Epson 3880 printer - 300 vs 360 dpi

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Originally Posted by GrumpyDiver

However, there is a "special case" that when you set the image resolution to the same value as the printer's native resolution, the printer driver does not have to scale / interpolate the image and the print quality will be maximized

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Absolutely, hence the last paragraph in my post #16. I just wanted to make sure there is no ambiguity about what "set image resolution" means. It does not mean "change the ppi value in Photoshop settings" it means "change/rescale the image file to have the number of pixels that match the dpi of the printer at the desired print size".

Here is the official word from Epson:

Thank you for contacting Epson regarding your Epson Stylus Pro 3880. It is my pleasure to respond to your inquiry.

There is unlikely to be a visible difference between 300dpi and 360 dpi for most images. 360dpi is preferred over 300dpi to avoid moire or undesirable patterns in the overlaps between each print head pass or interpolation of the file by the printer. This will not be an issue for the majority of images so it is typically not necessary to resize if the native resolution of your files is 300ppi.

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Originally Posted by imagemkr

Here is the official word from Epson:

Thank you for contacting Epson regarding your Epson Stylus Pro 3880. It is my pleasure to respond to your inquiry.

There is unlikely to be a visible difference between 300dpi and 360 dpi for most images. 360dpi is preferred over 300dpi to avoid moire or undesirable patterns in the overlaps between each print head pass or interpolation of the file by the printer. This will not be an issue for the majority of images so it is typically not necessary to resize if the native resolution of your files is 300ppi.

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Thanks for this information. I've always been impressed with how well the printer drivers handle these issues.

It makes perfect sense and moiré seems to be more of an issue on the discussion boards than in real life photography; in the few hundred thousand images I've taken, it's only cropped up a handful of times; and never in a digital print. As I mentioned in a previous posting, the other place I have seen a difference between 300 dpi and 360 dpi is when printing vector graphics images rather than in photographs.