Epson SC-P900 Thoughts...

[Harlequin565]

So I spent most of the morning setting up my P900 which arrived yesterday from Wex. I thought I'd share my thoughts on it.

I was buying new and upgrading from an Epson Stylus Pro 4800 which was a large format printer that took up a ton of space and was impossible for me to lift on my own. So this is "tiny" by comparison being the size of an A2 sheet of paper when all folded down.

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Setup
Keith over at Northlight Images as a whole lengthy blog post on this, but it is quite straightforward. Strangely the supplied power cord didn't work, but when I substituted it for one of the many similar ones I have lying around it worked fine. You can imagine my relief! To take off all that blue tape, unpack it, lift it upstairs, plumb it all in to only then discover it wouldn't even power on was a bit of a shock. Removing all the blue tape was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle but I managed it without breaking anything.
One of Keith's tips is to shake all the inks while they are in the black box as it's more energy efficient . Inserting the 10 tanks was fine, and I followed the instructions on the Epson website. It took about 15 minutes to charge the printer and about another 10 minutes or so to upgrade the firmware. Then it was ready to print.
One tip is to leave the USB cable unplugged until you're done the initial charging. The P900 has easy access to the cable ports (not so much the power cord) so it's not a big hassle.
I opted for a wired USB connection to my desktop, but there is an option to go wireless. Still not discovered whether it can do both... One for later I think.
After setup, all ten tanks were down to about 25% which is plenty enough to get printing without worrying about the eye watering replacement costs of all ten tanks. I'm hoping that some will get used more than others as happened with the 4800 - especially as I do a lot of B&W printing.

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Construction
The reviews said it was flimsy and it is. I can imagine any excessive force on something that won't open will probably break the thin plastic, but as I'm not going hiking with it, sturdiness wasn't a massive selling point for me. It's in the office now and likely won't get moved until I move house. The flippy up screen is nice, but I control it from my PC, so I can't see me getting much mileage out of it.

Use
Having use the Epson print drivers for the 4800, this was just a juiced up version so I was quite comfortable with making standard prints. I downloaded the Epson Print Layout software which I've not done anything with yet, but it'll be useful for when I get the roll paper adapter and start doing larger prints, or just printing multiple images on the same piece of paper.
Loading the paper is very easy with a rear loading "guide" thing that you just push up to the edges of the paper. It took a 300gsm art paper through the rear load with no difficulties, so gone are the days of manual loading!!

My first print was on some "Glossy Photo Paper" (unbranded!) that my wife picked up from the charity shop and the results were dreadful. Just goes to show that it's not the printer than can cause bad prints - it's often cheap/nasty paper. Put a sheet of Fotospeed through it from a test pack and it was fine.
My 4800 sounded like a battleground when it was printing, and by comparison, the P900 is very quiet. I could easily have a conference call while it was printing which would have been impossible with the 4800. It's quick too, spitting out an A2 test print very quickly.

I print from the Print Module in LR, and it found the new printer quickly and just dropped into my workflow as a straight replacement to the 4800. Easy mode.

Still got a few things to tinker with. Have got a few ICC profiles to download, and all my templates need redoing for the new printer (and borderless options!). I did some flyers for my wife, experimenting with different paper types to see what difference it made but couldn't really tell. Out of the box with no profiling, the images are pretty damn close, and Keith reckons the B&W mode is all you need for black & white, so I'm hoping it won't be too onerous of a job.

Overall, very happy - especially with the quietness and the desktop footprint. All the things close on it to make it a big black box which is good for keeping dust out. Bit annoyed about the power cable, but I think an email to Wex will get another one sent out.

May update this thread with further nuances and niggles, but for now I'm looking forward to making prints in peace

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[wookie6262]

Looks a cracking bit of kit. I have a 24 inch Z3100 that is also loud and huge but I have the space to use it and with it being on wheels you can easily get round the back to load paper. Hope your new toy gives you lots of wonderful prints

 

[Harlequin565]

Just to add that Wex got back in touch today with a nice apology, a new power cable in the post, and a small goodwill gesture.

Other companies should really take note. This is how you deal with problems.

 

[Harlequin565]

Usage...

So I've been running some test prints through the P900 now and thought I'd share my findings.

My first step was to rebuild my LR print templates. If you don't know where to find these, they are on the LH side above collections. The "+" button will save the currently chosen settings to a profile, so if you have different media types, print modes and levels for different papers, you can quickly switch between them just by choosing the right template. The template also saves the Print driver settings which is a huge boon.

