Advice for Mac

[wooster]

Hi all,

I am considering buying a printer. I haven't printed much for some years but now feel I'm missing out. I'm not sure how to go about it. I have no experience with the latest printers and have forgotten all I knew last time I did it. I probably would print a lot for some of the year and then not much for other times. Good B&W is important to me and I'd probably stick to A4 using a print shop for anything larger. I'm not bothered about any non-photo printing or scanning as I already have an office printer for that.

I'm worried about two things: 1 Cost and 2 Drying out nozzle heads or whatever.


I'm not up to speed with the tech side of printing and don't really want a steep curve. I use Lightroom and I am probably going to start off using Permajet or something that would do the profiling for me for free. I can't afford to spend £500 on a profiler.

I had decided it would be good to get one of the tank system printers as they save so much money and after a bit of looking around I had sort of settled on the Canon Pixma G550 but then I read that they weren't so good with Macs which are all I use. I assume this is due to the Apple Air Print app giving no opportunity to fine tune the print. Is this assumption correct? If it is, can I avoid using the airprint app or get around it somehow?

What advice would you give me for progressing? Is the Canon a disappointment with the Mac? Is something better I'm missing?

Thank you for your help.

[DanK]

There is a lot to sort out here.

First, to print well, you will need ICC profiles to match the paper to the printer. I don't know how buying permajet would avoid this requirement. However, if you choose your printer with this in mind, there is no need to create your own profiles. I have been printing for years and to some extent exhibiting and selling prints, and I have never created a profile of my own.

Paper vendors provide ICC profiles as free downloads for most dedicated photo printers. Just look at the website of a big paper company and make sure your printer is listed. For example if you go to https://www.moabpaper.com/icc-profiles-downloads/, you'll see that Moab provides profiles for a lot of Canon printers. However, they don't provide them for the G550 or for other printers in that price range. Canon does provide ICCs for its own papers in the installation package for its printers, but if you wanted to use the G550 with Moab papers, you'd have to pay for a profile to be created. I've never done that, but I think they run about US$40-50 each. So decide what papers you might be interested in and check their list for any printer you are interested in. If you go up in price to something like the Pro-200, virtually all vendors will provide ICCs. The Pro 200 is a superb printer that will produce prints rivaling those from much more expensive printers (but not archival prints). However, it's become quite expensive.

If you're going to print intermittently and don't need archival prints, don't buy a pigment ink printer. There are always exceptions, but dye inks are much less likely to create a clog that the printer can't clear all by itself. I used two Canon dye printers (9000 II and Pro 100) for years, often leaving them dormant for months, and I never once had to do anything but turn them back on. In contrast, my Prograf 1000, which uses pigment inks, often spends a lot of time and expensive ink cleaning the head if I leave it unused for too long. (It has a handy gauge that actually shows you how much ink it's wasting.)

However, if you are just starting out, getting a less expensive printer and sticking with Canon papers isn't an unreasonable way to start. if you get hooked and want to do more refined work, you can upgrade later.

I have never used a tank-system printer. The main benefit, I think, would be cost per ml of ink. It would have no bearing on the probability of a clog.

Re mac software: I don't use a mac, so I'll let others chime in. However, I don't know any serious printers who rely on operating-system software for printing, so I don't see why the choice of operating system would matter. The normal thing is to use the printing software (in my case, usually Lightroom) to control printing color and to use the printer's firmware to control printing black and white. Letting the printing software control colors when printing black and white can introduce subtle color casts. For example, I just did a restoration of a dozen old mono prints, some over 80 years old. Some were sepia toned. Because some had discoloration, I converted everything to black and white and set Lightroom to give control to the Canon firmware, which I then set to black and white. If I reintroduced a sepia tone, which I may do for the next batch, I would have to let Lightroom control color. (If you are using Lightroom, you do this by selecting the ICC profile for the paper you are using.)

I hope you give this a try. I know some people find it frustrating, and it does involve learning a bunch of things when starting out. However, I really enjoy producing my own prints.

[DanK]

PS: Just after posting this, I saw a post from someone with the screen name glen_h on photo.net. It's a great example of the point I made about dye printers not as often clogging:

My dad gave me a Pro-9000 seven years ago.

