Which printer ??

[James G]

Donald thanks,
you get to learn something new about yourself every day if you are open to it. I started developing and printing my own photographs, (B&W), back in the sixtys as a teenager. Couldn't afford much colour until a lot later, but always found B&W more satisfying to generate and print. I mostly used colour (slides) for stained glass, an old and continuing passion. I switched to digital about 10 years back, and started using CS2 when it came out. It was only this morning, when I properly reread your part of this thread about ABW that I realised I had never worked up a B&W image from greyscale raw.
Much more chastening, since 'going digital', although I try to have a "vision" the final image at capture, I realise I have been seeing B&W as an extension of the colour process and sleepwalking into the relatively few I produce these days. So, time to waken up, and start seeing some images as B&W from start to finish. James

[loosecanon]

It come down to not just the cost of the printer but also the coast of running it.

I have a Canon pigment printer, great image quality, but too expensive to run unless I really need a good pigment print. I have also a canon A3 dye printer, inks I use cheap refills at £5 for 100mls, really good image quality. I also have on all the time a Brother A3 four colour printer, slow but again cheap to run with non oem inks.

The canon is a pro 9000 II and that will print a excellent A3 print in 35 seconds, bit longer at best photo setting but difference is difficult to see.

Main problem is printing large sheets on special paper it needs a wide margin. And it is limited to 22" maximum length.
Biggest disadvantage of buying Canon is the poor quality of Canon after sales service in UK for printers, no not poor, abysmal.

Finally I would suggest that as part of budget for printer include the cost of the equipment to profile the printer. I did, and can get good results with cheap paper and inks.

[Colin Southern]

Biggest disadvantage of buying Canon is the poor quality of Canon after sales service in UK for printers, no not poor, abysmal.

I see this across a wide range of industries - but it doesn't really bother me these days as I think there's long since been a paradigm shift towards websites & forums providing that support.

[Donald]

I would like the world to know that I've just ordered the Epson R3000. Should be here in a couple of days.

Oh God! Back to the beginning of the learning curve. If you hear wails of anguish coming from the north-west corner of Europe, be sympathetic. It'll be me trying to learn.

[Macmahon]

I would like the world to know that I've just ordered the Epson R3000. Should be here in a couple of days.

Oh God! Back to the beginning of the learning curve. If you hear wails of anguish coming from the north-west corner of Europe, be sympathetic. It'll be me trying to learn.

Donald
You'll love it. Uses the same inkset as my 3880. I get prints that I drool about* - both B&W using the ABW after SEP2 - and colour.

FWIW I've never used Epson papers. I have a love affair with Ilford Smooth Pearl, and Ilford GFS, and I'm a happy camper. Unless you want to get into the whole print profiling game, you may want to use Epson papers and their print profiles - at least while you're ramping up.

BTW, unlike your good self, I do use Lightroom (and SEP2 as a plug-in). The printing interface in LR is just so straightforward compared to other s/w I've used.

Look forward to hearing about your progress. (I'm told the Scots live for learning!)

Cheers
Tim

* If only my photography were up the same standard. Sigh....

[Donald]

BTW, unlike your good self, I do use Lightroom (and SEP2 as a plug-in). The printing interface in LR is just so straightforward compared to other s/w I've used.

Interesting what you write there, Tim.

I have succumbed and bought in to the Adobe empire. I will still use the GIMP as I have a sense of loyalty in that it was where I started (stupid and misplaced, I know). It does have a printing interface and it is probably quite straightforward if you have the time and patience. But ..............!

Having watched every video tutorial that I think exists on the subject, it seemed that getting something with Adobe written on the box would make the journey into printing much more straightforward. So, I've got myself Elements 11. And, of course, it does have the advanatge also of allowing seamless connection with the NIK plug-ins that can then be used much more easily in conjunction with one another; e.g. ligthing adjustments with Viveza2 and then into SEP2. But, primarily, I bought Elements to get access to the printing interface.

On paper, I'm going to experiment with Permajet papers to start with and see how I get on. Permajet is part of The Imaging Warehouse here in the UK (I'm getting the printer from there as well).

[Clactonian]

Donald I'm surprised at you, wasting all that money on software and printers when you could be building your wine stocks!!

I have an HP B9180 which when I get it right produces beautiful archival prints. It's the getting it right bit that bugs me and frankly I'm far from achieving that. I know my problems lie with the calibration process but as I'm not prepared to buy any more gizmos to assist me any fix is pure trial and error. I'm not even sure whether or not to stick with the printer profiles or allow the software to manage the printing. The experimentation process is darned expensive.

