Satisfying

I have a love / hate relationship with printing - I love the finished print but it can be an expensive, frustrating experience. It might be down to my Epson R3000 being rather old now - I can’t fault the quality of the output but it’s unique ability to suddenly start dropping large ink droplets over the page, suddenly get blocked in the middle of a run, or leave roller marks randomly on a few prints in a batch drives me mad. Maybe a new printer would make life easier!!
 
My R3000 works fine, on the odd occasion that I use it; my bank balance doesn't like me changing cartridges though.
 
I gave up printing my own images years ago. I really can't abide having all that short-lived bulk of plastic and electronics on my desk. So I prepare them for print in-house, then send them off. I strongly suspect that in the long run it's economically & environmentally better ...
 
droj said:
I gave up printing my own images years ago. I really can't abide having all that short-lived bulk of plastic and electronics on my desk. So I prepare them for print in-house, then send them off. I strongly suspect that in the long run it's economically & environmentally better ...
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As I've said in another thread, once the cartridges run out this time I'll following the same route as I don't print many pictures.
 
droj said:
I gave up printing my own images years ago. I really can't abide having all that short-lived bulk of plastic and electronics on my desk. So I prepare them for print in-house, then send them off. I strongly suspect that in the long run it's economically & environmentally better ...
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You are definitely right - but it's process for me. I adore achieving the result myself, in the same way that soon AI and a phone camera will be able to generate beautiful results far more easily and quickly than we can with bigger sensors and manual processing, and that digital cameras far out resolve old film kit.

However...

I suspect that, should my Pro 10 kick the bucket, I'll not replace. It is expensive, difficult (well, ish - I'm quite good at printing and rarely encounter any issues tbh, so long as I'm working in an sRGB colour space) and the main advantage is picking paper. I suspect that in the last few years suppliers probably offer more options on papers than they used to, and there is no doubt they have higher end kit than I do!

If I have the space, though, I may have a small darkroom for printing from film instead.
 
droj said:
I gave up printing my own images years ago. I really can't abide having all that short-lived bulk of plastic and electronics on my desk. So I prepare them for print in-house, then send them off. I strongly suspect that in the long run it's economically & environmentally better ...
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I suspect you are right but not existing at all is better for the environment.

On the flip side now we are here life is for living and enjoying, I love seeing my images turn into photographs; at least digital does away with chemical waste to some extent.
 
I love printing. Have a whole wall in my office (6x8 box room) that I got the decorators to cover with cork last time they were in there. Every January I take the old prints down and spend a year trying to fill it with something decent. Rotating prints in and out gives me some time with them, and if, after a year, I still think they're decent, I consider that a win!

Prints (for me) are the final step in creating a photograph. Be it book, zine, or framed wall print.

And as for a darkroom... I tried darkroom printing. It was tedious, messy, expensive (although that was probably because I was bad at it!) and worst of all, frustrating. Inkjet printing might be a pain, but for me, once everything is set up for the papers I use, it's very easy to get good results.
 
Harlequin565 said:
I love printing. Have a whole wall in my office (6x8 box room) that I got the decorators to cover with cork last time they were in there. Every January I take the old prints down and spend a year trying to fill it with something decent. Rotating prints in and out gives me some time with them, and if, after a year, I still think they're decent, I consider that a win!

Prints (for me) are the final step in creating a photograph. Be it book, zine, or framed wall print.

