Photography Thailand Forum

[fred]

Printing is part of the photography experience too.
Digital camera operating expense is insignificant compared to film, while digital printing cost is a matter that often exceeds that of film. Once the camera is familiar and producing fine photos, familiarity with printer is necessary to display these photos. That can become a frustrating and expensive experience.
A printed photo is end of the line created by a combination of camera and program skills, plus familiarity with printer. That's not any printer, it's the one you own since no two cameras programs or printers are alike. Computer displays vary too. Skill with the printer can improve what's seen on screen. 
If owner of new printer can display desired photo on screen, that's a good place to start. Even better if the printer reproduces that photo. But chances are something like color or contrast is lost. That's because factory printer defaults are established under conditions consumer doesn't always enjoy.  Read the manual and prepare for a "what if" exercise, one setting at a time. This consumes paper and INK.
Paper. Much of my printing is on A5 card stock (plain paper) anyway so I use it to set up printer. Besides the cost being minimal (one half baht per side), the results obtained often apply to photo paper also.
Ink is the costly matter. Cartridge capacity is not what it used to be. I was printing full size A5 with a 2002 two cartridge printer for between four and six baht. I replaced it with state of art model and cost increased to about twenty baht! One cartridge (yellow) went dry between forty and fifty prints. Black was good for about a hundred prints vs hundred sixty to two hundred with old two cartridge system. Once settings were figured the printer produced excellent results, but calculation told me I would soon have greater investment in ink than I had in printer.
With a backlog of work facing me, I traded off the new printer and purchased another with external ink supply installed. That was after several trips to the vendor to print sample photos on all sorts of paper that I took home and hung in a window, on a wall and stuffed in a dark drawer. Not especially scientific, but it indicated "refill" can be as good as OEM ink. It's been a year now, and ten packs of A4 card stock. That's one thousand A5 prints. Plus fifty 8.5X14 prints. Along the way I used up a few packs of photo grade paper too and some 8.5X22 art paper. A5 ink cost was under 2 baht/print when I purchased first refill (yellow), and that includes rejects printed to adjust "system".
The cost is nice. But maybe even better is a dependable ink supply that is visible.
Not all printers will accept external ink supply. And some on display are marginal installations. My printer required modification after I purchased it. A frightening proposition when dealing with some shops. Not such a problem for me since I'm quite familiar with printer construction, but I was lucky too. The vendor is nearby and worked with me to get things right. He honored factory warrantee too, and done the same for a customer I sent him.
I noticed today he has stocked up on three brand name models that have proved trouble free. He's the only printer sales of many that hasn't changed personnel in the past year. Like cameras, it's good to have helpful printer folk nearby.
I know what I like, but don't tout any brand model or supplier of anything. I will provide information on request though.

[bjorn slis]

Some info on the stuff (printer/ink and paper) would be helpful to other people thinking about buying a printer, I am very interested in your experiences with differrent kinds/brands of ink.

[antonie]

Here is a link to an active UK based forum that spends a lot of time on photography issues other than the camera. You might find it usefull

http://www.photo-i.co.uk/

[fred]

bjorn slis and Antonie Roux,
 
My ink and paper expertise is limited to an expensive move from four years with an "acceptable" two cartridge printer, to current state of art designs that produce far better than I was accustomed to. I was elated with results until I discovered improvement came with a increased cartridge cost - in one instance six times. Cartridges are an expensive item, ink is not. A year ago I converted to an external ink supply and reduced cost per print to under two cartridge cost.
I correspond with a retired chemist that spent much of his ink career consulting magazines and newspapers. I met him during fifteen years I redesigned printer components to adapt them for plastic molding. What I've learned from him is most all ink is quality unless diluted by "re-fill" supplier, and factory ink is compounded according to OEM specs. That means pigment content varies between two, four and eight cartridge systems. Not much any of us can do about that except shop for re-fill that looks good on paper, or purchase OEM.
Some ink shops recognize this, and when you purchase "re-fill" they want to know brand and model of your printer. A responsible shop will sell you ink comparible, if not identical to OEM. I haven't experience a refill ink problem for a couple of years. But six and eight cartridge owners do find some re-fills unavailable.
As far as printer models and styles are concerned, until airport moved I had nine printers nearby and could talk to the owners and view their prints. Every one produced fine prints once the owners figured them out. Again, your printer is attached to a computer that may not handle OEM printer programming without adjustment.
 
