Re: Media Type settings

[Dan Culbertson <danculb@concentric.net>]

Art Schaefer wrote:
>I own an Epson 1200 and just bought a 3000 which is not  ready to print yet.
>I've been trying various papers and don't know where to set the paper for
>such types as Somerset Velvet, Canvas, etc.   The settings on the 1200 driver
>are listed as follows:
>    Plain Paper
>    360 dpi Ink Jet Paper
>    Photo Quality Ink Jet Paper
>    Photo Paper
>    Photo Quality Glossy Film
>    Ink Jet Transparancy
>    Ink Jet Back Light Film
>I assume the 3000 driver is the same.
>I would guess that the printer lays down more ink at the Plain Paper setting
>and decreases the amount as you go down the list.  Would this be correct?
>Knowing this would be helpful to making judgements regarding the many papers
>not listed.   Which setting has proven the best for MIS Quad inks on Somerset
>Velvet for example?
>Thanks for any advice.

As near as I can tell from oodles of experiments the 3000 puts down the
most ink (and more importantly the most *color* ink) with the Photo Quality
Inkjet Paper selection.  The plain paper settings seem to decrease total
ink and increase black ink to keep the paper from getting soggy.  The
glossy settings seem to decrease the total ink to prevent pooling.  Also,
the Photo Quality Ink Jet Paper settings have a smoother transition from
black to color in grayscale gradients.  All in all, I use this setting for
all non-standard papers, especially for the quad inks on Somerset Velvet.
Others disagree and use the plain paper settings and use 720 dpi instead of
1440.  I can only give you my experience that every paper I've tried does
best with the Photoquality Ink Jet paper at 1440 -- but a good RGB profile
helps more than whatever setting you use.  Just can't get one for quad inks
to my knowledge.  You can make a good printing inks setup for them in
Photoshop if you want to print through a RIP (or try out my exotic RGB plus
K printing technique at
http://www.geocities.com/~campfiredan/infoshare/RGBquads.html).  Or a
second method simpler (soon to be added to the instructions) for printing
from a CMYK file is to convert to multichannel,  *then* to RGB, then set
the newly created spot "Black" channel to 100%, then print through the RGB
driver (file in RGB looks like hell, the print will match the CMYK file).
This allows you to run the RGB file though a profile (or Printing inks
setup) before printing to the RGB printer driver.  Works on color too, but
not quite as well.  For some printing inks setups that work fairly well see
my overly complicated quadtone instructions at
http://www.geocities.com/~campfiredan/infoshare/quadinst.html.  Even if you
don't use this method you can use the printing inks setups to get a rough
monitor view of a CMYK quadtone file.

Dan Culbertson





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