(He has a Pro-100 and MX-920.)

It sat in the basement, unused and unplugged, until a few days ago.

I plugged it, and did the ink test. Eight perfectly shaded rectangles.

[Manfred M]

I do a lot of print making and have used a Mac fairly often recently. Most of my printing is from a Windows machine on Epson printers, so I do not know the nuances of the Canon printers on that platform.

The only issue that is common on Macs is that Apple wipes out all of your custom colour settings and printer / paper profiles when there is a major operating system upgrade and that usually means reinstalling profiles and tweaking your computer. Fortunately that only happens every few years so one can tolerate this issue.

Unlike Dan, I do not print from Lightroom, but rather from Photoshop, which gives me a lot more control. That is just a personal preference.

I have had very few clogging issues with my pigment based printers. The climate where I live is quite dry at this time of year, yet I have often not printed for 2 or 3 months (up to 6 months) and had no issues at all with nozzle clogging. The larger "production" printers do exhibit this issue when they go unused for a week or two. I suspect that the printer manufacturers know that desktop photo printers are not going to be used all of the time, so do a better job in preventing the nozzles from clogging.

Paper manufacturers create profiles for their papers and most of us use the ones that we download from the paper manufacturer's websites. They work just fine and there is no need for a high-end photospectrometer for most of us. I do, however calibrate and profile my computer screen, and find that it is an important part of my workflow to create consistent images.

The main downside of the lower end printers is the limited colour gamut that they can handle. The colours will not be as subtle as in higher end printers. As Dan has already pointed out, there are two types of inkjet printers; those that use dye based inks and those that use pigment based inks. Pigment inks tend to have a longer life and bleed less than the dye based inks in the printer you are looking at. They also only have a single black ink, where the higher end units have a different ink for matte and glossy papers.

I can't comment on the wireless printers, as I have my printer connected to my computer using a USB cable. That is just to ensure that the data flow from computer to printer is good. Wireless technology can be subject to external factors and I have learned to not trust them, based on bitter experience.

I'm not completely certain why you are only considering the Canon printers. Epson makes a line of similar tank-based printers that are well regarded.

As Dan has pointed out, doing your own prints, can be quite rewarding, but the learning process does take time. It takes more than just pressing the "print" button to create a strong image.

[DanK]

Just a few things to add to Manfred's helpful comments:

As Manfred pointed out, most dye-based printers use a single black ink, while most pigment-ink printers use two. For as long as I have been using pigment ink, Canon printers have had both mounted, and the software calls for whichever it needs. For a long time, Epson printers required that you swap the black inks, depending on the paper. Some new Epsons don't do this, but I don't know whether all of them now keep both blacks mounted.

Re Manfred's experience of not having clogs with his pigment based printers: I should clarify what I said. I have not had any clogs with my pigment ink Canon that required me to do anything myself. However, printers go through a self-cleaning cycle when you start them up, and Canon's firmware makes it painfully obvious what the printer is doing during that time. They have large cartridge that holds waste ink, and there is a little green bar on the screen that shows you how full it is. Sometimes, if the printer has been idle long enough, the self-cleaning goes on for some time, and you can actually see the increase in the amount of waste ink collected. This was not an issue with my dye-based printers.

I agree with Manfred: I would consider Epson printers as well as Canon.

Manfred pointed out that dye inks spread more. Paper vendors will often say whether a paper is best for pigment inks, dye inks, or both. My unscientific sample is that I generally ignored this when using a dye-ink printer and never had any problems with spread. However, I use a limited range of papers, and I suspect there are some where it matters.

[Ken MT]

I see that my Canon G4610 tank printer uses pigment inks in the colours, but dye based in the black. I assume that this is the best of both worlds. Very happy with it, having about to fill up the tanks for the first time after about a year

[DanK]

I see that my Canon G4610 tank printer uses pigment inks in the colours, but dye based in the black. I assume that this is the best of both worlds. Very happy with it, having about to fill up the tanks for the first time after about a year

I don't know that printer, but that's all the Canon multifunction printers I've seen are the reverse. Normally, they have dye for color and, if they have a pigment black, pigment black for text. I believe that's to provide text documents that are more resistant to smudging and water. My current Canon multifunction has 5 colors: black, yellow, magenta, and cyan, all dye, and a second black that's pigment.

