Which printer ??

[Colin Southern]

Hec - the one thing that I looked at quite carefully when choosing a printer was the ink cost.

My 7800 take 8 250ml carts - which at $250 + tax each would cost $2000 + tax to fill!!!

Several year ago I switched to Lyson ink - they're a large quality player in the market. The results ...

- About 1/3 the cost

- Slightly less head clogging

- Better gamut

Go figure!

[Colin Southern]

I use a continuous ink system on a little canon printer that i have, it halves the ink costs and i use lyson inks which are great, you can get good advice on theses systems from both Marrutt who are in sussex and the sell Lyson inks http://www.marrutt.com/

+1 for Marrutt Digital. I'm 13,000 miles away and I still get all my ink carts through them. Great to deal with (have had a couple of faulty carts and they've replaced them without hesitation and without needing to send the faulty ones back).

[grumpy hec]

Great stuff continues to flow here. Thanks.

Great to see a fellow Grumpy in such good flow!

Interested in the comments about continuous ink systems. Everything I can recall reading about them agrees that they are significantly cheaper but that head clogging can be a problem and that overall quality is not as good (archival properties and colour accuracy). The comments here would suggest it is not as clear cut as that.

Also comments about letting the printer manage B & W is at odds with everything else I've read. I wonder of may lack of knowledge in this area has caused some misunderstanding on my part. I'll have to go away and read up more on the general printer workflow.

cheers

Hec

[Donald]

Hec - Re your last point about Having the printer manage things for B & W, I did a lot of reading yesterday and saw, referred to in several places, guidance on using the Advanced B & W Mode on the Epsons. It's in conjunction with this facility that the suggestion is made about putting the pinter in charge. I was searching on 'Advanced B & W mode and turned a couple of resources (I'm not on my own computer at the moment and don't have the URLs) that walked you through the process from a Photoshop/Lightroom point of view (which I need to translate into GIMP, or some other printer software).

[Mark von Kanel]

The clogging problem is one commonly discussed on the interweb personally i have had no such issues with the inks i use but then again neither Lyson or the permajet inks are in any way the cheapest non OEM inks that are available. if you use pigment inks in a dye ink type printer you will get head blockages and visa versa i assume but i am guessing so dont shoot me down

[grumpy hec]

Hec - Re your last point about Having the printer manage things for B & W, I did a lot of reading yesterday and saw, referred to in several places, guidance on using the Advanced B & W Mode on the Epsons. It's in conjunction with this facility that the suggestion is made about putting the pinter in charge. I was searching on 'Advanced B & W mode and turned a couple of resources (I'm not on my own computer at the moment and don't have the URLs) that walked you through the process from a Photoshop/Lightroom point of view (which I need to translate into GIMP, or some other printer software).

AH - think I understand now - I have heard of that Epson facility - just my ignorance on the whole subject of porinting shining through again!

Hec

[Colin Southern]

Interested in the comments about continuous ink systems. Everything I can recall reading about them agrees that they are significantly cheaper but that head clogging can be a problem and that overall quality is not as good (archival properties and colour accuracy). The comments here would suggest it is not as clear cut as that.

It's nothing to do with continuous ink systems (assuming they're installed correctly), more just the ink itself. Basically - 99% of it is rumour spread by printer manufacturers who want to charge OUTRAGEOUS prices for ink thats often no different to other quality brands, just to get folks worried about it (and it works!)

I went through exactly that when I contemplated changing from Epson to Lyson ink. In the end I said to the Lyson guy "hey - all politics aside, here's what I've heard - is there any truth to it". All he said in reply was "well, they're made in exactly the same way". So I made the change and hyper-sensitively watched out for the first sign of trouble, but it never came. Yes - I do get the occasional blocked jet (which a power-clean fixes), but I used to get the same with Epson ink (gut feeling is that I got slightly more clogging with Epson ink, but that's just a subjective opinion). I know I get a slightly better gamut - and I know my credit card bill from the last 4 from Marrutt in England - inc postage to NZ - was $303.05 - and a bill from the NZ supplier for 1 genuine Epson cart when I had a damaged Lyson one was $290.95.

So cheaper and better - go figure

[Colin Southern]

Hec - Re your last point about Having the printer manage things for B & W, I did a lot of reading yesterday and saw, referred to in several places, guidance on using the Advanced B & W Mode on the Epsons. It's in conjunction with this facility that the suggestion is made about putting the pinter in charge. I was searching on 'Advanced B & W mode and turned a couple of resources (I'm not on my own computer at the moment and don't have the URLs) that walked you through the process from a Photoshop/Lightroom point of view (which I need to translate into GIMP, or some other printer software).

Short answer is "don't", for Photoshop users anyway. You'd only want to let the printer manage it if you weren't sending data from a colour-managed application (even if it's grayscale).

