The last step of making media is the coating. The two most widely used coaters are in Switzerland. For Epson, one of these is coating and then converting and packaging. So at least partly it is made in Switzerland even if the underlying media is made elsewhere.
There is a general OBA paranoia that exists in digital printing - while the same amount of OBAs in darkroom papers and papers that have been widely used in the art world only promote some general concern. Digital printers do not feel as comfortable with the medium yet as they should so they strive to be as “archival” as possible while ignoring in general the fact that inkjet media itself has not been widely studied yet. A bigger concern than OBAs are the coatings themselves which will continue to be hydroscopic and are in much greater risk of being stained by atmospheric pollution and outgassing than being converted to yellow staining or browning by intense light. I would be more afraid of the materials in your studio that might adversely affect these inkjet media. Store them in inert poly bags, sealed with tape that is safe for archival storage and away from plastics, acidic boxes, and fumes!
Epson announced they were discontinuing this paper some years back and I bought a ton for my studio in 24x30 size sheets. It’s really beautiful paper. No issues. And still have a great supply of it. The discount was extraordinary and yet they didn’t discontinue it.
But, we do buy 44" rolls to print James Nachtwey’s color prints. And no issues with it for the most part. Occasionally, we send back a few rolls here and there. But, again almost all papers have some issues from time to time.
Do Epson make any of their papers? I’ve always assumed that they didn’t. I assumed it was outsourced. As you say, it’s a specialist task, especially the coating. I wonder about their inks as well, esp the dyes, which are rumoured to be made by Fuji.
People are saying that Epson claim that EEF & TPP are the same. I guess it’s possible that what this means is that they’re meant to be the same, as in made to the same specifation, but it’s going to be hard to guarantee that they’re exactly the same if there’s more than one supplier.
Your paper samples arrived, though we’re closed on Fridays, and Monday was a holiday, so we didn’t actually get our hands on your package until Tuesday, and have been getting ready for an upcoming workshop, so with everything going on, I apologize for not responding sooner.
We did make a test print on the TPP you supplied with the standard EPexFiber curve and 30K GO, and compared to results on Exhibition Fiber. Our results look good, and match our results on Exhibition Fiber paper… so, it’s not the paper as we thought. We made tests with both Selenium and Neutral inks (two different printers- a R2880 and 3880), using both Selenium and Warm-Neutral shade 1, and both produced similar results- with slight flatness in the darkest black patches on the target image (which is normal with some gloss papers), but only about 1/2 way down the first black column. Your target and test prints show gloss differential in the first 5-6 columns of the target, and very blotchy/flat shadows…
So, considering the facts in this situation, you’re experiencing very poor results on this Epson Traditional Photo Paper (and so if Brian, also in Australia), BUT you’re not experiencing this problem with other glossy papers, such as Ilford Gold Fibre Silk and Photo Rag Baryta. The fact that it’s only happening with this TPP, and not other papers makes me still think paper, though we’re getting good results with the sample sheets you sent, so maybe this paper produces different results depending on the environmental conditions? When we did the tests, it was about 70F and 35% humidity in our print environment.
I will try to review your situation and show Jon the test prints on Monday morning, before the workshop starts, to see if he possibly has any suggestions/explanation, otherwise I can only report the facts, and am a bit puzzled about our different results.
Thanks Dana. Puzzled is a good way of describing it. The humidity was probably in the 70’s when I first encountered the problem, but I also printed on paper that I left in a dehumidifier for a week or so. It runs at around 50%. Brian lives in Canberra which has much lower humidity than Sydney. I live about 500 metres from the large humidifier called the Pacific which means keeping your gear in a dehumidifier is a good idea.
I’m glad that Brian tried the exercise too. Jon is convinced that my 3880 is an alien beast so the fact that we both get the same result on two different ink sets and printers tends to point to another reason than the 3880.
So, its not the printer you think and its not the paper we think. How about the driver? I am not certain how QTR uses the Epson driver other than knowing that it is necessary to install it. Can you uninstall yours and install the USA version of the printer driver? There may be some chance that the Aussie driver is different.
Because if you are using the correct workflow and using Piezography correctly (only you know that for sure), and its not the paper and not your printer but you get these bizarre results - then maybe its something terribly obvious such as the Australian version of the Epson printer driver that is doing something odd. We’ve exterminated Gremlins in our Country but my understanding is that they roam freely in parts of Australia…
You do print in swamp in terms of conditions but could not account for such an extreme…
There must be something overlooked…in the meantime will try and search of other Australian 3880 users… to see what they are doing differently than you two…
I’m confused too. I had convinced myself that the papers would prove to be different, i.e. that while Epson might say that they’re the same since they’re supposed to be manufactured to the same specifications, there are in fact regional differences in the supply chain. I suspected that mpan66 had two problems rather than just one - both ink contamination and EEF vs TPP. But that theory seems to have gone out the window.