I didn't find a relevant Canon source, but this page, https://printermanual.net/pixma-g4610/, says that this is also true of the G4610.

[Manfred M]

Manfred pointed out that dye inks spread more. Paper vendors will often say whether a paper is best for pigment inks, dye inks, or both. My unscientific sample is that I generally ignored this when using a dye-ink printer and never had any problems with spread. However, I use a limited range of papers, and I suspect there are some where it matters.

I have seen this in some matte fine art (cotton rag) papers, where the result is already a little bit softer than with RC or baryta papers.

[DanK]

I have seen this in some matte fine art (cotton rag) papers, where the result is already a little bit softer than with RC or baryta papers.

That makes perfect sense. I rarely use such papers, which is probably why I never noticed it. The matte papers I use most (which is still infrequent) are very dense and reasonably smooth papers. I print mostly on coated papers--baryta and luster.

[wooster]

Thank you gentlefolk for your helpful insights and advice. I will clarify.

Dan, I mentioned Permajet as they provide a custom ICC free of charge. You just print off a test page and post it to them and they email you one back. I thought this would obviate the need for a profiler of my own.

Re the Mac issue, my worry was whether or not the printer would let me use ICC profiles of my own or whether it insisted on using Apple's own limited print driver which does not allow for these to be used. I saw a video of Keith's online which seemed to suggest this was a problem with at least this Canon printer and Macs. I keep reading what appears to me to be contradictory advice so I'm confused. I guess I'm just wondering if it was possible to avoid this restriction.

I travel quite a bit, and I'm often away for a few weeks at at time, I don't want to have to deal with clogging when I come back to the printer so it is a concern. I note, Dan and Manfred you seem to have different views.

Manfred, I did consider all makes of printers but eventually thought the Canon might work best for me. I'm happy to reconsider if my fears over Apple drivers are proved correct.

Thank you again for your help

[Manfred M]

William - I don't think Dan and I have different views per se. Pigment based printers finely ground particles as the colourant and are in theory more prone to clogging as these particles can settle out over time. Dan is correct in that pigment based printers do have cleaning cycles that run routinely to ensure clogging does not occur and yes, you lose a bit of ink that way.

Like Dan, my work is shown in galleries. Archival materials are a must, so we see both pigment based inks and chromogenic prints (which in my opinion are not archival). We do not see dye based inks.

I've also had ink drying issues with dye based printers, but that was a very long time ago, so my experience is probably not relevant.

Both Dan and I live in areas where the winters can be cold and dry. In my case even more so as I am in Central Canada where winter humidity is so low that we have to humidify the air to keep our houses comfortable to live in. I currently use an Epson P800 and prior to that I used an Epson 3880, both are pigment based printers. I power down my printers when I go on extended trips (the self cleaning cycle does not happen) and have been away for several months in a row without printing. In fact, I had surgery on a foot and was out of action for almost 9 months without printing back in 2012, and the 3880 ran perfectly when I went back to it.

So far as I can tell, both Windows and Apple handle colour profiles in a similar fashion. The same goes for ICC profiles, although frankly only pigment based inks are supported on Canon, Epson and higher end, large format HP printers. All of these companies make good hardware. A lot of people don't know Epson, but they are a large Japanese company that is officially called Seiko-Epson (yes, the company that makes Seiko watches) that have been in the business for a very long time.

Canon and HP use thermal print heads (the ink droplet is heated to when the water carrying the ink boils and that drives the ink onto the print medium). Epson uses ultrasonic technology (which comes from the watch technology) where a process called cavitation. Effectively the difference is that Epson has a native resolution of 360 dots per inch (dpi), while the Canon / HP units run at 300 dpi.

I understand from the camera retailer, Epson outsells Canon by a large margin in the photo printer market, so there is no need to be concerned about looking at their hardware.

