New R2400 - Any tips, advice, or recommendations?

[jaybee]

My new R2400 was delivered today. I would welcome any tips, advice,

or recommendations that might help me shorten the learning curve.

 

Joel Berry

[KenPapai]

1. There are separate black inks for photo (glossy and semi glossy) and matte papers. It's expensive to swap these blacks so try to use up one of the special blacks at the same time you switch paper gloss/matte formats.

 

2. Use GOOD Paper -- any of the better Epson papers and the Moab Entrada fine art papers. Read ALL of the R2400 posts in this forum and pay special attention to what Paul has to say.

 

3. Good online sources for ink cartridges are inkjetart.com and atlanticexchange.com (atlex.com). Ensure you have backup cartridge available for when you run out (of yellow first).

 

4. Let the 2400's print driver do all the work in printing your images. Photoshop pretty much is just a middle man in handing off the image to the printer.

 

5. Be familiar with the Levels control ( ctrl-L ) in PS. Use it wisely. Nearly all images need a levels properly done. It only makes the print that much better.

 

6. Don't be afraid to print in the large formats such as 13x19 inches; if you have good technique and glass you will be overjoyed with the output (and be new friends all over again printing stuff for your friends, family, and neighbors ;) Don't give it away though.

[marshall]

If you don't know how to use output profiles, start there. You don't say whether you have experience with other photo printers or such. But I've seen a lot of new digital printers struggle to get reasonable color because they don't know how to use printer profiles. They've been discussed a lot in the fora here, and luminous-landscape.com has an "Understanding Using Printer Profiles" or something like that that can probably help. Good luck.

[marc_rochkind]

I'm not sure what Ken meant by "Let the 2400's print driver do all the work...," but this does

not apply to mapping the colors. It's important to set "Photoshop determines colors" in the

color management part of the Print with Preview dialog, and to make sure that no color

management occurs in the driver. Also, you need to use the correct profile for your printer

and paper. I have an R1800, and not only did it come with the right profile, but the

instructions on printing with Photoshop in the instruction book were very accurate and

complete.

[custom film holders for fl]

Here is a link to a page I set up with a number of helpful links that contain information that should help you get up to speed with the R2400:

<p>

<a href= "http://www.betterscanning.com/scanning/printinglinks.html" </a> "Good Links for R2400 Printing"

</a>

<p>

One of Clayton's pages gives the hint about reducing the ink printing density by 5%. I found that to be really good advice although you may want to tweak it + or - a % or two. Especially at the higher quality settings.

<p>

If anyone has some other good links, please email them to me to be added.

<p> Doug<p>

<a href="http://www.betterscanning.com">New holder designs for Epson, Agfa and Microtek</a>

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

Welcome to the club. This is a fabulous printer. First thing is to change your work space. The 2400 (K3 inkset) has a larger gamut than other printers and this allows you to use ProPhotoRGB as your workspace. It really improves color range and detail. I print mostly matte, B&W and love Moab Entrada. Moab Kayenta is great too, a brighter white. I also use Epson Velvet Fine Art, which has a great heavy weight. Epson Ultra Smooth is a much warmer paper with a lovely finish. For wedding shots and images you really want to pop, use Epson Premium Lustre, which requires the photo black cart as opposed to the matte black. I'm anxiously awaiting my order of the new Museo Silver Rag. There's a post today about it-seems a wide variation of opinion.

 

For ink, the best prices I've found is at atlex.com.

 

For B&W let Printer manage the color and use advanced B&W mode. For color I let Photooshop manage and use the manufacturer's profiles. All of the papers I mentioned have downloadable profiles.

 

You might tell us about your workflow. We might have additional suggestions based on that.

 

Clayton Jones has a great website on B&W printing if that's what you do and he's extremely helpful if you've got questions. http://cjcom.net/

 

Have fun.

 

Paul

[jaybee]

Thanks for all the answers. They are exactly the kind of information I was hoping for.

 

I use a Canon Digital Rebel. I have been printing my photos on an HP Photosmart 7660. The quality of the photos is good, but I'm trying to improve my images and my output. I've taken a couple of photography classes during the last year and a half, and believe they have really helped.

 

I shoot in the RAW format, then do processing using Photoshop Elements 4.0. I have been saving my processed files as JPGs, but may start saving them as TIF files, based on things I've read on the forums.

 

My next steps are monitor calibration and Photoshop CS2. I am familiar with using profiles, but didn't realize I was using them until I started prowling this forum.

 

I'm also getting ready to order a couple of sample packs of paper to help me learn the differences.

 

Any other suggestions?

[elliot_n]

Don't get too stressed out about switching between Matte and Photo Black inks. I do it a

lot, and it doesn't seem to waste too much ink.

 

If you end up using non Epson papers, consider getting custom profiles made. Some of the

profiles posted by paper manufacturers are not so good.

 

Thicker papers need to be fed in the back of the printer. To do this you need to add the

rear feed attachment that came with the printer. You also need to select this in the Page

Setup menu.

 

Read the manual - it's good.

[rich815]

<B>SPAM BS ALERT</B><p>

 

Nice, j s. Around here when we BS about a service or product we tend to take the honorable route and disclose if we have any kind of connection to the service or product being recommended. It's the honest and respectable thing to do. You however chose the cheesy, dishonorable route of pretending how great that service is but did not bother to tell us you are affiliated. You join the site today and put down that site as your home page. What a loser. With your attention to detail (or lack thereof, nice spelling and grammar errors) and disreputable/dishonorable marketing practices it's likely you'll be out of business soon anyway.

[rich815]

My immediate post above was a response to a post that has been removed. Please ignore.