Photograph printing recommendations

[kalniel]

While you can't match your monitor settings to photobox's printers.

Ooooh yes you can. </panto>

They send you a calibration print first time you use them. Go to the website and calibrate your monitor to match. Voila.

[brammers]

All I'll say is that I wish I was in a position where I could run my own pigment printer! Call me a snob, but I wouldn't be happy with anything below a 3800 (I reckon my mate's 1900 was a waste of money, but don't tell him that ) and 3800s clog like b**ches - you're going to use that ink whether it's through head maintanance or printing Printers are still very needy things and I just don't print anything like enough to even begin to satisfy them.

CIS? Can of worms and I've got an essay in tomorrow so I'm not going to be the one to open it!

Also, if kasavien knew someone with a decent pigment or even dye printer, don't you think he'd have asked them to use it for a couple of 12x10s?

[Stoo]

I used posterxxl in the past, and they gave me decent results, but they no longer support tiff uploads :/

[Singh400]

They send you a calibration print first time you use them. Go to the website and calibrate your monitor to match. Voila.

Ahhh thanks for that. I didn't know that one, then again I'm not the ones using them.

[Saracen]

.....

Also, if kasavien knew someone with a decent pigment or even dye printer, don't you think he'd have asked them to use it for a couple of 12x10s?

Presumably, but this is a discussion forum, and I'd already specifically said I couldn't help him. And that's why I prefaced my remarks on pigment printers by quoting what I was referring to ...

.....
Final option - go find your local camera club. They often have the kind of large format pigment ink printers that individuals can't afford to run - and the expertise to go with it.

If you make sweeping statements, like that individuals can't afford to run large format (though that term is somewhat vague) pigment printers, expect to be picked up on it. Individuals can afford to run them. I do, and so do quite a few others. I didn't disagree with the advice about going to a camera club, as it's certainly worth a try, but merely that individuals can't afford to run a large-format pigment printer. They can, some do and it isn't just pro users.

.....

CIS? Can of worms and I've got an essay in tomorrow so I'm not going to be the one to open it!

It'd perhaps be a good thread .... and you might find I don't entirely disagree with you. But I will point out, again, that you need to be a bit careful about sweeping statements. If you buy the large end of large format printers, it will pretty much inevitably be supplied with a CIS by the manufacturer, because cartridges simply aren't a practical option. The term "CIS" covers a wide range from cheap and cheerfully (or very cheap in some cases), and very much opens a can of worms about ink.

If we do go onto CISs though, a new thread would be best.

But I'm not exactly a novice at this. I did co-found a digital photography forum some years ago, have been working with colour inkjets since the first consumer model released (by HP) and tested and reviewed many of them, and I'm one of a fairly small number of people that have spoken to development engineers at Epson, Canon etc about this, and have been to factories in Europe, Japan and the Far East, I've been in the clean rooms, studied the robotised production lines for cartridges and had some fairly detailed discussions (usually with pretty guarded answers), including about ink, with everyone from Epson and Lexmark's worldwide CEOs down.

[brammers]

You do take your foruming seriously don't you Saracen! Sweeping statements that I intend to fully justify with research, or a tired generalisation at 4:08 (should be precise enough for you ) in the morning?

Which printer do you have and what do you think of it? What do you use it for - I can't find any links to your work in your profile.

I wouldn't pay anything like £1000 for an Epson 3800 nowdays - not only is it old and has been fairly recently superceded, but even ignoring the well documented issues I wouldn't really value past-gen printers at anything much beyond the value of the ink in them...

So what did the CEOs say as to the cost of ink? Is there a reason for it costing £2000 to the gallon, or is it all profit?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

So what did the CEOs say as to the cost of ink? Is there a reason for it costing £2000 to the gallon, or is it all profit?

It probably has liquid unobtainium in it or something like that!!

[Saracen]

You do take your foruming seriously don't you Saracen! Sweeping statements that I intend to fully justify with research, or a tired generalisation at 4:08 (should be precise enough for you ) in the morning?

