Finally -- Printing a Photograph!

I've had my fill of printing profile evaluation images, although I'll need to continue this for the couple of mat-finish papers I have. Making these prints is necessary, the only way to determine the quality of the profiles. It's been an interesting exercise, mainly proving what I've read about the build quality and unit-to-unit manufacturing consistency of the Stylus Pro 7900 being extremely high. The profiles provided by Epson are excellent, with Epson-branded papers, of course. And once in a while one can get lucky with other papers, as I seem to have done with the Canon HW Satin. The custom profile I tested for Harman Gloss FB Al was OK, but not great. The two I tested for Ilford Galerie Gold Fiber Silk are both good, but slightly different. I'm delighted with the 7900's output on these eval pages. I don't have the tools to put numbers to these observations, but I am impressed with the color, with the shadow and highlight detail, the total lack of bronzing, and the minimal gloss differential I see in these images. The iPF 5000 was good, but clearly had problems with bronzing and gloss diff.

Enough already with the profile testing! This is a pile of profile eval images made 

over the last few days with the 7900. These are in plastic sleeves for easy storage 

and access in a three-ring binder. My margin notes include everything needed to
use that paper and profile for printing.

It's (finally!) time to print one of my photographs. It is generally accepted that when one receives a new camera, the first photo taken must be of one's cat. If you've not heard this, you've not spent much time in the camera forums at dpreview. I'm not sure the same requirement holds for printers, but not wanting to take any chances, my first print was to be of PC, our aged calico. I don't take a lot of cat pictures. The only one I have of any reasonable quality was made in 2010 with a point-n-shoot camera.

The profile eval images were printed with no processing in Photoshop. PC's picture would require a little work, since it's a high-ISO photo, shot hand-held with a camera that doesn't do high-ISO well. It's also a crop from a full frame that's not large to start. I resampled the image using values extracted from comments by Jeff Schewe in Lula's printers, etc. forum. I then output sharpened based on my experience with the Canon iPF 5000. When I had the file ready to print, I ran a nozzle check print and found about 30% of the G and LLK nozzles missing. I did a clean on the Y/G pair, which took about six minutes to complete. The nozzle check print I then made showed no clogged nozzles; the LLK clog had magically disappeared. Clearly, doing a clean on a pair moves some ink through other nozzles as well.

I should note that after the initial set-up, ink installation, and charging of the lines and head, the available capacity of the maintenance cartridge was 65%. After this last cleaning, it was 57%. I did not make a note of the ink levels after the initial charging, so I can't say how much ink has been used in the cleanings and printing done so far.

PC's picture has very good color and shadow/highlight detail. There is no bronzing or gloss differential. It's also waaaay over sharpened, which is entirely my fault. Clearly I've got more test prints to make, using files from my DSLR, to learn appropriate sharpening values for the 7900.

I'll be unable to work with the printer for the next few days. I hope to be back at it early next week.

  --Jay