As I have been teaching advanced photographic techniques,
with particular emphasis on monochrome fine-printing
to archival standards, for over 27 years, it was important
for me to be certain that if I did obtain a printer,
it had to offer image printing sizes similar to those
on my normal 16"x12" enlarging paper. Print quality
needed to closely match the quality obtainable on conventional
baryta (fibre-based) paper (as distinct from resin coated
materials which I do not use for archival work). Up
until the introduction of the new Epson 1200, I had
not found any printer that matched that criteria, though
use of colour inks could produce fine quality and gradation
but with the drawback of less permanent images. The
black cartridge had to be considered essential for maximum
permanence but until the 1200 introduced the variable-dot
technology of the colour to the black ink as well, no
printer had lured me into parting with my hard earned
cash!
I should explain that
in addition to teaching photographic techniques for
all formats and all levels of ability, we have been
involved in constructing computers, setting them up
and teaching digital imaging techniques for a few years,
so had seen the output possible from many printers and
also seen the gradual improvements, especially in the
Epson range. All the time I have used computers for
business and pleasure, I used a laser printer, which
although very good for producing numbers of pages, with
or without illustrations, was hardly the state of art
when it came to photographic quality. Like the curate's
egg - good in parts!
Over the past months,
what did become apparent was that a relatively inexpensive
parallel port scanner, the Mustek 1200P (nice coincidence
with the Epson 1200) gave excellent 36xbit 600x1200dpi
results at very low cost; additionally, the transparency
head (just a light box to fit on top - which will work
with any cathode light source scanner) proved an excellent
low cost alternative for scanning monochrome negatives,
provided they were of minimum 6x7cm size. The combined
cost (as in May 1999) for this scanner and the head
is less than £120 Sterling - remarkably good value
and excellent quality too. I am now using this scanner
and head to scan my monochrome 5"x4" negatives into
the computer, for printing on the Epson 1200.
That's the background
information.
Installation of the Epson
1200 printer and software was straightforward. I pre-scanned
my first 5x4 negative, adjusted the settings then scanned
into Photoshop-5. I then inverted the image, used auto-levels,
then manual levels until the image looked as close to
the image in print terms I would have tried to obtain
in the conventional darkroom. The image was then resized
to print to actual 111/4" x 145/8"
and I printed it, using only the black ink on high quality
setting, on one of the two sheets of the new Epson Photo
Paper A3 size supplied as samples with the printer.
The result was astounding.
It looked like a conventional print on chloro-bromide
paper, complete with Selenium toning.
Close inspection revealed
a slight texture, like close and only slight lines but
I emphasize it was slight and did need close inspection.
So, I used a slight amount of Gaussian Blur on the image
plus a slight setting of Unsharp Mask, used the magnifier
tool in Photoshop to see the difference, then made a
second print. This time, the result was virtually indistinguishable
from a conventionally produce high quality monochrome
print.
Thanks to links
on FocalFix, I have accessed a number of sites worldwide,
on which additional information is given about alternative
base materials, meaning papers and inks. James Wakefield,
the Editor of FocalFix, is to be congratulated on having
such good contacts available to everyone who regularly
reads his magazine. I have been trying out printing
on normally available art materials - obtainable at
most art shops in the UK - and have found the French
Arches Paper (Rag base) is excellent; the cold pressed
version is sized with gelatin and thus does not absorb
ink, so there is no dot gain, meaning sharp, well graduated
images via the Epson 1200. The cold pressed is slightly
rough in surface texture, yet performs well. The Arches
hot pressed is much smoother, is also gelatin sized
and equally good. Images, using the standard Epson 1200
black ink cartridge (S020187) and either of these two
papers have the appearance and visual quality of good
platinum prints - a real bonus for the keen monochrome
print maker. My reasoning is that in normal viewing
situations and lighting, these images should have many
years life expectancy based on the paper being of rag
base and thus truly archival, so the black inks should
last well as there is nothing in the paper to affect
it.
I have tried, for some
time, to get Epson to produce cartridges containing
greys - for use my monochrome print workers - to replace
the colour inks, thus with the right printer drivers,
even finer gradation could be obtained on the Photo-Ex.
However, the new Epson 1200 has virtually resolved the
problems and I can report being very pleased with the
virtual photographic output. Several good monochrome
print workers have seen several of the new Epson 1200
prints alongside several conventional high quality darkroom
prints and have been unable to distinguish either as
being "different". I actually did not tell them there
was anything other than my normal darkroom produiced
prints, so they were more than taken aback when I told
them what they had been viewing.
If you are keen for A3
or the slightly larger A3+ prints, in monochrome or
colour, that are truly of high photographic quality,
get yourself an Epson 1200. I have no contact with Epson
but applaud their technicians for the quality of output.
By the way, if you only print colour, the Photo-Ex is
good value, as it has the technology for colour prints
of high quality but not for monochrome with the black
cartridge on its own.
Want
to find out More?
If you wish to contact
the author of this review for more information (Brian
Allen), visit his Website, or feel free to send him an e-mail