Which printer do you have and what do you think of it? What do you use it for - I can't find any links to your work in your profile.

I wouldn't pay anything like £1000 for an Epson 3800 nowdays - not only is it old and has been fairly recently superceded, but even ignoring the well documented issues I wouldn't really value past-gen printers at anything much beyond the value of the ink in them...

So what did the CEOs say as to the cost of ink? Is there a reason for it costing £2000 to the gallon, or is it all profit?

Whether you've done research or not to justify your claim, my response was a simple two-line remark which pointed out you were simply wrong - individuals can and do run large format pigment printers, including me.

As for my work, and my profile, you won't find my work on the net because I don't put it on, and you won't find any information on anything at all in my profile because I don't put anything in there. Any personal information at all I put on the net is carefully done and for a specific purpose, is limited and is chosen by me. I don't answer that type of question. The only reason I said as much as I did is because it's stuff I've said before.

[Zak33]

Photobox.

If there's a costco near you then consider them too.

photobox here too.. really awesome fast delivery, and good software to use online.

Like them a lot... good for photo albums and stuff too... create them online , choose the format etc.. Sair's made a couple of stunners for important photo's for us and family

[Saracen]

.....

So what did the CEOs say as to the cost of ink? Is there a reason for it costing £2000 to the gallon, or is it all profit?

It's a complex subject, and in any detail, beyond the scope of this thread. But in brief, there's a whole series of factors. They include cartridge design, manufacture and quality control. For instance, Epson build their own assembly line robots because, and it's not widely appreciated, they have huge expertise in such areas because of the Seiko part of Seiko Epson. That, therefore, includes everything from physical design of cartridges to try to ensure proper ink flow through to matching ink chemistry to the (secret) dithering algorithms. Then, of course, you have packaging, shipping, warehousing and, yes, profit.

If by "£50", you're referring to the 3800, a bit of hunting around will get you them a lot lower than that. Under £40, in fact. And even then, any profit includes everything from the profit for the final dealer, the whole distribution chain and even the shipping companies and truckers.

Is it still a lot of money? Yes. Is there some cross-subsidisation going on? Well, probably, but I did say their answers were pretty guarded.

But it's like buying a pint of milk. You're paying for everything from cattle feed and vets bills to the supermarket's electricity and wages bill.

[brammers]

Shame you won't share any of your work - you never post pics in here and I just don't know what PoV you're coming from.

Ink costs and cartridges... I think there's a lot of cross-subsidisation going on - I don't think it's a secret either. When it gets to the point where people buy new printers, even with the starter cartridges, strip them of consumables and then offer the shell for free I find it a little ridiculous. Cartridge costs make sense - you get cheaper ink the larger the cartridge, but I don't see manufacturers rushing to offer refillables! It's just part of printer ownership, and it kind of makes sense if you're a heavy user - you're going to be using that ink anyway so you're effectively getting free printer upgrades every time a new model comes out. If you're just starting out though, it sucks.

I use a Canon ipf5000, not an Epson - the Epsons wouldn't work for what I do because they clog if you leave them for a month without printing. If you've got any links for cheap cartridges for them I'd appreciate it - I buy for around £45 atm.

[kasavien]

Thanks for the advice everyone, I went with photobox in the end, just awaiting the pictures

Andy

[Saracen]

Shame you won't share any of your work - you never post pics in here and I just don't know what PoV you're coming from.

I'm not really sure it matters what PoV you mean. My use of photo printers is mainly personal, not business, though some of my photography is not.

Currently, I've got Epson, Canon and Lexmark inkjets, but personally, I dismiss Lexmark (at least the ones I've got) for photo work. I've had plenty of HPs, from fairly low-end to around the £800 mark, but currently the only HP machines I have are a couple of lasers .... as well as Brother and Kyocera lasers. And an Olympus dye-sub. And three ALPS micro-dry machines. And so on.

....

I use a Canon ipf5000, not an Epson - the Epsons wouldn't work for what I do because they clog if you leave them for a month without printing. If you've got any links for cheap cartridges for them I'd appreciate it - I buy for around £45 atm.

