developed which sitting, if the paper handler system needs rebuilding, or other potential fatal flaws.

But for $600, you can buy a new much higher quality printer that you know will work well right out of the box. Plus for that price, you will have a complete inkset. And, replacement ink will be cheaper as Epson gradually increases the ink price for older model printers to encourage you to trash you old printer and they will no longer be forced to produce those inks low quantities.

BTW, my words come from using many Epson 1280's which was the predecessor to the 2200. I wore out a number of them.

My advice, which is probably not what you want to hear, is the trash the 2200 printer that was given you and start with a new one.
 
I would recycle the 2200 - mine was very prone to clogging, and I'm not sure it did Advanced BW (I thought that started with the 2400). There is nothing more frustrating than an unreliable printer.

Jump right to the 3880. You will love it with almost any good quality paper, and it is extremely reliable.

Cheers,
Kirk
 
I echo the pain that many felt with the 2200. A very capable printer, but fussier than an Italian sportscar car from the 80s.

When I had one, I used the "Black Only" method mentioned by Bob in post #9, band had great results on matte paper with minimal fuss. The look of the dithering might not be your cup of tea, but I would definitely look into this technique with your 2200 before adopting more sophisticated printing methods.
 
Here http://www.cjcom.net/articles/digiprn3.htm is a link to my long ago sidekick, Clayton Jones, from 14 years ago about printing b&w with an Epson 2200 using the Black Ink only. I used the same methodology using my Epson 1280's back then. We all used Eboni, an excellent ink from MIS Associates.

I still have some of those prints and marvel about the D-Max and tonality. Some of the technical geeks of that era would focus on some tech details and write Black Only prints off. We just put the prints on the wall and everyone who was non technical would remark about "how good they looked".

Clayton wrote a series of excellent articles about printing b&w with the 2200 and similar printers. I remember having a credit somewhere in one of those articles back then. See http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm
 
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Lessee, from 2002 to 2005 I used Epson 1170, 1270, and 1280 printers. All of them died; the old Piezography inks jammed two of them (the 1170 and 1270) solid after a pitifully small number of prints. I gave up on Jon Cone and his inks after that. The 1280 was never worth very much for B&W printing and the dye-based inks weren't particularly stable for salable prints; it's controller board crapped out and I chucked it.

My friend had a 2200. Running standard Epson pigment inks, I made a few lovely color prints with it, but never got it to print B&W with any joy except with Quadtone RIP. Roy lives nearby me, we had many discussions about optimizing QTR for the 2200. Epson Velvet Fine Art (a slightly modified version of Somerset Velvet paper...) does indeed work beautifully with it, although actually the original Velvet (no longer available now, IIRC) was a mite bit nicer looking.

I bought myself the R2400 in October 2005 ... When I bought the R2400, it was my discussion with Roy that convinced me to stick to the Epson inks and use either the Epson Advanced B&W or a fully color managed printing workflow. In ten years, I made over 14,000 prints with it, about half of which I sold and a quarter of which went into exhibitions. A good percentage of those in exhibition won awards for me. No problems with print quality.

Last year, I gave the R2400 to a friend and bought a P600. It's an even better printer than the R2400 and the inks have a bit more gamut and dynamic range. It's made almost a thousand prints already (about a quarter of them for clients).

I thought I might go for a larger format printer when I sold the R2400, but I realized over the years that I prefer my prints in sizes up to what the P600 can produce and it's more economical to run, for me.

The standard Epson inks work very well indeed, the K3 and its derivative inksets are as archival as anything else out there according to the Wilhelm stress testing.

Frankly, the 2200 is old enough and the inkset old enough that if you are learning how to print today, I'd dump it and go with a more modern printer ... because you're just going to have to re-learn your printing workflow and setup with a newer printer when the time comes anyway. There's no real benefit, financial or otherwise, from running an older printer to learn inkjet printing: Every printer and inkset has a bit of a learning curve to it, and every paper to inkset match as well requires a bit of time to understand and exploit completely.

I hope that helps out, at least a little.

G
 
I will kinda state the obvious.

Nothing wrong with sticking with the Epson OEM inks for 13x19 prints.

The early Jon Cone inks were prone to clogging print heads, but things have advanced over the years. Things have advanced to the point where you can print digital negatives and contact print to make silver wet prints. Pretty much I could do a Salgado, and I don't need the best French lab in Paris.

Do lots of research and do what is good for you. I will warn you that doing Piezography requires a bit of a journalistic mind and also a bit of data mining. It seems that there is so much information that can cause information overload, and you really have to filter through lots of reading to connect the dots.

Took me a long time to figure out what would work for me, and where I personally wanted to go with my printing. For me it was always the ambition to approach printing in a fine art manner where permanence, printing large, and printing for exhibition were important.

I also tend to not to do what most people do because I am trained as an artist. Know that with the Jon Cone inks that I actually blended my own warm nuetral to selenium split-tone inkset. I have warm shadows and cool highlights that in particular make for stunning night shots to exploit NYC urban living.

If you shoot a Monochrom or M-246 a 17 inch printer you will discover is rather small. If you do Medium format and want to exploit its full potential also a 17 inch printer will be small.

Cal
 
Godfrey, Were you printing with QTR or making your own profiles when not using ABW? I have a really nice split tone recipe that I use with QTR but I imagine I could get more out of the print if I made my own curves.
Thanks,
John
 
Godfrey, Were you printing with QTR or making your own profiles when not using ABW? I have a really nice split tone recipe that I use with QTR but I imagine I could get more out of the print if I made my own curves.
Thanks,
John

I was using QTR in the days before Epson' ABW existed, at least for me. The R2400 was the first printer I had that supported ABW. I haven't used QTR since I bought the R2400 in 2005.

I've had a few paper profiles made for me, didn't make any myself.

G
 
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