I have to apologize for being so late in responding to postings. I was
out of town for a while, and then had some other issues come up which
kept me away from the group.
Anyway, I realize I'm nearly two weeks behind, but I wanted to try to
catch up where possible.
Wolfvalley asked about what type of printer to look for.
He mentioned he wishes to sell some of his images. The reason I asked
is because if the work will be sold as high end fine art, the permanence
of the print may become an issue. There are both dye and pigment inks
now that provide reasonable stability. However, I would try to go for
inks that are highly rated against fading.
Those would include Ultrachrome or Claria inks for Epson, Kodak new
pigment inks, and Canon pigment or Chromalife inks.
I would stay away from other Canon or Epson inks, including the
Durabrite inks, which although they are pigment and quite stable, also
suffer from clogging due to their quick drying, all Lexmark inks. HP is
also offering some pigment inks as well as some long term dye inks,
although the paper required to provide the fade resistance is usually
not waterproof.
Other considerations for art prints and photo contests are the types of
paper you can use, and color gamut. Dye colorant based inks are still
somewhat wider in color gamut, although the newer pigment inks provide
very reasonable results. Dye inks can be printed on very glossy
surfaced papers as well as most other surfaces. Pigment inks are more
critical. Most pigment inks leave a somewhat matte differential surface
and require a special gloss fluid coating to leave them glossy. The
Epson R800, and R1800 offer this glossy fluid coating.
Very few smaller carriage printers offer large cartridges. If you wish
to keep your cost on ink down in narrow carriage printers, consider
printers which will allow for installation of bulk ink supplies.
Wider carriage professional printers are more costly, but accept larger
cartridges which do save considerable money over the smaller cartridges.
Art