I wish you well with your new toy.

M

[rpcrowe]

I purchasd a Canon Pixma Pro 9000 Mkii somewhere around a year ago. It was on sale and also received a rebate at the same time. That reduced the price to a point in which I couldn't resist. If I remember correctly, the bottom line price came out to be about $200 U.S. Dollars with free shipping from B&H Photo & Video in New York City. I really like the printer and got to like it even more after attending a free Canon printing seminar at my local Calumet store. The seminar was to introduce the new Canon printers: Pixma Pro-1, Pro-10 and Pro-100. However much of the information presented also pertained to the Pixma 9000 Mkii.

The Canon representative introduced me to the Canon Easy print Pro software which is applicable to the entire group of top-end Canon Pixma printers. The Easy Print Pro is a simple but effective program which runs under either my Photoshop Elements 9 or my Photoshop CS6.

What I like about the Pixma is that it is very easy for me to use when printing from Photoshop and even easier to use when printing from the Easy Print Pro. I have to admit that I had an Epson 1800 printer and often struggled with getting good prints. It also seemed to clog up quite a bit.

Although I usually don't print above 8.5 x 11" size prints, the Pixma is capable of 13 x 19" prints...

The Canon rep did say that the Pixma 1 is probably the best printer for black and white prints because it uses five black ink cartridges...

[stuck]

Can I ask something here about colour gamut?

If you have a high end monitor, that's capable of displaying most if not all of the Adobe RGB colour space, can you then print out all of these colours with a high end printer, such as being discussed here?

Ken

[Macmahon]

Can I ask something here about colour gamut?

If you have a high end monitor, that's capable of displaying most if not all of the Adobe RGB colour space, can you then print out all of these colours with a high end printer, such as being discussed here?

Ken

Hi Ken

Briefly - no.

Not all of the colours that are represented in the AdobeRGB colour space can be printed on current high end ink jets (although there's every reason to expect that technology advances will change that in the future)

On the other hand some printers can print some colours that are outside of Adobe RGB.

If my upload has worked you can see a 2-d representation from Colorthink of my printer's gamut (Epson 3880 with Ilford Gallerie Smooth Pearl) vs Adobe RGB (wireframe). Most of the printer's gamut is contained but you'll see that the printer is capable of printing some colours out in the saturated yellows that are beyond AdobeRGB.



Cheers

Tim

[Macmahon]

...I've got myself Elements 11. And, of course, it does have the advanatge also of allowing seamless connection with the NIK plug-ins that can then be used much more easily in conjunction with one another; e.g. ligthing adjustments with Viveza2 and then into SEP2. But, primarily, I bought Elements to get access to the printing interface.
.....

Wow! Too much change at one time can be bad for your health. Keep close to the single malt!

Seriously, PSE will give you access to good printing control although the interface is is not blindingly obvious - or was not, I have PSE9, not 11. It may have changed. LR still leads the pack in terms of user friendliness but the outcome should be the same.

....

On paper, I'm going to experiment with Permajet papers to start with and see how I get on. Permajet is part of The Imaging Warehouse here in the UK (I'm getting the printer from there as well).

We don't see Permajet in these far flung corners of the earth, but I see they offer customers an ICC profiling service. Exploit their service mercilessly, and make sure you get a job profile for each paper you want to use or try on the the Epson 3000. With generic profiles, or printer management you might well not get results as good as the printer is capable of.

Cheers

Tim

[stuck]

Briefly - no.

Not all of the colours that are represented in the AdobeRGB colour space can be printed on current high end ink jets...

What about sRGB? Can decent printers print more or less that range? I'd expect the answer will be along the lines of, the fit is better in that sRGG is a 'smaller' space so less will lie outside the print gamut but just as in the example given the printer will cover some colours that lie outside sRGB.

Correct?

Ken

[Macmahon]

What about sRGB? Can decent printers print more or less that range?
Ken

Briefly (again) - more! See Colorthink 2D plot of my 3880-IGSP gamut versus sRGB. In this case the cyans are really interesting, because on a monitor that is constrained to ~sRGB (ie does not have a wide gamut) those colours are clipped to a blue colour. If those colours are in a image they print correctly on the printer but are not what you see on the screen. That's a trap for the unwary.

