Epson ET-8550 EcoTank printing on contact film for digital negatives and transparencies
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- Опубликовано: 31 июл 2024
- Keith looks at printing on this (160micron) contact film with the Epson ET-8550 printer. The A3+/13" EcoTank printer has both dye and pigment black inks.
Through correct choice of media settings, the printer can use the pigment ink to increase the density of blacks, affecting both colour transparency prints and the printer's potential use for digital negatives for various chemical based printing processes.
The film used is a 160 micron contact film from Fotospeed in the UK
fotospeed.com/digital-contact...
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Hi Keith! Thanks for all your help and my ET-8550 printer showed up last week and it is a great printer and perfect for my job I needed to do. It makes great prints on thick card stock for out Album jackets and posters. Great Videos
Thanks - how thick is that card?
@@KeithCooper 130lb
Thanks for that.
Is that '130lb Cover'?
I believe it's ~350gsm in 'rest of the world' units ;-) :-) Matches some of what I've used in testing for greeting cards
@@KeithCooper yes its is. Works great and i used matt and glossy
Interresting, thranparencies do look great here. I wonder what would happen if the print was done 2x on the same sheet, even same side. There might be issue with allignement though...
Thank you Keith for your videos, got my ET-8550 yesterday and it is gorgous. It is truly essential for even enthusiast photographer to have physical image, not just just data rotting on harddrives...
I've not tried this, but alignment might well be tricky - but ink loading on the film is more likely to cause issues?
Glad the videos have helped!
Hey nice explanation. I was just wondering if I wanted to recreate my own animation cells using transparent film is there a viable way of printing them with a printer such as yours? The main concern for me is how transparent the prints come out, obviously they are designed to, but I am needing a far more opaque result so that a background image placed underneath does not show through. Things like double layering the films will get me closer but potentially not worth the cost of film if there are a couple 100-1000 sheets per animation. Thanks in advance for any advice.
Not a cheap option with this printer - that and each print takes several minutes.
I'd generally prefer to do it with a pigment ink based printer and to print from a roll of film (so not this printer) It is however, not an area I have any real experience of so that's just an assumption...
Ciao Keith, but do you regularly use the "Epson print Layout" program for your prints or do you use the Photoshop program?
In both cases, you therefore suggest using the Velvet Fine Art Paper support in the printer setup and an ICC profile obtained from a proliferation made by you in the color setup.
It is obvious that in case someone has a probe to be able to profile the card he uses he must use this ICC profile.
If, on the other hand, you are using a photo paper other than Epson's for which there is an ICC profile for the ET-8550, what do you suggest to do?
Use an Epson ICC profile similar to the paper to be printed on?
I hope I have explained myself well but unfortunately I don't know English but only Italian !!
In these examples I printed directly from Photoshop (CS6 on a Mac)
I'm sure you could get reasonable results with other profiles, but I didn't have enough film to experiment further.
This video is just to give some pointers to people who want to experiment further.
@@KeithCooper
I understand !!
And that is why even though I don't have your incredible experience, I will also try the photographic papers I have acquired.
Thank you for your commendable contribution to understanding quality home printing
Hi,
when I put a A3 size film in rear side.
The 8550 cant see my film.
I bond some tape on the film. Then it gets the film. But now cant print, empty output.
So I want to ask. Which way and gow you print on film
Sorry - can't help here other than refer you to the video. I don't have this 8550 here any more, and I only tried the one sort of film.
Thank you for a great review. You made a comment in your review alluding to the density of black in a transparency to be used for contact printing. Can you clarify your opinion of whether the VFA setting would result in a better negative or would provide no quality advantage in creating a negative for contact printing?
Thanks - I've not been able to test with this any further, so I don't know it made an actual difference.
How are you doing sir have you done any direct to film transfer what they do with putting a day transfer directly on the T-shirt we’re talking about DTF on the 8550 the one that you have
Sorry I've not done any of this.
The 8550 does not support dye-sub inks
Great find, thanks 👍🏻
Have you eventually given in doing some contact prints, maybe with just cyanotype?
What budget printer could you recommend for mostly contact printing / digital negative?
It's still on the to-do list, but I'm afraid it's likely to be a while...
I don't know enough about general printer performance on this media to make any particular suggestions - I'd hunt out an alt-process forum to see what people are finding works?
@@KeithCooper thanks
Can you compare the quality of the prints from the Epson ET-8550 to the Canon PRO-300 or PRO-200?
I've not enough film left to test on these. My suspicion is that the pigment inks of the 300 will make for denser images for negatives, but I've not test the film in either.
Hi Keith, Big fan here. I have the Epson 8550, and you are my go-to guru for everything I need to know! Can I ask a question? I've been trying to print transparencies, and printing colour has been fine, it dries quickly and causes no problems, but when I'm printing black, it takes an absolute age to dry and even if I don't touch it, sometimes it just runs (more of a bleed really) on it's own. Do you think this is the Pigment Black causing this issue? And if so, do you know of any way I can "switch off" the pigment black temporarily whilst I'm printing these transparencies? Many thanks for any insights
Depends on the particular type/brand of media and media settings.