And as for a darkroom... I tried darkroom printing. It was tedious, messy, expensive (although that was probably because I was bad at it!) and worst of all, frustrating. Inkjet printing might be a pain, but for me, once everything is set up for the papers I use, it's very easy to get good results.
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I would find it satisfying if I did it - to have that final control in-house. But as said it's the desk space needed along with some admittedly vague environmental concerns - along with the capital requirement. Lab printing on 'art' papers isn't cheap, but it's per print ... and I don't know that I could better the results at home. :)
 
I have a Canon Pro 9000 MK II and a Canon iP 100. Some time back I ran out of some ink for the 9000 and drove all the way to bend looking for ink. 70+ miles and couldn't find even one tank much less the color I wanted. Got home and took a chance on after market ink. Canon ink runs about $17 a tank for it from internet camera stores. Held my breath and bought after market ink even though I had a bad experience with some in my iP100. $5 a tank and $4.95 shipping. Just ordered three more tanks for my 9000 today. Black and 3hree plus shipping was $19.95, stuff has been working very well. I admit to being prejudiced for Canon printer, hate their customer service though! Have had HP, Epson and Canon and what occurred to me is they all wear out sooner of later and disappoint us., Have had my 9000 six or seven years now and keep expecting it to go ten toes up on me. Got a problem a couple weeks ago with it and found out all I had to do was clean the ink nozzles and not a clue how to do it. Looked it up on you tube and tried it. Figured the worst that could happen is I'd mess it up more and need a new printer. Well it worked! Thing is good to go again! Mine mess's up I'm getting a new one, can't drive as far as I have to to have a shop do them and I can fix the photo's well enough myself. My printer save's me quite a bit but then I do print a lot of large photo's, 8x15, 9.5x19, 12x24 and 13x19. Now that the price of my ink came down about $12 a tank it is really affordable. printer was pretty expensive for me at the time but was under $500 if I remember right; it has more than paid for itself. Looked it up on the internet what ink run's per sq inch and found about .04 cents! Thing to remember is I don't need to rent a building to print my picture's, I do it in the living room.
 
Don Fischer said:
I have a Canon Pro 9000 MK II and a Canon iP 100. Some time back I ran out of some ink for the 9000 and drove all the way to bend looking for ink. 70+ miles and couldn't find even one tank much less the color I wanted. Got home and took a chance on after market ink. Canon ink runs about $17 a tank for it from internet camera stores. Held my breath and bought after market ink even though I had a bad experience with some in my iP100. $5 a tank and $4.95 shipping. Just ordered three more tanks for my 9000 today. Black and 3hree plus shipping was $19.95, stuff has been working very well. I admit to being prejudiced for Canon printer, hate their customer service though! Have had HP, Epson and Canon and what occurred to me is they all wear out sooner of later and disappoint us., Have had my 9000 six or seven years now and keep expecting it to go ten toes up on me. Got a problem a couple weeks ago with it and found out all I had to do was clean the ink nozzles and not a clue how to do it. Looked it up on you tube and tried it. Figured the worst that could happen is I'd mess it up more and need a new printer. Well it worked! Thing is good to go again! Mine mess's up I'm getting a new one, can't drive as far as I have to to have a shop do them and I can fix the photo's well enough myself. My printer save's me quite a bit but then I do print a lot of large photo's, 8x15, 9.5x19, 12x24 and 13x19. Now that the price of my ink came down about $12 a tank it is really affordable. printer was pretty expensive for me at the time but was under $500 if I remember right; it has more than paid for itself. Looked it up on the internet what ink run's per sq inch and found about .04 cents! Thing to remember is I don't need to rent a building to print my picture's, I do it in the living room.
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Hi Don,

thanks for the info; I'm not certain if English is your first language and I hate being the 'English police' but could you break your posts down into paragraphs to make them easier to read?

I suffered a really bad stroke and its quite difficult to read a block of text - I've lost a huge amount of my cognitive function; sorry to be picky.
 
Jammy Dodger said:
Hi Don,

thanks for the info; I'm not certain if English is your first language and I hate being the 'English police' but could you break your posts down into paragraphs to make them easier to read?

I suffered a really bad stroke and its quite difficult to read a block of text - I've lost a huge amount of my cognitive function; sorry to be picky.
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Hum. English was one of my worst course's in school. I'll give it a shot but not sure how it will turn out. Now if I didn't have spell check I'd drive ya nut's! :)
 
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