It’s hard to diagnose prints without having them side-by-side. Even Jeff and I haven’t had this opportunity so far for our jazz pianist test image, although we’ve exchanged hi-res scans. To recap, we both got quite marked mottling in prints before GO. In Jeff’s case (he can correct me if I’m wrong) GO reduced but did not remove the mottling. In my case the GO reduced the mottling to a barely perceptible level. It’s still there, but you have to look carefully to see it. Of more concern to me is that that the darkest tones - 95% to 100% - are very flat whereas the rest of the print is glossy. I noticed this comment by Dana:
And I wonder if she and I are talking about the same thing. If we are then I don’t think that a print with that amount of flatness is acceptable, at least not to me. It’s possible that you wouldn’t see this when framed under glass, but I don’t feel that I could sell a print like that. I don’t get this problem with other glossy papers. I mostly use Ilford and there’s no sign of any of this.
Yes we drive on the left, not the right. Since you’re going to the UK shortly, you’d better get used to this. If it’s any compensation, I’m about to have the same problem in reverse.
More seriously, can I just remind you of the differences between Jeff’s setup and mine:
Me: R1900 4½ years old, SE inks with WN Opaque Shade 1 as a universal black, Win7-64, moderate humidity location
Jeff: 3880 new: Neutral inks, MacOS, high humidity location
i.e. I am not a 3880 user.
I’m going to be offline and out of the studio for most of June & July, and not able to pursue this. I’ll leave it in Jeff’s capable hands.
To cover the points raised. I downloaded the driver from the Epson US site. That’s where I normally go anyway. It is the same version as I was running. I reinstalled it. The print still exhibits mottling.
As for QTR, I have posed the question on the QTR site. Hopefully Roy will confirm any connection between QTR and the driver.
I would think that Brian printing on a 1900 and me on a 3880 would knock printers out of the equation, and we are using different ink sets.
I wonder what workflow foulups Brian and I could both be doing to cause this behaviour.
Anyway, I have already discovered flaking with this paper. I’ve use the best part of a box of paper, countless hours, and a load of ink. I’m wondering why I would persist with a paper that has inherent problems with flaking and fragility.
So to summarise:
Brian prints on a 1900, I use a 3880
Brian uses SE inks. I use Neutral
Brian lives in a low humidity environment. I live in a high humidity one
A belated postscript to this issue. I’ve again printed on EEF / TPP the image of that young jazz pianist that featured in posts #14 & #49. This time I got no mottling. There was a little “texture” in some areas before GO, but after GO of 30K it was just fine, as Jeff saw on Monday when he passed through. Some surface texture, as was discussed in another thread in relation to Cone5, but no mottling.
So what has changed? This is the exact same printer, paper batch and inks, other than shade 1. Well, my previous attempts were with WN1 and now I’m using SEL1, but Jeff was / is using SEL1, so that’s unlikely to be the cause on its own. I guess some batch variation is theoretically possible but unlikely.
The other change is that I’m now using P2 rather than K7, so the curves are different. You’re recall that I successfully remapped the x880 P2 curves to the R1900, and that’s what I used. There are inkset-specific P2 curves, and this was the one for SE. On this occasion I relinearised the curve using Roy’s droplet, although the standard curve was already fairly good.
This time the average density of the 100 patch in the 21x4 was only around 1.98, whereas with the standard R1900 K7 curve it was 2.13. My view is that the mottling was occurring because the black ink limit for some of those K7 EEF curves was set a bit high, and whether there was mottling or not varied with the specific printer, paper batch, humidity and phase of the moon. I.e. there wasn’t enough latitude to allow for any variation. More dMax on gloss is better, but perhaps some papers need not to be pushed too far, in order to allow for such variations.
I can tell that’s an Epson Pro printer in that photo, mostly likely a 3880, and we all know that Epson Pro printers don’t have gremlins. So I have grave fears that that image has been Photoshop-ed. As a photojournalist, you could get into a lot of trouble for that. Lose all your Pulitzer prizes and so on.
More seriously, … You recommended EEF. However the mottling on it has been a pain for some of us. We have done testing and Dana has done testing and other users have also had issues. I’ve made an interesting discovery, which I thought may be of relevance. I don’t think it’s just Gremlins that there’s no mottling with a P2 / K6 curve that just so happens to deliver a lower dmax at 100.
