Digital BW, The Print

Dear all,

Since the "buying" subject is on table, I´d like to ask you about the 
Epson 3800 printer.

Does it produce high quality B&W prints? Aproximatly how many prints 
can I do with standart cartridges (consider only B&W and size of 
17x22)? Does anyone have this printer?

I´ve also considered Epson R1900 and the 4880, but I don´t know.

I´ll buy a printer very soon, that´s why I´m asking.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Cedric

www.cedricphoto.com
www.flickr.com/cwpaiva

Hello Cedric,

I'm just catching up on my forum reading and see you haven't received
an answer yet, so I'll have a go at it.

>Epson 3800 printer.
>Does it produce high quality B&W prints? 

Yes, it's the 17" version of Epson's printers that use the K3 inks
(three grayscale inks + color) and has the Advanced Black And White
(ABW) mode in the driver.  This combination makes it one of the very
best B&W "out of the box" printers and one of the easiest to use. 
Most other top notch BW printer/ink/software systems require some
combination of more technical expertise, extra software, or 3rd party
inks (which requires refilling carts or using a CIS unit [continuous
ink supply]).  Article #9 at the link below outlines a simple ABW
workflow for K3 printers.  
  

>Aproximatly how many prints can I do with standard cartridges
(consider only B&W and size of 17x22)? Does anyone have this printer?

Sorry, I don't know as I use a 2400.  Perhaps someone else will pop in
here with that...

 
>I´ve also considered Epson R1900 and the 4880, but I don´t know.

Both are good printers capable of good BW work.  The 4880 I think is
the newest 17" version with the improved K3 inks, and will also have
the ABW mode (it also is bigger and heavier than the 3800; is geared
more for production work).  The 1900 is 13" and not a K3 printer (does
not do good BW as is; it requires 3rd party inks and a RIP).


>I´ll buy a printer very soon, that´s why I´m asking.
>Thanks in advance for any help!

I hope this helps.

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm
I-Trak 2.1   http://www.cjcom.net/itrak.htm

Clayton and Cedric

I have the 3800 and could not be more pleased with its performance. I also have a 7800 for large print work and the prints from the 3800 are superior at comparative size prints. The ink costs for the 3800 are very low compared to the 2400. I would guess that for a busy printer the crossover to positive cash is less than one year. For less busy printers it would, of course, be longer. But in any event the printer will pay for itself in reduced ink costs in a relatively short period of time.

Hope this adds some real data to the decision making process

Best

Woody Spedden
Fort Collins, CO

----- Original Message ----
From: Clayton Jones <cj@cjcom.net>
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 2, 2008 5:11:42 PM
Subject: [Digital BW] Re: Buying printer for B&W


Hello Cedric,

I'm just catching up on my forum reading and see you haven't received
an answer yet, so I'll have a go at it.

>Epson 3800 printer.
>Does it produce high quality B&W prints? 

Yes, it's the 17" version of Epson's printers that use the K3 inks
(three grayscale inks + color) and has the Advanced Black And White
(ABW) mode in the driver.  This combination makes it one of the very
best B&W "out of the box" printers and one of the easiest to use. 
Most other top notch BW printer/ink/ software systems require some
combination of more technical expertise, extra software, or 3rd party
inks (which requires refilling carts or using a CIS unit [continuous
ink supply]).  Article #9 at the link below outlines a simple ABW
workflow for K3 printers. 


>Aproximatly how many prints can I do with standard cartridges
(consider only B&W and size of 17x22)? Does anyone have this printer?

Sorry, I don't know as I use a 2400.  Perhaps someone else will pop in
here with that...

>I�ve also considered Epson R1900 and the 4880, but I don�t know.

Both are good printers capable of good BW work.  The 4880 I think is
the newest 17" version with the improved K3 inks, and will also have
the ABW mode (it also is bigger and heavier than the 3800; is geared
more for production work).  The 1900 is 13" and not a K3 printer (does
not do good BW as is; it requires 3rd party inks and a RIP).

>I�ll buy a printer very soon, that�s why I�m asking.
>Thanks in advance for any help!

I hope this helps.

Regards,
Clayton

Info on black and white digital printing at 
http://www.cjcom. net/digiprnarts. htm
I-Trak 2.1 http://www.cjcom. net/itrak. htm

    

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Eric Chan has a good web site devoted to the Epson 3800. 

If you can go to mostly roll paper, the 4880 will save you quite a 
bit of money on ink and paper over the 3800.  

The street price for the 80ml 3800 inks is $52 at mpex.com, while the 
220ml carts that you can get for the 4880 are $82.  That comes to 
$.37 per ml, vs. $.65 for the 3800.

I bought a bunch of Epson Premium Semi-Gloss paper for proofing 
recently when they had a buy 2, get 1 free sale (9 rolls.) My net 
cost was $.28 per square foot!  That is as cheap as Epson Enhanced 
Matte.  

The 13x19 sheets at atlex.com come to $1.04 per square foot - about 
3.5 times as much! (Atlex lists the per sheet and per square foot 
costs, which is nice.)

Similar numbers for Premium Luster, those were also on sale.  For the 
Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta, it is $2.56 a square foot in 13x19 
sheets, $1.65 in 24" rolls. A little more in the smaller rolls though.

I just standardized on 24" rolls for everything for me. Makes life 
simple. Use Qimage to fit images to page. But, I like to make a lot 
of big prints and proofs.

Many arguments in the other direction too, for the 3800.

Best,
Michael