I'd expect the answer will be along the lines of, the fit is better in that sRGG is a 'smaller' space so less will lie outside the print gamut but just as in the example given the printer will cover some colours that lie outside sRGB.

Ken

I don't think of sRGB giving a 'better fit' - rather a poor compromise.
In terms of colour reproduction users can't do anything about the gamut limitations of the printer or monitor we use. They're going to limit some colours that we see on either device.
The one thing we can control is the gamut we choose to to limit image colour data to. For me it makes no sense to throw away colours unnecessarily so I always choose to encode and work in ProPhoto RGB which encompasses all colours that my camera can capture and my (wide gamut) monitor and printer can display.

Just because lots of the image colour space gamut lies beyond the gamut of the output device, doesn't mean that lots of the colour is out there. In most real life images, most of the colours will be within both monitor and printer gamuts. A good printer profile will ensure that colours in the image that are outside the printer gamut will be rendered naturally (if not 100% accurately) in print.

Cheers

Tim

[stuck]

...If those colours are in a image they print correctly on the printer but are not what you see on the screen. That's a trap for the unwary...

...In most real life images, most of the colours will be within both monitor and printer gamuts. A good printer profile will ensure that colours in the image that are outside the printer gamut will be rendered naturally (if not 100% accurately) in print.

Thanks Tim, you've answered my two questions very clearly and succinctly.

Now all I have to do is find the courage / explain to my better half why I want to spend £££ on a wide gamut monitor and a good printer

Ken

[davidedric]

Serious question: what can my eyes see? There are obviously wavelengths in the infra red and ultra violet that human eyes cannot detect, but are there other "colours" too? Viewing the eye and brain as a recording device it must be possible to produce a plot of the colour space that I can see? I'm thinking that if colours are out of gamut for a display or printer but also for human vision, it can't matter that much.

On a related theme, there must also be a limit to human vision discrimination: being able to detect small changes in colour.

Not trying to hijack the thread, just to add a dimension in the hope that the folks reading it are most likely to be able to comment.

[Cantab]

Dave, I'm definitely not an expert on the technical issues but my understanding is that there are colours which a human eye can see but which are out of gamut for monitors and printers.
My two bits worth.

[stuck]

...There are obviously wavelengths in the infra red and ultra violet that human eyes cannot detect, but are there other "colours" too?...

The range of wavelengths that the cells of our retinas respond to spans from about 700nm (where red becomes infra-red) down to about 380nm (where violet becomes ultra-violet), with the cells being most sensitive to wavelengths around 555nm (green).

How humans perceive these wavelengths as colour is a complex issue. I can't find a reference to support it at the moment but there was a (UK) TV programme recently about this, which compared how colour perception varied across the world. If I recall correctly our environment gave us a vocabulary for colour and thus what a Westerner would describe / see as two different shades of say blue could not be seen as different / were perceived as the same by certain African people. In contrast the African tribes had a rich vocabulary for shades of orange/brown and perceived colours that a Westerner could not.

Ken

[stuck]

...There are obviously wavelengths in the infra red and ultra violet that human eyes cannot detect, but are there other "colours" too?...

The range of wavelengths that the cells of our retinas respond to spans from about 700nm (where red becomes infra-red) down to about 380nm (where violet becomes ultra-violet), with the cells being most sensitive to wavelengths around 555nm (green).

How humans perceive these wavelengths as colour is a complex issue. I can't find a reference to support it at the moment but there was a (UK) TV programme recently about this, which compared how colour perception varied across the world. If I recall correctly our environment gave us a vocabulary for colour and thus what a Westerner would describe / see as two different shades of say blue could not be seen as different / were perceived as the same by certain African people. In contrast the African tribes had a rich vocabulary for shades of orange/brown and perceived colours that a Westerner could not.

Ken
edited to add:
The instant you post, your Googling finally finds what you were looking for:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14421303

[Macmahon]

Serious question: what can my eyes see? ... I'm thinking that if colours are out of gamut for a display or printer but also for human vision, it can't matter that much.

True! And fortunately, the output devices don't use any energy or consumables trying to reproduce them!

Andrew Rodney does an interesting thing on human vision gamut versus sRGB ProPhoto etc etc here

Cheers

Tim

[davidedric]

Thanks Tim, the Andrew Rodney video is really helpful

One thing I think I've learned, and it may be blindingly (ouch!) obvious: the Reference Space that is normally used within which specific colour spaces are plotted IS the human eye gamut, properly called the Primary Locus. Hope that is right.

Dave