As for the Epsons clogging, I'm sure you can find people that have had that experience (and probably, some on here), but I've never had that happen. I dug out one of my old Epsons a few months back, that hadn't been used in ... oh, at a conservative estimate, about 4 years. A test print showed a few blocked nozzles, but after a couple of cleaning cycles, it worked perfectly. It was then left again for about 6 months, and again, a couple of test pages and it was fine again.

So you'll find people that have had it happen, but be cautious about how much credence you put in anecdotal evidence, because you never know what people have done with them, such as whether compatible inks have been used, and if so, which ones. They vary a LOT. Some are pretty good, but some .... not so much. Another problem is that cartridges are designed to be changed while their is still ink in the ink channels. If someone overrides the "change cartridge" warning, and lets too much air get in there, then it's far more likely to dry out and cause problems. When you see anecdotal accounts of blocking, you never quite know about that type of thing either.

But as for "Epsons clogging if you leave them a month" ... well, I call generalisation on it again. I won't say it doesn't or can't happen, but I will say that after several dozen Epson machines, including an old Stylus 1520 I've had since 1997 and still have it hasn't happened to me yet. I don't say that my experience justifies discounting all over accounts for anyone else, but it sure does for me. Then again, I rarely use non-Epson ink. Maybe there's a lesson in that.

Ink costs and cartridges... I think there's a lot of cross-subsidisation going on - I don't think it's a secret either. When it gets to the point where people buy new printers, even with the starter cartridges, strip them of consumables and then offer the shell for free I find it a little ridiculous. Cartridge costs make sense - you get cheaper ink the larger the cartridge, but I don't see manufacturers rushing to offer refillables! It's just part of printer ownership, and it kind of makes sense if you're a heavy user - you're going to be using that ink anyway so you're effectively getting free printer upgrades every time a new model comes out. If you're just starting out though, it sucks.

You won't see manufacturers offering refills, and for very good reason, and it's not about cost .... or certainly not just about cost.

It's about error rates, printer failures and support and servicing. As soon as you get end users refilling cartridges, you don't know what they're filling them with, you don't know the process they're using and you lose all control over product quality. For instance, all Epson cartridges are made in a highly controlled clean room environment. The entire product area in kept under positive air pressure, it's highly filtered air supply, and nobody gets in there without wearing a body suit and mark. The only bit of you exposed to the air is you eyes and forehead. You're even wearing those cute little booties like the guys in that old Intel advert. And getting in the clean room requires going through an airlock, with doors about ... oh, 6 feet apart. You're standing on a very sticky type of flooring that takes any dust of the soles of your feet, and you've got a couple of hundred air jets blowing onto you, to remove and extract any dust before you even get in the room.

Then, the actual line is robot controlled and there's essentially just a few operators to sort out any glitches. Each stage is carefully computer monitored for quality control to detect any stage moving away from design tolerances, so that the production line is stopped before anything actually gets to the point where it's out of tolerance. And when the cartridge reaches the end of the line, it's vacuum sealed to ensure it arrives at the customer's printer in the same condition it leaves the assembly line.

Imagine what you do to the chances of getting contaminants in there is you've got some consumer squirting ink in from a syringe on his kitchen table? Yet, if his brand new printer stops working, he's almost certainly going to do his level best to get the manufacturer to fix it free of charge, especially if it's under warranty. I've regularly seen advice like "take out the compatibles and put genuine cartridges in before you send it back, and they'll never know". As it happens, that isn't quite true, but there are PR considerations too.

What is certain is that of you use non-genuine inks, and that's what causes a printer failure, manufacturers could deny a warranty claim on that basis. But they couldn't if they provided the refillable cartridges, could they? The type of mass-market printer sales we see at the low end only work if you keep the cost of failures to an absolute minimum, which is why they go to great trouble to do so, and why I don't see refillable cartridges ever coming in to the consumer end of the market, from a manufacturer. Of course, if you've got a £30,000 machine printing roll-fed material 6 feet wide, it's a different prospect, and that will be designed for use with a CIS, but probably also with a decent support contract on the machine too.