Hopefully this is the last post on this. There has been a little more testing by Jeff and I. The test image of that young jazz pianist was printed on EEF using a three printers and a mix of curves.
As previously reported, there was mottling if it was printed on Jeff’s 3880 using the K7 curve. There was mottling on my R1900 using the K7 curve.
We’ve printed the image again using P2 curves. Jeff printed it on his 3880 (before decommissioning it) using the P2 Neutral curve (remapped so that PK came from the K channel and not Yellow). He also printed it on his new R2000 using the same curve remapped to the R2000. As per post #52, I printed it on my R1900 using the remapped P2 Special Edition curve. There was no mottling in any of these P2 prints.
I still think that the black limit was too set too high on the earlier K7 curves. I may have worked on some printers, but was too close to the edge to allow for any variability in printers, humidity, paper batches, phases of the moon. It seems about right in these later P2 curves.
I do want to jump in here and say that the EEF in the USA has changed since we made our last bulk sheet purchases in 2013 and developed QTR curves for it. When we like a sheet, we buy a LOT of paper for Cone Editions. We do this to avoid changes in our production. We have always done this practice - even since the days of the 1980s when were a photogravure studio. Paper is always the bane of our existence as printmakers. We still have 100s of sheets of 24x30 EEF that we now realize are precious beyond precious. The new EEF is not a sheet that we would consider purchasing or offering at this point. It’s too ordinary.
We only just noticed this recently because we are re-upping on smaller sizes which were shipped to us in black boxes. Our supplier said this change happened beginning of 2014. We can still source original EEF in rolls, but not in sheets. It’s devastating because I actually use this paper myself as well as offer it to our clients.
The new EEF packaged in black boxes has no relationship whatsoever to the EEF we purchased for many many many many years that came in white boxes. The James Nachtwey prints at the Currier Museum of Art that are currently on exhibition are Selenium inks on the original EEF. If James saw the current EEF - he would have refused it.
What are the differences we observe?
The original EEF is very bright white.
[I] The new EEF is warmish near the red side of white.
[/I] The original EEF was thicker in “hand”.
[I] The new EEF feels thinner in “hand”.
[/I] The original EEF had a surface texture somewhat like Ilford fiber based silver papers - just barely rolling texture.
[I] The new EEF has a typical surface like cheaper baryta papers - nondescript.
[/I] The original EEF could take a good ink load.
[I] The new EEF can not take much ink load.
[/I] The original EEF was a house paper for Cone Editions to accompany the warmer Type 5. The new EEF is really not worth stocking as an option for our clients.
We are now making new curves for the new EEF. And the black limit will have to be much lower… It is rather ordinary as a sheet…and we’re a bit heart-broken to lose such a great sheet. It really is night and day when you put one sheet on top of the other or side by side…it is so obvious.
So it wasn’t quite the last post. A couple of follow-up questions.
Which version of EEF were the current P2 curves made on? The lower ink loading suggests that they were made on the newer version, but the dates on them are mostly Nov 2012 to Feb 2013, making it likely that they were made on the older version. Which is a little confusing.
Jeff shipped a couple of sheets of TPP to Dana for testing. Does she recall / can she confirm that these were the newer version? You’d think so, given the problems we had, although her test results with that paper back in post #45 suggested that it wasn’t the cause of our mottling problems. Which is also a little confusing.
[QUOTE=Brian_S;9218]So it wasn’t quite the last post. A couple of follow-up questions.
Which version of EEF were the current P2 curves made on? The lower ink loading suggests that they were made on the newer version, but the dates on them are mostly Nov 2012 to Feb 2013, making it likely that they were made on the older version. Which is a little confusing.
Jeff shipped a couple of sheets of TPP to Dana for testing. Does she recall / can she confirm that these were the newer version? You’d think so, given the problems we had, although her test results with that paper back in post #45 suggested that it wasn’t the cause of our mottling problems. Which is also a little confusing.[/QUOTE]
Official release (not customer customs) for EEF are on pre-2014 inventory and therefore prior to the introduction of a new media under the same name. The ink load was lowered for a different reason than the media itself.
I don’t think we considered TPP to be EEF based upon your experience with it and that it had a different name. I will have to revisit the TPP and compare it to the new EEF to see if its the same - or if it is a total different beast. I will report back.
Which just goes to prove why I have always been highly suspicious of paper from printer manufacturers. We have all spent a lot of time and money on this only to find out that we were comparing apple to oranges. Thanks a lot Epson.
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