Epson 3880 and Cone K3 ink.

[3dogs]

Some months ago I "fluked" an exhibition quality print with this combination. The image was posted here briefly. For reasons of security of the image I withdrew it, no disrespect intended to any of the members.

Yesterday I started the process of framing the image myself. The task was completed, checked and finished or so I thought upon turning it over there was a 5mm gap between the matt board and and the print..... so 5mm of the print paper was showing at the bottom of the matt board cut out, the image had been incorrectly positioned on the wrong markers on the Matt board. Nothing for it I attempted to unstick the print from the double sided tape.......... it tore the print. and the matt

I have had to start over, reprint, and cut another matt board.

this thread is about that "new" print:
In the last month or more I have printed just two test prints, nothing else.
An external storage device and Lightroom had a tiff resulting in severe damage to my inventory. Despite being assured by Lighroom Gurus that the product is bug free, it REALLY scrambled my archive and wiped, and replaced around 1500 images.......AMONGST which was.........YES! it was......GONE from Lightroom, impossible as it is KAPISH!

Located a backup .tiff image and sent it to LR guessed that I had used Canson BFK, guesstimated the processing settings, winged the Printer settings and hit PRINT.

I also made a second print slightly more saturated just in case AND a third print on my XeroxiGen3 plain paper. I used Canson ICC profile for the Serious prints and a home grown profile made using Colormunki.
This home grown profile "grew"out of discussions within this forum in trying to profile Canson Watercolour Paper (thread in this forum)

I have used both Canon and Epson consumer printers. I have a 9000 Pro? I have used OEM K3 ink and on and on......

I am yet again astounded at the way the 3880 and Cone K3 ink makes images, they almost cause me to enter exhibitions, the use by date of these inks passed a year ago, and many argue that OEM Epson K3 is superior.

I could not disagree more, for my style (Matte papers), process and seat of the ' pants ' approach the Cone ink is rendering results on Canson paper as good as I have seen anywhere. And the bonus is I can make the SAME look on 38c per sheet plain paper.

I offer this observation with no intent to detract from the quality of other 3rd party inks, or other brands of printer,
at most what I am saying is that after three plus years of dismal failures and frustratingly bad results bringing there two products together has, for me, put me in a place I had only ever hoped to achieve.

Cheers,

Andrew

 

[pharmacist]

Could you take some pictures of the gloss (differential) of Cone ink, like I did with Inktec Powerchrome K3, that would be interested to the difference?

 

[jtoolman]

I have seen identical prints on glossy paper ( I think it was Kodak but I wished it had been EPSON ) of CONE and EPSON OEM inks. Practically they are identical. There might be slight differences between ink sets on other papers. So yes, CONE has outstanding gloss properties are OEM and they are also microencapsulated as are OEM K3 inks.

However........ there is a problem with several people having very frequent clogging problems with guess what color? Yes "Virginia" .... Magenta!
In these particular cases, specifically with their Vivid Magentas!
They tend to become increasingly more viscous as they sit for months on end. CONE says it is not a problem but why would they admit that. There are several posting on their own forums describing the problem they say does not exist.

It is indeed a true situation. How would I arrive at such a controversial conclusion? Easy.

The folk who I know directly are having that problem have switched from using CONE V Magenta and VLM, to OEM EPSON VM and VLM. They purchased 100ml and 220ml carts from EBAY.
You can get VM for about $12 for 110ml with free shipping which beats the hell out of $27 plus shipping for CONE VM.

Once they all switched to OEM VM the constant Vivid Magenta clogging has disappeared.
This has been reported on R2880 R3000 and PRO 3880

If you have not experienced this problem yet, then you are lucky. It does exist and the solution is simple.

I myself have switched to large OEM carts from EBAY. It takes some careful searching and shopping to make it work.

But I have been able to average about $20 / 110ml and mostly without shipping charges. Readily beats CONE's prices and it's OEM!

I no longer use 3rd party on my 2200s R2400 R2880 and one of the PRO 3800.

I do use OCP on my other PRO 3800 but only print Matte on it so no problems with the terrible gloss properties of OCP.

Joe

 

[3dogs]

Could you take some pictures of the gloss (differential) of Cone ink, like I did with Inktec Powerchrome K3, that would be interested to the difference?

@pharmasist I do not print gloss papers at all, closest I have come is to purchase some Canson Platine that reaquires me to use photo black ink. @jtoolman is better placed to do that test.
I read so many posts relating horror stories of sagas they are or have had matching colour, and getting various papers to print good colour. All I am saying is my combination is giving me grand results, after a lot of failures. One could argue that I have learned a bit, true BUT, more is due to :-
Pick and stick with just a couple of papers
Get to know the printer
Get to know your ink and its quirks
Develop a workflow
Print, print, print !
The last can only be done affordably with refill OMHO

 

[The Hat]

@pharmasist I do not print gloss papers at all, One could argue that I have learned a bit, true BUT, more is due to :-
Pick and stick with just a couple of papers
Get to know the printer
Get to know your ink and its quirks
Develop a workflow
Print, print, print !
The last can only be done affordably with refill OMHO

Don’t forget your Misses who puts up with your mistress in the den that you spend so much of your time with..

 

[3dogs]

Don’t forget your Misses who puts up with your mistress in the den that you spend so much of your time with..

Da Missus is a genuine University Professor and spends more time up here than I do!

I am the one deserving of sympathy,

I am the long suffering victim of moaning about half the study taken up by printers, computers and screens, not to mention important stuff like tables with matt cutters and storage racks for paper and matt board, she even complains about my hoard of second hand frames that I have spent HOURS finding and restoring to their former glory.

On the other side I have to endure bookcases stuffed with books, wads of reports, and endless ramblings (phone conferences) about students, the Education System or lack there of, and the mindless state achieved by the Administrators, and their efforts to Americanise our free Education, dumb down the Academics, and churn through more and more fee paying foreign Students, who (I am sure) would not be pleased to learn are to save our economy. from destruction.

Well that is after Tony Abbot finishes with SHIRTFRONTING Valamire Putin. A shirtfront is a legal, lethal football tackle of the Australian kind ( violent in extreme).

His utterances bring a tear of pride to my eye much akin to a boot in the groin and a chest puffed out with BLOAT!

I digress into the sordid real world, so back to IMPORTANT things


I am the victim here.............

 

[The Hat]

Obviously the dog would complain too, if you tried to move in with him, better still move the Misses in with the dog, he’d love to sleep on all those nice paper reports..

 

[Emulator]

Da Missus is a genuine University Professor and spends more time up here than I do!

Sounds like a comment yesterday about a "politician" whose wife was city mayor, he had to get himself elected to the council, to be able to see her.

 

[3dogs]

Sounds like a comment yesterday about a "politician" whose wife was city mayor, he had to get himself elected to the council, to be able to see her.

Actually it works real well, I start my weekdays getting up around 3am so I turn in early evenings like 7pm. Only Wednesday when I am home and Sandra is working from home too, but thats all good really.
I just have to take care to be tidy and not leave stuff spread out because we BOTH use the room.
Weekends are different, we both work on the farm together. Weather has to be real bad before we get to skip farm chores!!!

 

[The Hat]

@3dogs I reckon you should move back here, and then you’ll have all the time in the world to spend together, the weather is usually very accommodating for all indoor activities..