So while I also strongly suspect an element of cross-subsidisation goes on, especially at the low end of the market, if you've got anyone outside of a limited number of management types at manufacturers that says they know it does, I call bullpoop on it. For Epson, for instance, I have had numerous meeting, both formally and in bars, and on one occasion in a geisha house in Kyoto, with their UK Marketing director and product and group product managers, and whether sober or .... not entirely sober, I've never managed to get confirmation of that.

Does it happen? I'd say so, but we don't know so.

What you certainly can't do is to assume that because they don't do refills, the only reason they don't is to screw maximum profit out of it.

Oh, and I would also point out that were were talking about fairly high-end large-format (or rather, the low end of the large format market, but high-end for consumers), not entry level. Market economics for a £50 printer and market economics for a £1000 printer are very different ..... as are the user types. And of course, it changes again when you get into the big, commercially oriented printers, which again is very different from high volume printers, as opposed to large-size low volume machines.

A word of warning too .... even at the low end, the economics is not always what it appears to be. The amount of ink in a cartridge is obviously a major factor affecting how many prints you'll get, but so is the way the ink interacts with the paper, droplet size, amounts of overlapping areas, the exact nature of the stochastic dithering, and about the only way I've ever found to really compare is to take a set of printers, take a complete set of brand-new cartridges, and run an exhaustion test using a controlled test print. I've done this for several printers, typically comparing four or five at a time, and used a colour densitometer to make sure that I can detect any changes in colour values as and when a cartridge starts to run out. A cartridge that appears to be cheaper isn't, if it is 20% cheaper, but does 40 prints as opposed to 140 ... and that was the result I got from one such printer comparison. I would specify the printers, but it was long enough ago for the actual machines, or makers, to be irrelevant now. It's a cautionary tale, though.

[brammers]

As for the Epsons clogging, I'm sure you can find people that have had that experience (and probably, some on here), but I've never had that happen. I dug out one of my old Epsons a few months back, that hadn't been used in ... oh, at a conservative estimate, about 4 years. A test print showed a few blocked nozzles, but after a couple of cleaning cycles, it worked perfectly. It was then left again for about 6 months, and again, a couple of test pages and it was fine again.

Great that yours don't clog, but mine do. A quick hunt around revealed that the reason why they clog far more often than the Canons is because of the different head designs and the different approaches to head maintanance. As you're evidently in the know I won't patronise you by specifying the differences - but the Canon system to head maintanence and replacement, even though it still uses a fair bit of ink, works far better for me. HP's looks even better. Epson? They were the ones to bring the things to the consumers - it's only natural that others improve upon what they managed. Non-manufacturer inks? I've already given you a hint as to my feelings on these, that's one lesson I learnt a long time ago

You won't see manufacturers offering refills, and for very good reason, and it's not about cost .... or certainly not just about cost.

It's about error rates, printer failures and support and servicing. As soon as you get end users refilling cartridges

Nope - wasn't suggesting end user refills - maybe you're generalising now? Return to manufacturer refills, so they can take advantage of the cleanroom conditions, seem to me a perfect solution. You say that the cartridge is very expensive - let's re-use them.

So while I also strongly suspect an element of cross-subsidisation goes on, especially at the low end of the market, if you've got anyone outside of a limited number of management types at manufacturers that says they know it does, I call bullpoop on it.

I can't say I've ever had lunch with anyone from Epson, but when you apply the maths it's easy to see where the money's coming from.

Take a Canon IPF5100. That comes new with 12 half-sized ink cartridges (assuming £50 a pop for a full refill that's £300 worth of ink) and 2 heads that are designed to wear out (£300 each - £600), along with other consumables such as the waste ink tank - say another £50 worth. Every time a retailer puts on an offer where it comes with full tanks rather than 1/2 sized, people go out and buy them and just abandon their old one.