I have a generic templates group that use the printer colour profiles - generally for contact sheets, or cheapy prints, then I have a specific template group for when I have an ICC profile. I typically do a test with the general profile as well as the ICC profile to see if I can discern a difference and if so, to see which one more closely resembles my monitor. Also I have a B&W template group for black & white printing. Within each of these groups is a template for either the specific papers, or types of generic paper (matt, lustre, glossy etc)

I've done a lot of tests on my papers and the generic profile performs very well against the paper supplier's ICC one. Only Canson's Platine Fibre Rag really requires Canson's ICC. What was really good was that my cheaper papers (Marrutt Archival matt for matt, and Innova's Fiba Print Ultra Smooth Gloss for non-matt) are gorgeous without any tweaking. Likewise the ilford papers (Gold Fibre Gloss and Metallic Gloss) show no discernable difference between ICC and generic profiles.

Looking at the ICC profiles themselves, many were advertised on the website as P900 profiles but were internally named P700 so I guess p700/900 profiles are interchangeable. If your paper type doesn't have the P900 as a listed printer, the P700 will probably do the trick.

My Somerset paper is going to need a bit of tweaking as the colours bleed a little, especially on saturated images - but that may be the paper choice which will require a revision. Both ICC and generic profiles are less than I'd expect.

Black & White "Advanced B&W Photo" mode is excellent. One of the "C"s in ICC stands for colour, so finding a good B&W profile for my paper of choice was always tricky. I'm really pleased with the native printing mode here, and the ability to tone prints from within the print driver was excellent. I have now set up silver and sepia toners within the Print module - rather than having to split tone Develop with all the muddling of virtual copies.



In terms of quality options. I tend to pick "High quality" (1400x1400) as that includes MicroWeave, then I *uncheck* the Black Enhance Overcoat option. I tried a print with and without it and could see absolutely no difference.

I've managed to turn on wifi printing too. Can now print striaght from my phone (wireless), or the computer (via cable).

I guess I've done 40-50 A4 test prints and LLK is looking like it needs to be replaced. I was concerned about moving from 220ml tanks down to 50, but 8 tanks @220 to 10 tanks @ 50 isn't as bad as it sounds.

I also printed out my film journal which is a slim volume of hand typed A5 sheets. I designed it in Afiinity Publisher then print "2-up" to A4 paper and cut in half. Print options are just as flexible as for printing from within LR with the only downside being that the saved print profile in Publisher doesn't save the print driver settings sadly. Printing multiple sheets was something I'd read complaints about in the past (on the P900), so I hand fed each sheet as it went through. A major pain if you're doing it every day, but no bother for me for a once-in-a-blue-moon situation.

Really very pleased with black & white prints on this thing.

 

[benc98]

Thanks for posting this Ian.. it's been useful.

My one arrived yesterday and managed to get it set up ok including the firmware update.

Fired off my first test print... and I ended up doing the most amateur thing? Well.. I thought I had ordered and loaded some A3 Paper, I didn't realise until after my second print that I was using A3+ so the image was a bit weird in margins because I had the page setup set to A3 haha They look good, but will need to cut them so the borders are equal.

So, my journey into printing has officially begun... queue a million stupid questions

 

[Harlequin565]

Roll Paper Feeder

So my roll paper feeder arrived today and I've just tried a proper pano.

1st, the setup isn't as easy as Keith Cooper makes out. The unit needed "encouragement" to "slot into place" and to be honest, it's not very manly. My printer sits on a chest of drawers and the roll paper feeder hangs over the back. It "droops" quite a bit. More on that in a bit...

Feeding the paper into the printer is also not as straightforward. You get the beep, close the lid, then I went through a succession of "open the lid, close the lid" prompts until I got annoyed and fed the paper well past the beep.

Printing from LR is fairly simple. I was making a 12x34 inch print (6x17 neg) so I had to set up a custom paper size. Epson print driver happiness time as the custom print size isn't recognised. The steps...
In LR, click Page Setup. When the print driver pop up appears, choose properties.
Under Document Size, click "User Defined"
In here, create the full size canvas you want to print on. I wanted 12 x 34 on a 17" roll, so set the "canvas" to 17x34. Save it as a prest if you're likely to use it again.
Click save

If you've done it right, you'll see your new canvas here...


Problem is that when you then click "OK", you get pushed back to the original pop up and the settings haven't taken...