With the 8550, pigment black is only used at the VFA media setting (see my 8550 review articles), so that is not the problem?
@@KeithCooper Oh, I see. Ok, thanks for the quick response. I'll try different profiles then. Thank you
It's media settings that affect ink loading - profiles are almost certainly not available for films on the printer and are a matter of experimentation.
It is possible to make profiles for back lit transparencies, but it's quite complex and I don't have the kit needed for it
Where would get the kit?
Hello, can you tell me what paper setting you are choosing?
The video covers the use of VFA and a gamma curve
I have a brand new ET8550 I need help My problem is weird. I put acetate in the rear feed slot when I have sent my document to the printer but it doesn't print that....instead it prints a section of the instruction manual. Incidentally I have never tried to print any of the manual. So....I can print my doc. on paper but not on the acetate. What am I doing wrong and where is the page from the manual coming from? In desperation I reinstalled the printer driver. Is it a software problem and what do I do?
Cannot say, without much more detail about just what you are printing, how you are printing and the computer you are printing from
Sorry, but without such info I cannot even begin to suggest anything...
Email me at Northlight and I'll have a look when I'm back in the office...
@@KeithCooper thank you for replying. There was a document on the scanning platten which it was putting on my acetate. Don't know yet hiw to de-select the scanner. I feel quite stupid now and exhausted.
I'm firmly of the opinion that a new printer is not something to experiment with, with expensive media and non standard settings until you can print an image properly on ordinary paper.
I get new printers to test quite often and won't try anything 'special' until I've mastered 'basic' printing from my computer [ipads/phones are pretty useless here]
Can digital negatives and transparencies be printed on the epson p700 p900?
Yes, I've heard it being used for this - although I must note that I didn't have any to test with when I had those printers here.
It may need to make use of the front feed special feed option for the 700/900?
another nice vid. thankyou. you asked for suggestions, so heres mine... i like printing transp for special pics with water and/or sunsets, but a common prob i have is accurate and vibrant color vs good paper.
also ink likes to run/bleed more than good photo or art paper. id like to see how this badboy does. id very much like to get a new pro epson or canon printer, but hate spending so much on cartridges. i love the idea of this tank printer, and i know epson has nice small nozzels, but im a pixel peeper, and am not quite sold on the idea of half the number of colors compared to a pro photo printer.
itd be amazing if u could make a vid doing a head to head vs epson p700 and/or canon pro300. zoom in vid or better yet, zoom way in on pc and include still img for us pixel peepers.
Ah, I'm disinclined to feed your detail habit in this... ;-) It's usually covered far more in my written articles, especially all the ones looking at re-sizing. They are not areas I really want to cover much with video though (the videos are generally there to support the written material).
As to 700 vs 300, I never do comparisons between brands or give relative ratings (I have a video explaining why ;-) )
If ink runs/bleeds, it's a media mis-match and ink loading needs reducing. Good transparency and back-lit film printing is an area I might come back to when I have another higher quality printer here, since it covers some very specific colour management concerns. I covered some of this in my (written) review of the i1Pro3+ spectrophotometer, which supports creating ICC profiles that combine both the media and the backlight characteristics.
@@KeithCooper ive never seen or even heard of anyone reviewing tech so thoroughly and responding to comments like u do. beyond amazing. i hope you get some sort of financial or other benefit, besides koodos from random peep like me.
i have yet to dive deep into yer written reviews, but will soon. you are a badass. thankyou
Thanks John - The site (and now YT) help pay for my wife to work part time in the business and have been a godsend for the (covid) drop off in work we've had - both for a bit of income and things to keep me busy. Having all the new kit (even if only loaned) keeps me exploring new stuff and ideas. The videos only started last year at the behest of someone at Canon who thought my written stuff should be more widely known.
I just need the YT stuff to become a bit better known now...
@@KeithCooper well the canon dude was right. im not the only one whose become too lazy to surf web to read proper tech reviews. im sure im also not alone who scroll past all the utterly useless obnoxious "unboxing" vids. personally, id prefer watching a 3hr vid review rather than spending 30mins reading a detailed writeup containing same info *hint hint* 😜
One ongoing problem I have with videos are that my written articles are updated over time - the video is set in time as it was made. I just updated an article from 2004 (about inkjet cleaning) and it still gets loads of visits. BUT ... I will do both ;-)
Hi Mr Keith. That printer does can to make print in the vinyl sheet ? Sorry my terrible english
No - not unless you find a special vinyl for normal inkjet printers.
The ink does not dry well
Ok. Can you to find some trademark or shop special vinyl to ink jet, please ? @@KeithCooper
Sorry - I've never seen any. I wouldn't know what to look for and I don't have an 8550 here to test it@@atok1
Scanning negative with the Epson 8550 can it be done
No - there is no way to turn off the scanner light
Keith epson photo ET 5850 can print vinyl stickers?
Only if you get vinyl sticker made for inkjet use
@@KeithCooper thanks