Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/06/12

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Report on putting in a digital darkroom....
From: "Dr. Elliot Puritz" <drpuritz@bellsouth.net>
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 18:04:50 -0400
References: <20020612210936.50488.qmail@web11103.mail.yahoo.com>

Thanks Darrell.

Would it be impolite to ask for some sort of estimate as to cost for such a
project?

Elliot


- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Darrell Jennings" <darrell_jennings@yahoo.com>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 5:09 PM
Subject: [Leica] Report on putting in a digital darkroom....


> I mentioned a few days ago that I would get back with
> a posting on my experience putting in a digital
> darkroom over the past 10 days.
>
> I used Tina Manley's set up as a bench mark, and
> installed:
>
> -Gateway 700 series Windows XP with 2.36GHz Pentium 4
> with a 120 Gig hard drive.
> -Photoshop 7.0
> -Genuine Fractals 2.5
> -(2) Epson 3000 printers
> -(2) Epson supplied parallel to USB cables
> - Epson 2450 scanner
> - An old HP Laser Jet for printing plain text
> documents.
> -John Cones Quad Black inks with the custom Cones
> Plugin for Photoshop.
> -Generations Color inks with Cones profiles for the
> various Cones supplied papers.
>
> The driving item in this was the desire to use the
> Cones and Generations inks and their plugin/profile
> software. I would probably have gone with an Apple,
> but the Cones plugin was having trouble in the Mac OS
> X environment and PS7 that they were not having in PS7
> and XP (though PS7 is still not officially supported
> on either platform).
>
> I discovered that one of the major concerns facing
> anyone wanting to get a digital darkroom is the issue
> of compatability.
>
> All the vendors only sell their "current"
> product...none will sell you their previous release
> unless you happen to find a retailer that has an old
> one sitting around. None of the programs you buy (or
> hardware for that matter) will "officially" work with
> anything but the previous releases.  Bottom line is
> that you can not buy a digital darkroom from scratch
> with "offical" support.
>
> ...Luckily reality is not quite that bad. I never had
> my request for tech support turned down because "we
> don't support that yet"...
>
> I now have everything working (with the exception of
> having to wait for a new release of Quad Black inks
> that are supposed to be here tomorrow).
>
> The big problems were.
> 1. Getting the Epson 3000's to work using Epson inks
> (a requirement BEFORE you install the Cones inks).
> Issues were: (a)my confusion over the fact that XP
> adds printer drivers if you don't use the default
> drivers that come in XP...so you appear to have four
> Epson 3000 printers instead of two; (b) using USB
> ports to run the printers (some at Epson said no
> problem, others disagreed...in the end USB worked if
> you buy the Epson cable at $40 each);and, (c)the
> biggie...getting Cones Wells River paper to feed
> through the printers (a trip to the local Epson repair
> facility and instruction on cleaning the feeder "feet"
> from a kindly technician fixed it). Seems that (at
> least the box that I got) Wells River paper has a lot
> of residue on it and requires the printer feeders to
> be cleaned with Q-Tips about every three
> prints...think I'll switch to another paper when this
> box is done. And to be fair...if you brush the paper
> before feeding it you only have to clean the printer
> about every 10 prints.
>
> 2. Clogged print heads from the Cones Quad Black inks.
>  First print looked nice, but needed a bit of PS
> tweaking to bring up the contrast.  Second print was
> outstanding.  Third print...heads were clogged.
> Multiple cleanings, "Windexing" the heads over night,
> reloading Cones cleaning fluid twice, and finally
> reloading the original Epson inks and then the Cones
> cleaning fluid again have cleaned out the clogs. Cones
> have just brought out new (this week) Quad Black inks
> that are supposed to be much less prone to clogging
> and I should get my replacements tomorrow.
>
> 3. Documention on the Generations inks needs to
> improve. A 10 minute call to tech support at Ink Jet
> Mall and my prints went from bad to great, but a few
> pages of text telling me what the support guy covered
> would help.  The documentation is generally written
> around a slightly differnent Epson printer and
> different Epson driver...makes it tough to follow, and
> still doesn't cover what you need to know to get the
> print done.
>
> Overall I am happy with the results.  If you plan to
> implement something like the above, plan on spening
> quite a bit of time (in my case over a week at 4 to 8
> hours a day) getting everything hooked up,
> loaded/tested/reloaded, and reading enough of the
> documentation to at least get started. Also plan on:
> (a) a steep learning curve if you (like me) had very
> limited experience with PS and digital imagaging, and;
> (b)lots of experience learning to clean print heads
> and feeder "feet" on the 3000. If you use a different
> Epson printer your experience may be a bit differnt. I
> went with the 3000 both on Tina's recommendation, and
> because it holds up to 17X44 inch paper.
>
> Finally, I'd like to thank Tina, Sonny, and several
> others on the list that helped me out over long hours
> of trying to get this stuff to work.
>
> I'd be happy to help anyone attempting this for the
> first time with anything I learned in the process.
> I'm sure no expert, but I did enough stuff wrong to
> have picked up a few tips on the front end. DJ
>
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In reply to: Message from Darrell Jennings <darrell_jennings@yahoo.com> ([Leica] Report on putting in a digital darkroom....)