If you try to choose your setting from the size dropdown you'll notice it's not there. In order to get it to show you need to completely cancel the print and start again. It must need to "turn on and off" before it works...

From there, you'll see the LR canvas change to your new size and you're away.

The big issue I had was that I went off and left the printer while I put the chickens away and came back to a paper jam. Yep. With roll paper.

The "help" function sadly only offers suggestions for clearing sheet paper which ignited my temper. Obviously there was no jam, but what I did notice was that the whole roll paper holder had dropped by about 1/4 of an inch and the cover had come unlatched. I ended up having to feed the whole print back through the printer off onto the roll and lost about 3" off the edge.

It's clear that the roll paper feeder *must* be supported on something sturdy and won't just "hang" off the back. So you don't just need space at the back of the printer, you need table space too. I've fixed mine by pushing it tight against the wall to stop it dropping, but when I revamp my office I'm going to need to make sure I have table space for it.

In summary, the roll paper feeder is nowhere near as sturdy as my previous one on the SP4800 but with "careful" use it's fine. Will report back on the roller marks in the morning when I can look at it under daylight.

That said, my second print looked absolutely fab (in the dark) and now all I need is a nice frame and I'm done.

 

[viewfromthenorth]

I’ve been pondering buying one of these or the Canon PRO-1000 for a while. I’ve had an Epson R3000 for years which is brilliant but temperamental. The main issue on the R3000 is it’s not keen on the Fotospeed Baryta paper I tend to use, possibly due to its thickness. Every now and again, and seemingly at random, it puts ink droplets onto the start of the print, seemingly from the print head, which not only means binning expensive paper but also necessitates a very time consuming cleandown. Other papers seem to be ok, it’s the thicker paper which seems to trigger it. Have you had any issues with thicker paper?
The Canon looks a nice but if kit as well but it looks quite a bit bigger than the Epson, which fits more or less into the footprint of the R3000. And that’s ideal as I don’t really have much more room on my desk for anything bigger.

 

[Mr Perceptive]

I’ve been pondering buying one of these or the Canon PRO-1000 for a while. I’ve had an Epson R3000 for years which is brilliant but temperamental. The main issue on the R3000 is it’s not keen on the Fotospeed Baryta paper I tend to use, possibly due to its thickness. Every now and again, and seemingly at random, it puts ink droplets onto the start of the print, seemingly from the print head, which not only means binning expensive paper but also necessitates a very time consuming cleandown. Other papers seem to be ok, it’s the thicker paper which seems to trigger it. Have you had any issues with thicker paper?
The Canon looks a nice but if kit as well but it looks quite a bit bigger than the Epson, which fits more or less into the footprint of the R3000. And that’s ideal as I don’t really have much more room on my desk for anything bigger.

The Pro1000 is happy taking thicker papers from the top feed, so whilst it has a bigger footprint it needs less space at the rear than my previous PRO-100

 

[Harlequin565]

Have you had any issues with thicker paper?

I've been putting Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Metallic & Canson Baryta Prestige through the top feeder with absolutely no problems. Both are 340gsm papers and quite "cardy". The footprint without the roll paper feeder on the back is slightly smaller than a sheet of A2 paper which is amazing really. Obviously if you're going to feed posterboard or foamboard, or something really thick and unbendable through it (which I haven't tried) you need to use a slot in the rear so it feeds in flat. This would require quite a bit of space at the back of the printer.

For standard fine art baryta papers though, I've yet to come across anything it couldn't take. And I did quite a lot of test prints for colour profiling with different papers when I set it up.

I still have some (300gsm) Museo Silver Rag which has quite a pronounced curl to it and used to give me reliable head strikes on my 4800. As a precaution, I set the platen gap to the widest setting and it also went through fine.

The heaviest item I use is Marrutt's Ultra Glossy Canvas at 380gsm but being canvas it's obviously nice & bendy and goes through fine.

 

[viewfromthenorth]

The Pro1000 is happy taking thicker papers from the top feed, so whilst it has a bigger footprint it needs less space at the rear than my previous PRO-100

Thanks David, the Canon does look good. The print you sent me for the print exchange was very nice indeed. I think the extra size would be the deal breaker for me as I’m already having to move stuff around on my desk when I use the R3000.

I've been putting Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Metallic & Canson Baryta Prestige through the top feeder with absolutely no problems. Both are 340gsm papers and quite "cardy". The footprint without the roll paper feeder on the back is slightly smaller than a sheet of A2 paper which is amazing really. Obviously if you're going to feed posterboard or foamboard, or something really thick and unbendable through it (which I haven't tried) you need to use a slot in the rear so it feeds in flat. This would require quite a bit of space at the back of the printer.