[DanK]

Manfred's comment about market share is certainly true in my little world. Of the photographers I know who print seriously, a sizable majority use Epson printers. When I bought my Pro 1000, the reviews all concluded that the print quality of that and the competitor from Epson at the time were extremely close. The Epson had the advantage of handling rolls, which the Prograf 1000 doesn't. The Prograf didn't require swapping black inks, which the Epson did. That last factor was the deciding one for me. My understanding is that some newer Epsons don't have this drawback.

Manfred, it's not the case ICC profiles are provided only for pigment ink printers. For example, Moab, Canson, Red River, and Hahnemuehle all provide ICCs for the better Canon dye-ink printers. I printed primarily on Moab, Canson, and Red River when I used my two Canon dye-ink printers. They don't provide them for less expensive printers, including multi-function printers.

Does Epson make any serious dye-ink photo printers? If not, that would be IMHO a reason for more casual printers to go with Canon.

[Manfred M]

Does Epson make any serious dye-ink photo printers? If not, that would be IMHO a reason for more casual printers to go with Canon.

They do. If I were looking at a low end dye-ink Epson printer, the XP-8600 or the XP-8700 are 6-cartridge printers. The Eco-Tank ET-8500 or ET-8550 would be the equivalent of the Canon printer William is looking at, both are 6-ink printers as well.

So far as I know, all current Epson pigment photo printers now handle the photo black and matte black through separate nozzles, the the issues with ink swapping have been dealt with.

[DanK]

I just checked Moab and Canson, and they both provide ICCs for both of those Epson models.

IMHO, a key question to start, even if one decides on dye inks, is how many inks. I started with a 4-ink multifunction printer and became dissatisfied quite quickly. But more inks means more $$

The Epson ET-8550 is 6 inks and $800 at B&H. The Canon Pro-200 (the successor to the Pro-100 I used to use) is 8 inks and costs $500. However, the Epson is a tank-based printer, not a cartridge based printer, and it's a multifunction, including scanning. At a glance, I wasn't able to see what the difference is between the 8500 and the 8550. The 8500 is also 6-ink and is normally $700 but is now $500. However, since William is on the other side of the pond, the prices may be quite different.

[wooster]

Thank you, gentlemen, for your help. I am unlikely ever to show any of my prints, but if I did I would be happy to outsource to a reputable online print company which used high-end gear to achieve superior results. Really I just need something that would print reasonably accurate colour prints and B&W without noticeable negative issues like cast or ermm shiny bits of colour ( technical ignorance I'm afraid. I want to say metamerism but I might be wrong )

I believe the only difference between the ET 8550 and ET 8500 is that the latter won't print anything larger than A4.

Anyway, there's a couple of companies in the UK who make custom profiles for any printer as long as you buy their paper. I'm still not sure if I can by-pass the Canon tendency to insist on Apple airprint with Macs. If it did, and given my modest requirements I'd go for the G650 or G550 over here for reasons of economy.

[billtils]

Manfred, it's not the case ICC profiles are provided only for pigment ink printers. For example, Moab, Canson, Red River, and Hahnemuehle all provide ICCs for the better Canon dye-ink printers. I printed primarily on Moab, Canson, and Red River when I used my two Canon dye-ink printers. They don't provide them for less expensive printers, including multi-function printers.
.

What Dan says is correct. Here in the UK, the main paper suppliers (Permajet and Paper Spectrum) have ICC profiles for most Canon and Epson printers. Paper Spectrum also offer a custom profiling service.

[Manfred M]

Of course, you can always stick with Canon papers, as these ICC profiles will be easily available if not already built into the printer. This would be a good way for you to start and once you are more comfortable with the photo printing process, start branching out to try other photo paper manufacturers.

Epson has a much larger collection of papers than Canon does and these profiles are built into their photo printers.

[wooster]

A quick update. I have ordered the Epson ET8550 as it is on sale here at the moment with a £100 cashback making it the same price as the Canon. It also will allow me to use ICC profiles on my Mac. I can get profiles made from the paper suppliers I would use ie Epson, Permajet, Fotospeed and Hahnemulhe so all sorted. Thank you for your help