To buy an Epson 3800 or use a lab? Headache or not?

[dennis lee]

Here's an opportunitty of getting me a new printer... with somebody else helping to pay for it.

 

Tell me if I'm crazy.

 

I and a friend are shooting portraits of Pre-schoolers for an upcoming fundraiser. I'm doing the afternoon

classes, my friend is taking the morning classes. There are 85 kids in the program. The school wants to

hang one B&W 8x10, matted of each child at their upcoming fundraiser/dance and sell each of these

prints to the parent for $50.

 

The local lab is cutting us a break on printing. Machine prints would be $5/ea. But, premium prints with

the new Sunset air dried Matte paper would be $18/ea. These look beautiful. The director of the school is

a photographer and would prefer the premium prints.

 

Here's where my brainstorm comes in. Should I purchas a new Epson 3800 and do the printing myself for

$15 each and have the printer only cost a few hundred in the end? Considering paper and ink of course.

 

My question is thus: How good is this printer at B&W out of the box? I won't have a lot of time for

learning curve. I'm on an Intel Mac system and will hopefully be printing through Lightroom.

 

Any suggestions, is this crazy? The dance is on April 14.

[ronald_moravec1]

Black and white prints will not sell in volumn. Few appreciate the medium today.

 

Shoot the pics and send the files to Mpix. You will sell more than twice as many at $25 and make more profit.

 

Mpix will also make b/w on Ilford photo paper.

[patricklavoie]

Excellent printer out of the box for color or BW...depending mainly and almost exclusively on your own experience with the Epson printer, ICC profile and color managed workflow.

 

If you dont have a lot of experience with printing, maybe you should let a professional with experience take care of it.

 

If you still decide that you want to buy this printer, it will be one of the best thing you bought this year : ) If you dont get the result you want, dont blame the printer do...it will be 100% a human problem for a lot of them. Once the picture are ready to be print, it should take around 2hrs to print them all (50).

[Rod Sorensen]

It's a little hard to answer your question as I don't have enough specific information. It depends if you're at risk in this venture. If someone is paying you to take the photos and paying you for 85 8X10s ($1275) and you would like a 3800 anyway, then it's a good idea. If you're not sure how many pictures will sell and that affects your financial intake and you don't really need a 3800, then it's a bad idea.

[aleskoubik]

Dennis,

 

My recommendation is a lab especially considering your knowledge about printing. Without proper calibration printing can be a true nightmare. If you use a lab do a test print before you submit the complete order.

 

Good luck

A.

[bobmichaels]

Your question is similar to "should I hire a photographer or just buy a camera?" There is not much difference in the two decision parameters when you understand the actual facts.

[john_r._fulton_jr.]

Bob--unfortunately today, many just go ahead and buy the camera. THEN when they don't

get the results they thought would be so easy to get they hire the photographer.

<br><P>dennis, most pros would farm that out. It's quick, easy, and the price is okay. Not

to mention any decent lab will re-do them if there's a problem.

[dennis lee]

Thanks guys, I guess I was a bit vague in many respects. My knowledge of photography is

pretty substantial. I'll post a link for some personal work. I've printed a lot with Epson's

and I know how problematic and temperamental they can be.

 

This thing is a fund raiser, I'm shooting for free. The school wants to sell one print to

each family. At $50/each, they will, in this neighborhood. I can offer the premium prints

for about $5 less than the lab and end up with a very good printer in the end.

 

My prints look great when printed commercially. I just don't have a printer at home at the

moment. Finally retired the old 1200, actually drop kicked it out of the house!

 

Some printers need a lot of tweaking for B&W, some don't. I've got an Intel Mac and

calibrated screen.

 

The question is how good is the printer at B&W out of the box?

 

My only hesitation is the time factor and not wanting to eat the entire price of the printer.

I guess the old addage of 'if you can't afford to lose it, don't gamble it' applies here.

 

"should I hire a photographer or just buy a camera?"

 

Well, I am a photographer. Printing is part of the deal right?

 

Thanks again all. Dennis

http://dennislee.smugmug.com/gallery/2516942

[greg lockrey]

If you have to ask, you are in over your head. Let the pros do what they do best and you do the rest.

[jonathan_walker]

What Rod said.

[jtk]

I'm with Gregory.

 

"I've printed a lot with Epson's and I know how problematic and temperamental they can be."

 

Epsons have not been "problematic and tempermental" except for people who didn't choose to learn the basics or used inferior ink and CIS systems. My 2200s are rock solid and the earlier 1280s are still available new because they're so good. I've heard nothing but great reports on 2400 and 3800.

 

If you can't commit to learning the technology then you should accept that you're half of the professional that your client needs and let the other half be somebody else.

[dennis lee]

Some of you guys make me sorry I ever asked this question here. I'm a professional

photographer, shooting for over 25 years and printing with Epson for over 6 years.

 

You cannot tell me that you have never had a problem with your printer. If you do, you

haven't printed enough. I've printed books with my printers, business cards, postcards,

greeting cards you name it, I've printed it. Not without a lot of learning curve and foibles.