A new printer costs between £1100-1500, and £950ish of that is consumables that are designed to be replaced. As I said, that works brilliantly if you're a high-volume printer and you're going to be using up those consumables anyway, but if you're not then these things are damn expensive. It's like a Ferrari - many people could actually afford to buy a 2nd hand Ferrari, but insurance, road tax and petrol would mean they wouldn't be able to drive it that much.

Other printers do things differently, but my take on the market as a whole ('fine art' printers that is - not standard ones which I know nothing about) is that it's still very immature, and that even a smaller printer is an investment that needs to be babied somewhat. Clogs, calibration, drivers, RIPs, paper profiles, new ink types every model... It's all a lot harder than it should be - isn't it? Even Apple just screwed up the printer colour management with their new OS release - cue Epson running around trying to fix things. It's a shame, because I love prints - much more than pics on screens. I'm sure we'll get there, but for the moment the way it works is irritating - yes you're right, individuals can get say an Epson 1900, but it can be somewhat frustrating.

[Saracen]

..... Return to manufacturer refills, so they can take advantage of the cleanroom conditions, seem to me a perfect solution. You say that the cartridge is very expensive - let's re-use them.

Where did I say that? I don't remember saying it, and unless the context is other than what you suggest there implies, I doubt I would have. What I did say is that the cost of a cartridge is about FAR more than the cost of the ink.

So where did I say they were "very expensive"? I'd like to see exactly what I said that you're referring to before I either explain it or justify it.

[Saracen]

Great that yours don't clog, but mine do. A quick hunt around revealed that the reason why they clog far more often than the Canons is because of the different head designs and the different approaches to head maintanance. As you're evidently in the know I won't patronise you by specifying the differences - but the Canon system to head maintanence and replacement, even though it still uses a fair bit of ink, works far better for me. HP's looks even better. Epson? They were the ones to bring the things to the consumers - it's only natural that others improve upon what they managed. Non-manufacturer inks? I've already given you a hint as to my feelings on these, that's one lesson I learnt a long time ago

It's not at all natural that others improve. Just because you're the market leader doesn't mean others will naturally be better. It might happen, especially if you take you eye of the ball, but it certainly isn't natural that it will happen.

As for head design, if Canon works better for you, great. Buy what you prefer, just like I do. I have both, currently. And have had a lot of HPs. I agree there is a different approach to head maintenance. HP and Canon replace heads regularly, often (model-dependent) when you change cartridge because they have to to maintain nozzle quality, because of the thermal stresses imposed on the head by thermal injects. Epson's piezo-electric process doesn't have that problem, and the heads aren't designed to be replaced regularly. And Epson, or rather Seiko, are world leaders in that piezo technology - they have to be because of their watch operations... and, by the way, mobile phone operations.

Nope - wasn't suggesting end user refills - maybe you're generalising now? Return to manufacturer refills, so they can take advantage of the cleanroom conditions, seem to me a perfect solution. You say that the cartridge is very expensive - let's re-use them.

You seriously think it would be cheaper to collect old cartridges, ship them half way round the country or even halfway round the world, inspect them for physical damage, ensure they are clean enough to prevent internal contamination in order to refill them in the factory? You really think that? Seriously?

How often can a cartridge be refilled? Does it vary from cartridge type to cartridge type? Hint - evidence suggests it most certainly does. For instance, Epson cartridges are generally ink tanks and can be refilled more often that most others, especially those that have a sponge interior to smooth ink flow. Epson use other ways to keep ink flow rates consistent as ink levels drop. And how are manufacturers supposed to know how many times a cartridge has been refilled, bearing in mind they'll not only be responsible in law for the cartridge, but also for any printer damage resulting from it? For instance, if the cartridge type has a sponge, a lot apparently depends on how long the cartridge has been empty for, and even how empty. If that sponge dries out, refilling will be far less successful.

