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Resources and Information -
Photography and digital imaging

Online resources that we have found useful, covering different aspects of digital workflows and photography.

Link to the -> Canon/Epson Rumours pages (not to be taken too seriously!)

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Latest articles on our site: >> Spyder3 Print V3.5 review The latest ICC printer profiling system from Datacolor (aka ColorVision) is reviewed. Featuring faster operation and a wide range of profile generation options, it can be used for building printer profiles for colour and (with additional measurements) Black and White printing. For more experienced users it offers multiple version profile building (from the same set of measurements) and profile editing.

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Please note we are principally looking for sites that contribute information in the categories covered. Photographers' sites are ones that Keith enjoyed visiting. These links are an evolving resource, and like all links on the web, they sometimes fail. We will try to keep them up to date and hope that over time they become a useful reference.

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  1. Printer is not switched on.
  2. Open the ink lever.
  3. Replace the photo black with the matte black cart
  4. But, leave the ink lever open!
  5. Go into Maintenance Mode 2 by switching power ON while pushing the 'Paper source', 'Cut/Eject', and 'Paper Feed down' buttons.
  6. Press the 'Paper Feed down' button until you see "SERVICE CONFIG" on the display - press "Enter" button (Should be 'SelecType' - KC)
  7. Press the 'Paper Feed down' button until you see "NPD" - press "Enter" (Should be 'SelecType' - KC)
  8. There are 3 possible settings for NPD:
    0 - no ink check
    1 - pigmented ink (there should be a star "*" at this setting)
    2 - dye inks
  9. change NPD setting to '0' (no ink check) and press "Enter" - a star should show now next to the '0'
  10. Switch printer off.
  11. Switch printer on.
  12. Close the ink lever.
  13. Printer and driver shows matte black.
  14. Print a solid black print-out until photo black in the tubing is all used up (I understand something like 4' on the 9600)"

For purging the old black he suggests the following:

"The 7600 uses ca. 10-12ml of ink before the tube is flushed out. I create in PS an image of the size of 23"x40" and fill it with pure black (RGB 0,0,0). Than I use cheap matt double-weight paper and print that image with 720dpi. When you look at the finished print you see that 2/3 is photo ink as it looks a little bit dull and the rest of the print shows the nice dark matte ink. The system is now charged with matte black.

The 9600 uses ca. 20-22ml of ink. I use the same procedure but the image is 43"x40". "

You can follow the discussion thread on the list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EpsonWideFormat/message/43923

If you consider that an ink change the 'official way' wastes this much ink for all colours, you can see why there is such a huge saving. If we had one real complaint about the 9600 here at Northlight, it would be the huge amount of ink wasted if you want to change black inks - we are very grateful for the tip!

If you are curious as to what over a hundred pounds worth of waste ink looks like - see here :-)

Note -- We printed four 40"x10" solid black rectangles on cheap matt paper to purge the black line. The first 3 were a light black and the third much darker.

There have been reports that you need to reinstall the Epson driver on Macs after doing the change - if you are using a Mac and get 'COMMAND ERROR' on the display, and blinking ink cart lights, then a reinstall might be tried. As with any Epson driver installation on Mac OSX, it's best to run a permissions fix (using the disk utility in Utilities) afterwards. A lot of the drivers for older printers incorectly set file permissions. As general Mac 'housekeeping' it's good to do a permission repair before and after and new software installation anyway.

Changing black inks on the 4800/7800/9800

As suspected, Epson have changed things to reinstate their "Ink Waste™" program :-(

As yet no-one has published a similar work round for reducing ink use. As soon as we find one, we'll post it here.

The Epson Stylus Pro 3800
A cheaper A2 printer from Epson? and one that doesn't use so much ink when switching from Mk to Pk?

Supplies

Techniques

Scanning

"I scan my negatives and save at 16 bit Greyscale. In Photoshop I do most work at 16 bit convert to 8 bit for printing. It may take up a load more disk space but you can get far more out of images.

I try and capture as much information at the start and lose only what won't show up on my print. I find the ability to stack several masked layers of adjustment most useful since the underlying data is only changed when you flatten the images.

I use a Grey Gamma 2.2 space for the files, even though the Mac standard screen gamma is 1.8. Note that 2.2 is the file gamma and matches that of Adobe98 which is the RGB colour space that my images get converted to if I'm printing using Small Gamut Inks"

If the above seems a little technical, have a look at some of the suggested links on Colour Management below.

With the arrival of Photoshop CS (aka Photoshop '8') you can now perform many more functions in 16 bit mode, although Keith has found extensive 16 bit use a pretty good indicator of when your computer is starting to lack in horsepower / disk space... and with CS2 you can start filling it up even quicker with 32bit HDR files :-)

Colour Management

It's definitely worth getting to know the principles, as Keith comments:

"I've found that an understanding of colour management (even if you don't have the equipment/software to do it 'perfectly') helps no end in the creative process. I'd suggest that getting your monitor right is an essential first step. Whilst it is true that to do it properly requires either an expensive (self calibrating) monitor or some external hardware, there is much to be gained by starting with doing it by eye. If nothing else, you will realise some important things about the human visual system. For myself it then becomes important to get the printing right - having profiles for ink/paper/printer combinations will go a long way towards getting consistent results. The 'default' or 'canned' profiles that are available are often good enough for marked improvements. The less you are concerned with the technicalities, the more time you have to think about your images. You also understand when the technology is a limiting factor. For example, that really powerful bit of colour in an image that just can't be represented with your particular ink/paper combo"

Colour management info on this site

General colour Management

Equipment and software reviews

X-rite (ex GretagMacbeth)

Datacolor (aka ColorVision)

Pantone

Others

Other colour management resources

Digital Imaging

Dust - Digital sensor cleaning (at your own risk)

Camera Drivers and software

Firmware updates

Other areas of our site that may be of interest...

New site features and some of Keith's latest work are covered in the What's New page.

Visiting Leicester? If you'd like to see what some of it looks like, we have views from the Leicester traffic cameras.

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