[Alandb]

This may be off-topic but I Bought an Epson 1400 a few years ago without much thought. Is it considered a decent printer? I know it may be subjective but I am just looking for some opinions.

[Nigel]

I too use the Lyson continuous ink system from www.Marrutt.com on my Epson R2400 which is cheaper than using the branded ink cartridge system. If you already have inks in your printer then you will need to flush this out prior to using Lyson inks which can be purchased from Marrutt. They also supply print profiles for papers/printers which may need a tweak to your taste.
Hope this is of help
Nigel

[Mark von Kanel]

Alan ( i assume its alan?) yes in its time the 1400 was considered a good printer and still is, time has moved on and epson ink systems have changed and developed but that doesnt make the 1400 any less good.

[Manfred M]

Short answer is "don't", for Photoshop users anyway. You'd only want to let the printer manage it if you weren't sending data from a colour-managed application (even if it's grayscale).

I found that when I did this, letting Photoshop manage the colours resulted in a very slight green tone in the prints, so I did some research and found that I was not the only one to find this, and the recommended solution was to let the printer manage colours this problem disappears. Letting the printer control the colours resulted in neutral black.

That being said, I haven't tried it lately; I think I was running CS4 when I came across this issue. I'll have to see if CS6 has corrected this problem the next time I print B&W.

[Polar01]

Just to add something to what Manfred said. When I first got my Epson 4900, I was on the phone to one of their people to get help with the setup. There were three suggestions that he gave me, one if printing B&W use the setting advance B&W and let the printer manage the colours. The second if printing on Epson stock having selected the correct ICC,with the 4900 using Epson inks let the printer also manage colour and you should have no problems. The third suggestion, if printing on an non-Epson stock than you should let photoshop manage the colours. Sometimes if I need two copies of an image I will print one with printer manages and the other photoshop manages and compare them to see if there is a noticable difference. If I print B&W I always use advanced B&W setting and let the printer manage, I just like the look of the print better whether gloss or fine arts type of stocks.

Cheers:

Allan

[Colin Southern]

I too use the Lyson continuous ink system from www.Marrutt.com on my Epson R2400 which is cheaper than using the branded ink cartridge system. If you already have inks in your printer then you will need to flush this out prior to using Lyson inks which can be purchased from Marrutt. They also supply print profiles for papers/printers which may need a tweak to your taste.
Hope this is of help
Nigel

I didn't flush mine out -- just replaced the carts as they ran out. John Reid said that I probably wouldn't need to re-profile until I'd changed about 5 carts (gamut is similar) and he was spot on.

[James G]

Colin, Nigel, Mark,
thanks for your excellent and informed input to this thread. I switched from an Epson R2400 to the R3000 in the last month. It's only taken 2 years and a really good price deal from Focus on Imaging this year to persuade me.
I've been aware of the Marrutt / Lyson ink alternative for a while, but had been leery of switching given some of the negative comments out on the web. This thread though has dispelled my doubts..... hooray for CiC :-)
One quick question though?
I’m fairly comfortable with profiling and have a DataColor Spyder Print ChkR system which I've used to profile specialist papers not specifically intended for or generally used in inkjets.
However I’m wondering if I should expect significant difference in print quality, if I carry on using Epson, Calumet or Ilford vendor supplied paper profiles on the R3000 during the changeover without regenerating the profiles once I start using the Lyson /Marrutt inks. Or should I just start generating new profiles immediately rather than wait until I've completed the change over.

Think that makes sense.... James

[stuck]

Lots of stuff about Epson printers in this thread but not much about Canon's offerings. Can anyone offer thoughts on them? I'd be interested to hear...

Ken

[Donald]

Lots of stuff about Epson printers in this thread but not much about Canon's offerings. Can anyone offer thoughts on them? I'd be interested to hear...

Ken

Ken - What I've found out as a result of this interest in printing my pictures is that Epson & Canon are to be thought of in the same way as Canon and Nikon are in terms of cameras - the big boys - with everyone else coming along behind.

What ever I've read seems to suggets that in the world of photo printing, Epson and Canon are the two makes that are out there in front.

[stuck]

What ever I've read seems to suggets that in the world of photo printing, Epson and Canon are the two makes that are out there in front.

Yes, I'm aware of this. I'm just curious as to why the Canon printer camp here at CiC have not said much about Canon's current printers.

Ken

[Donald]

Yes, I'm aware of this. I'm just curious as to why the Canon printer camp here at CiC have not said much about Canon's current printers.

Ken

I suppose that Hec and I really pushed it towards a discussion on Epson printers given that it was these we were looking at and the discussion evolved on that basis. I'm sure there will be will have been threads that discuss the merits of the various Canon products and, if not (or even if there are) people can always start another one up.

[Polar01]

I think it moved more to Epson than Canon, as more of the higher end printers use the Epson over the Canon. It comes down to if they are using Epson instead of Canon then the Epson might be making a better printer.

Cheers:

Allan