I've already pointed out that Epson, for instance, spent a LOT of time and money on quality control on manufacturing, from the clean room conditions up to a manufacturing process control system that prevents faulty cartridges from being manufactured almost 100% of the time, by monitoring a whole series of factors, from manufacturing tolerances to ink flow rates and pressures. Given a total lack of any control over knowledge of the standard of a cartridge going in to that process if it was reused, I can't see nay way of maintaining that reliability rate, and not only would it add cost if it failed, it would damage reputation.

Take a Canon IPF5100. That comes new with 12 half-sized ink cartridges (assuming £50 a pop for a full refill that's £300 worth of ink) and 2 heads that are designed to wear out (£300 each - £600), along with other consumables such as the waste ink tank - say another £50 worth. Every time a retailer puts on an offer where it comes with full tanks rather than 1/2 sized, people go out and buy them and just abandon their old one.

A new printer costs between £1100-1500, and £950ish of that is consumables that are designed to be replaced. As I said, that works brilliantly if you're a high-volume printer and you're going to be using up those consumables anyway, but if you're not then these things are damn expensive. It's like a Ferrari - many people could actually afford to buy a 2nd hand Ferrari, but insurance, road tax and petrol would mean they wouldn't be able to drive it that much.

Other printers do things differently, but my take on the market as a whole ('fine art' printers that is - not standard ones which I know nothing about) is that it's still very immature, and that even a smaller printer is an investment that needs to be babied somewhat. Clogs, calibration, drivers, RIPs, paper profiles, new ink types every model... It's all a lot harder than it should be - isn't it? Even Apple just screwed up the printer colour management with their new OS release - cue Epson running around trying to fix things. It's a shame, because I love prints - much more than pics on screens. I'm sure we'll get there, but for the moment the way it works is irritating - yes you're right, individuals can get say an Epson 1900, but it can be somewhat frustrating.

Well, the pricing of a Canon model I don't have I'll leave to you.

There are some things I think we're going to agree on - mainly, this area isn't cheap. Far from it.

Where we disagree, though, is that individuals can't afford it. Some, many oin fact, can and do .... if you're an enthusiast. On the same way, Joe Public might go out and spend £200 on a camera, while an enthusiast will probably spend several times a that if he can, and sometimes 10 or 15 times a that, before we start talking about "L" lenses, etc, or expensive macro twin-flash, etc.

So ..... individuals can and do run large format pigment printers, albeit at the smaller end of the range of "large format" machines , as the larger ones cost more than many new cars.

And yes, different machines are aimed at different types of users. To justify the Epson 3800 end of the market, you have to be using it more than a little bit, otherwise a pigment A4 machine (R800, for example) and a service bureau for the occasional large print might make more sense. But, if you are using it a lot, then the justification is precisely because the running costs come down as you move upscale. The unit cost, say per square inch of printed image, comes down even more when you go upscale even more, but the upfront cost certainly goes way up.

Keeping the initial cost down, at least for consumers and perhaps even enthusiasts, is standard marketing. If a manufacturer worked out the expected life of a printer in terms of pages printed, and then offered that printer including all the ink it would consume over that life for a one-off up-front flat fee, I wonder how many people would take them up, and how many would rather pay as little as possible for the machine, and then dribble money into consumables as and when needed?

Manufacturers target techniques at different types of user because they know what works. It might be a bit distasteful, but it's effective. A high volume user is more concerned about running costs than capital outlay, and a consumer is generally the other way round. And a business user looks at the business case, cost/benefit. And if a manufacturer wants to sell kit, they act accordingly.

As for the market being immature ... yup, I tend to agree. But I'd add that the market we're talking about, large-format pigment (including for fine art applications) is something of a niche market. And niches tend to attract a premium. I'm not sure I see the A3 to A2 printer market ever being anything more than a bit niche either - most people don't have the need or desire to print that large, and certainly not enough to be prepared to pay for it..


And as for calibration and colour matching .... shudder. The number of times I've declined requests to write articles about that .... it's a flippin' minefield ..... though for the last couple of years, it;s been improving a bit with decent semi-affordable hardware. I still spend more on printer/monitor calibration than most people would on a printer though.