1440 or 2880 on the 3800/3880

[FrankG]

In his wonderful faq Eric basically says it comes down to a subjective choice whether to print at 1440 or 2880. He is inclined to choose 1440 for matte paper and 2880 for gloss surfaces.
http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3800/faq.html#quality_comparison_fourway.
Opinions vary on other sites.
I can't afford to always do a version of each to see which is better for any given image and have always opted for 1440 believing I couldn't really see the difference and that the printer may lay down too much ink and make the print a tad dark with 2880. After reading Eric's faq, I am thinking I may be wrong.
What is the general consensus out there...what do the master printers say?

[Farmer]

1440 or 2880 won't change the amount of ink being laid down by more than a fraction of a percent and it certainly won't make a printer visibly darker.

Generally, unless you have very fine diagonals or super fine detail and a suitably high res input file (720ppi), then 2880 shouldn't provide any particular advantage over 1440, but will take longer.

Most people, including most photogs, wouldn't spot the difference between 720 and 1440 or 2880 on a lot of prints - certainly not without a loupe.

That all said, if you have no particular time concerns, then 2880 may give you some improvement without giving you any downside apart from time taken.

[FrankG]

Thanks. Time is not an issue (not being a high volume commercial lab) but quality is...if it's discernible (without a loupe) . So I guess it's an image by image judgement call. When you say "...very fine detaiil" what would an example be - skin on a c/u face portrait ?

[dave230862]

I have not been able to discern any visible improvement running above 1440 on my 2400, 3880 or 7890 during the past 5 years. I don't run so high simply because I figure it takes twice as many passes to print, thus wearing out the mechanism twice as fast.

[Alan Goldhammer]

I have not been able to discern any visible improvement running above 1440 on my 2400, 3880 or 7890 during the past 5 years. I don't run so high simply because I figure it takes twice as many passes to print, thus wearing out the mechanism twice as fast.

DPI setting does not control the number of passes, only checking the highspeed box does that.

[louoates]

I've seen no difference between the two on my Epson 9800.