 

If you haven't run into problems printing, go print some more; there is always an issue

somewhere, will it be fixable, of course, it's all a matter of time. Sheeesh.

 

My question is simple,

 

Is the 3800 a good B&W printer out of the box on an Intel based Mac or not!?

 

"If you can't commit to learning the technology then you should accept that you're half of

the professional that your client needs and let the other half be somebody else."

 

wow, that's really helpful. Gregory and John; I haven't heard about the 3800, that's why

I'm asking here. What does that have to do with my professional capabilities? I work, I

can't keep up on everything. I use this forum to get some answers and ask some advice.

Not to blindly insult people. I suppose you guys never had to ask a question or want an

opinion. Too bad.

 

 

Thanks to you guys that actually answered the question, Patrick, Rod and Jonathon.

 

Dennis

[jtk]

Dennis, I apologize for the way I expressed my views.

 

Since inkjet's been problematic and temperamental for you, don't take the risk. Buy the printer and make it pay for itself more leisurely, in some other way.

 

 

Presumably we both have the vintage skills to print your job in a wet color darkroom: I imagine neither of us would put one together again under the pressure of one big job, the way you propose with inkjet.

 

Being a little greedy and having better fish to fry, I've passed the bigger printing jobs that I've accepted to underpaid specialists, then marked them up handsomely for resale. Bet you have too.

[jtk]

..you did say B&W, not color, but I think the answer's the same.

 

You might want to ask the experts:

 

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint/

[patricklavoie]

talking about expert, if you need more info feel free to ask : ) LOL

[jtk]

Patrick, wonderful fashion portraits!

[greg lockrey]

The 3800 is actually better in some respects as using QTR right out of the box if you understand how to use the sliders in Advanced B&W Mode. It's a wonderful machine with the canned profiles both B&W and Color.

[eric_chan10]

The 3800 is superb for B&W out of the box. The ABW driver is easy to use and produces excellent results -- including some of the deepest blacks I've ever seen come out of a pigment printer. You can always fine-tune to get even better results, and of course there are other B&W solutions that will give you more flexibility (e.g., QuadToneRIP) but out of the box I'd say the 3800 is a solid choice for B&W.

 

Note that for most B&W images you will want to use the ABW driver (Advanced B&W Photo) instead of the standard RGB color driver.

 

Eric

[john_brewton]

I want to weigh in on this and many others will not agree with my assessment, but here goes. I printed for two years with a 2200 with nary a problem. Color was good and I used Quadtone RIP for b&w. By the way I am a professional and sell my prints in a gallery. I bought a 3800 and had a terrible time getting decent prints. I tried using the Quadtone RIP which would not work with the 3800 and after a query to Quadtone was told that they had not worked out the software for the 3800 yet. Frustration led to experimentation and Patrick Lavoie assisted and I finally figured out ABW to my satisfaction. I like a certain tone to my b&w's which I was having trouble duplicating.

When it came to color I had problems with shadows and dark colors blocking up. Much wasted ink and expensive paper trying to figure this one out. Re-calibrated the monitor several times and still the same result. Then I had a problem with my computer and had to re-boot my hard drive. Just for grins I decided to make a print with no monitor calibration. Viola! Perfect print. Go figure. Went ahead with another monitor calibration and I was back to color printing too dark. Result? Ditched the monitor calibration. At some point I'll buy a different brand of monitor calibrator, but for now I'm doing okay. I suppose the moral of the story is - if it ain't broke don't fix it (buy a fancier printer just because you can).

[greg lockrey]

FWIW, saying that you have been a professional photographer for 25 years really doesn't tell me anything. I have a client who has been in the business for over 30. He can't figure why his 8 mp Nikon camera when shot at 1 mp can't make a good 20x30" prints. "It's an 8 mp camera after all!"

[dennis lee]

Thanks for all your responses, I've already got a headache. I'm going to pass on this one

this time. Maybe next year. The lab gets this one.

 

No problem John.

[t_h3]

Printing B&W and printing color are similar on the 3800: I find there is something of a dance that must take place with each individual picture. If you're extremely serious about printing, about real mastery, each image must be test printed. This makes the process akin to what we used to do in a darkroom. Although, printing with a 3800 via photoshop is tremendously more convenient than darkroom photography.

 

Good is not the enemy of great. The Epson is good for B&W right out of the box. Don't understand gamma? Don't have a calibrated monitor, or don't know what you're doing when you calibrate? You'll probably figure out a way to be OK with this machine after you fool around a few minutes. If you don't know all the technical stuff you can still achieve good results, just don't expect great. Still, you'll likely have a better chance getting to great with your Epson than using a lab.

 

There are only a couple of labs here in New York City capable of providing a great print. Most labs can't even achieve good prints. The ones which consistently produce great prints charge in the quadruple digits rather than double digits for their services and are available only to the top 50 international photographers anyway.

 

With a little ambition, you can outperform a lab very quickly with a nice Epson. An Epson is slow and expensive, you'll learn more than you think you wanna learn, but your brain will not suffer from the extra knowledge. It might be worth it to learn and know how to make a good print and have a foundation for making a great one?