Paper. I mostly use 180gm card stock (plain paper) and have discovered best quality prints on it translate to best quality on photo stock. Sometimes it requires tweaking, but hews color and contrast have been pretty well worked out on the less expensive paper. Photo glossy reflects great results, but it all degrades especially if it contains much red. Photo matte lasts longer and fades pretty even. This applies to extremely expensive photo stock too.
Plain card stock doesn't display the fine quality of photo paper initially, but framed under glass it displays well and in one instance has hung in an office for four years without noticeable change. Another hanging without glass, turned sour from humidity. Various ink brands don't appear to make much difference on card stock.
There are other papers too that print quite well for wall display. My local school supply store stocks all sorts for student projects. They look "arty" when fresh, and just as good when aged. Non reflect "perfect photo quality", but are attractive enough to please viewers. Some paper too, comes out of printer and goes direct to document chopper. Paper choice is an individual taste matter. I suggest giving it all a try.
This Forum is one of few sources for after-market information. Stay in touch and keep it alive.
 

[antonie]

Hi Fred, most interesting, in my previous life I used to install and maintain Crosfield Magnascan colour separation machines for a big newspaper, magazine and commercial printer, where our biggest challenge used to be setting these machines to not reflect what is in the negative but what will it end up being in magazine print.  To make matters more complex we needed to know on what type of paper the photo was going to be used (long before digital full page makeup) so I have some understanding of the challenging issues you address.  I must say that that was years ago so I cannot really speak with authority on these type of issues anymore.
Cheers

[PeterP]

I use an Epson R210. It did a pretty good job - but 6 ink cartridges work out pretty expensive! Eventually I had an ink reservoir system installed using High Jet Ink for Epson and High Jet Photo Fast papers. I immediatly noticed that I could no longer reproduce accurate colours and used loads of ink/paper trying to set-up the printer to the new inks. Trouble was that what worked on one style of scene wouldn't work on another. Eventually I forked out for icc profiles for the 2 types of paper (Gloss & Semi) from simplyicc. The 2 cost around 1000 baht (a friend took the sample prints back to the UK to post). The results are excellent - I now print ICM with no colour adjustment and get very good (to me) results when I want A4 or if I want to control the cropping (and stop the shop boosting gamma all the time).
Costs: the reservoirs and equivalent of 3-4 cartridges each colour: 4000 baht, full refill for all 6 colours :600 baht.

[fred]

PeterP. It wasn't my intent to study-up on printing, but six weeks of convalescence has taken me off the streets and sat me down in front of computer sorting and deleting an accumulation of photos. The project didn't last long because I uncovered a couple of dozen that might be worth framing. I have printed some quite acceptable photos in the past, and still do. But this all day every day exercise uncovered irresolvable printing glitches in abundance.

Your mention of simplyicc could well be a solution I'm looking for. Never heard of it - and what is ICM?

I come from the film era where the printed photo was the ultimate proof. I've not spent much time with digital processing and probably never will. And those I know who are "expert" with processing usually call on professional printing houses to print their best work.

Home printers are not discussed much, and available information is mostly from manufacturers promotion that often is almost, just about and not quite when put to use. Like a camera, they perform well when operated with understanding. But unlike digital camera, printers are expensive and wasteful to master. Perhaps more so than a darkroom.

I tout photography because it has served my interest for several years. Recently with cameras hung on a hook, printing, that is part and parcel of the whole scheme, keeps the interest alive. Problem is not many folk discuss printing that is a learn by doing item just like camera and processing program.

[mrClaude]

Hi Guys,

Is anyone of you printing on a Epson with K3 ink technology which at least can produce a 12 inch print?

I am looking for a Giclee print source.

Thanks...mrc

[PeterP]

Hi Fred - you sound like a far more experienced photographer than I - so your standards are probably much higher than mine.
I get most of my simple prints done at a standard street printers - they all tend to use Fuji printers (and sRGB colourspace) but (especially here in Thailand) I find that when they crop to 6*4 they tend to simply cut the top off the shot (if portrait) and if I've spent time on composition it can be pretty frustrating! Also they like to simply boost the gamma to increase brightness (Thais like white faces!) ...again very frustrating when you've worked hard on the colours and contrast. So although it's cheaper (I pay 5 baht/print) I often use my home printer. They become expensive when printing to A4.
When you print in Photoshop (colour managed) you can select a icc profile (basicly it tells the printer (or a monitor) what the exact colour conversion is from the file data. Then you tell the printer not to use it's own profile - but the one Photoshop sends it (ICM, not colour corrected ie don't use Epson's colour profile).
ICC profiles are used for both printers and monitors to create a managed colour system where the colours you see on your screen are the colours produced by the printer. To produce accurate icc profiles you need expensive kit ......around 70,000 baht and upwards. I tried to find someone in Thailand who could do this via the Thai Visa Forum Photosection but with no joy. So I used simplyicc. Look at their website: http://www.simplyicc.com/ .  Good luck. Playing with Managed Colour will use up many days and nights!

[fred]

PeterP
Lone Boat posted eleswhere was meant to be here. It's an idea about printing.