For standard fine art baryta papers though, I've yet to come across anything it couldn't take. And I did quite a lot of test prints for colour profiling with different papers when I set it up.

I still have some (300gsm) Museo Silver Rag which has quite a pronounced curl to it and used to give me reliable head strikes on my 4800. As a precaution, I set the platen gap to the widest setting and it also went through fine.

The heaviest item I use is Marrutt's Ultra Glossy Canvas at 380gsm but being canvas it's obviously nice & bendy and goes through fine.

Sounds promising. I do use the widest platen gap setting on the R3000 but I don’t think it helps regarding the ink droplet issue, but probably helps the problem I had initially with some marks that the wheels left on thicker paper.

I’ve been pondering an A2 printer for a while, it’s the increase in costs that put me off a bit (£100+ for a box of Baryta paper!!!!) plus I wonder how often I’d print A2! Obviously it will print smaller sizes, but what I mean is, will I print that size often enough to justify the cost. For exhibitions I normally get big prints done by photobox, and I’ve no more planned currently. But there’s something special about a big print that’s been printed well.

Panoramas look good but I’ve never tried them on the R3000 as I’ve nowhere to put them! That’s the thing with doing odd sizes, they probably need a custom frame and don’t fit in a regular portfolio box / folder.

 

[Harlequin565]

I had a roll of Canson paper that I wanted to use up - hence getting the roll feeder. It's about half the price [per print] of sheet A2 paper - but obviously there's a large up front cost and you need to be printing on the same paper, so it depends on your workflow.

Also there are quite a few companies that will make custom frame sizes. Not cheap, but nowhere near the cost of a gallery framer. I think I was quoted £60 for a nice black frame at 12"x36". I'm also happy cutting my own mounts.

A3 was a bit small for me. 13x19 was much better and is a good halfway size. Big, but not wall-hoggingly big. But since getting A2 paper, I really like the big print.

I guess, as a hobbyist, I'm lucky enough to not need to make sure the printer pays for itself. That's why I went for 17". But I've made quite a few prints at A2 and really like the size.

Good luck with your decision! If you're ever anywhere near Northwich in Cheshire feel free to bring a pen drive round and I'll give you a demo.

 

[Mr Perceptive]

Good luck with your decision! If you're ever anywhere near Northwich in Cheshire feel free to bring a pen drive round and I'll give you a demo.

@viewfromthenorth Andy I'm only 2 miles from Ian so you could visit both of us in one day! and see prints from both

 

[viewfromthenorth]

Good luck with your decision! If you're ever anywhere near Northwich in Cheshire feel free to bring a pen drive round and I'll give you a demo.

@viewfromthenorth Andy I'm only 2 miles from Ian so you could visit both of us in one day! and see prints from both

Thanks gents, I can feel a drive down to Northwich is in order!

 

[Mr Perceptive]

Thanks gents, I can feel a drive down to Northwich is in order!

‘Proceed’ every pun intended!!

 

[Harlequin565]

So I bashed my hip into the fully extended paper tray last week and broke it. Complete accident and due to my own stupidity. The extending tray wouldn't go back into the slot and it was a massive PITA having it stuck out at full extension. Worse, I had no clue how I was going to fix it, or even package it up to send it back for repair. I toyed with the idea of unscrewing things, but figured I'd see if Epson could talk me through a simple fix.

I rang Wex to see if they had a contact number for Epson and they did what I did which was go to their (frankly awful) website. I ended up having to raise a support ticket with Epson.

After collecting details (serial number, purchase date etc) they simply sent an engineer out. No charge, still under warranty. Not sure if this was an oversight on their part, or just great customer service. They don't book slots or anything, I literally got a text early this morning saying the engineer would be here by 9. He had it fixed in 20 minutes. He looked about 12. Colour me impressed.

Just adding to the thread to say I thought it was a great service. Worst part was actually finding the right place to raise a support ticket through their website. I could also imagine if you're not always "around", it would be annoying to get a text saying the engineer will be there in an hour if you're 20 miles away at work!

Started the contact process last Monday. Fixed in 7 days. Nice one Epson.

 

[Harlequin565]

but as I'm not going hiking with it, sturdiness wasn't a massive selling point for me.

I lol at myself sometimes...