Buying a photo printer
Friday, May 5th, 2006
Background
I’ve avoided buying a photo printer for years. I had various early color inkjet printers and they always seemed to have problems and the results in those very early days were not worth the problems. I ended up using online services like Printroom.com and Apple’s iPhoto direct printing (done by Kodak) and have continued to use them for years. I will still use them from time to time even though I can now print at home.
The online services gave me nice looking color photographs in a few days at reasonable expense without the overhead of having yet one more piece of expensive equipment in the house eating ink, clogging, and depreciating in value.
I was doing fine (or so I thought) until two things happened:
1. My friend and long-time photographer Gary Sharp bought an Epson R2400 printer and started sending me prints, not only of his photography but also of mine. The quality of the color, the variety of papers, and the fact that he could experiment with this at home all piqued my interest.
2. I met two professional photographers, Brad and Karin Smith, who live nearby and both of them were perplexed by the fact that I was so far into the photographic process yet hadn’t put much thought into printing. They consider themselves printmakers as much as photographers. To me, this was a new way to think about printing: not just as one of many end-forms of a photographic image (web, CD, print) but as a piece of “fine art.” In other words, the print would be the end product, not just one of many end products.
I knew I was going to have to dig into this and part of me was excited about the possibilities and part of me dreaded my typical, agonizing process for deciding which printer to buy.
As I started doing research on photo printing with inkjet printers I realized that most serious photographers use Epson printers and almost all of these same people have horror stories about clogged heads and expensive ink with their Epson printers. On the one hand, my process could be easy: just get an Epson printer. But, I do not like struggling with problems so it seemed like it was worth a bit of research first.
Then I talked with Ted Roth, another local photographer who recently retired from being the head of technology at a local high school. His perspective was influenced more by serviceability than what other photographers used. He had to maintain numerous printers in a school environment so clogged heads and expensive inks were unacceptable to him. But, he is also a serious photographer who shows and sells his work. Ted got me thinking more about balancing service issues with print quality issues.
As with almost everything I research and buy in the photography area, I decided to share my research task (and agony) with my friend and another long-time photographer Dale Allyn who was also interested in getting started with printing at home. He came up with lots of other ways to approach the issue and together we did much of the background research that I’m basing this article on.
What Dale and I soon realized was that times have changed, and with the popularity of digital photography the big color inkjet printer manufacturers: HP, Epson, and Canon have made printing photographs at home easy, relatively inexpensive and fun. One could easily rationalize buying almost any printer on the market today, most of them produce nice looking prints and work reliably.
One Printer or Many?
The last piece of prelude that I had to wrap my head around was the idea of owning more than one printer and of having printers that only printed one type of job: a laser printer for most documents, a thermal label printer for printing mailing labels, and a photo printer (or two) for printing photographs. One could buy a mid to high end inkjet printer and use it for everything but it would be expensive and slow on the documents and less convenient on the labels. Letting go of a one-printer-does-it-all solution allowed me to just focus (so to speak) on printing photographic images with this new printer.
Photo Printing Technologies
The two printing technologies prevalent in the home photo printing world are dye sublimation and inkjet.
Dye sub printers are, to be frank, aimed at people who want a quick and easy way to make a small (4″x6″) print at home. The quality of the prints is excellent but there is little control of the process and one generally has to print on special papers that one buys for the printer.
I considered buying one of these just to make quick prints and stickers in the field (they can be battery operated) for my granddaughter and still might some day. One can connect a digital camera directly to the printer and leave the computer out of the equation all together.
A few things have made me steer away from dye sub:
1. The ink is expensive
2. The paper is expensive and comes in limited sizes
3. One can only make glossy prints.
If you want to make an 8×10 inch print on matte or some other fine art paper, dye sub printing is not for you.
Inkjet printing technology is the clear winner for photo printing at almost every level. It has the resolution, color rendition and depth, and the inks are more stable and even archival than dye sub inks. One can buy an inkjet printer for under $100 that will make excellent prints and one can spend $10,000 on a printer that will make huge prints that will last 200 years.
Print Head Technologies
HP has continued to use print heads that combine all colors in one cartridge on their lower and mid-range printers and when a single color runs out, one replaces the entire part, ink tanks and head. The upside of this is one has a new head each time a color runs out, the downside is one buys an entire head and inks each time a single color runs out (the dye sub printers above all work like this too).
Epson and Canon have gone with individual color ink tanks which are replaceable on their own leaving the head in place on most of their printers. On many Epson printers when the head has problems the entire printer must be sent in for service, on the mid to high end Canons the head is removable and replaceable without sending the entire printer in. This last fact came to me by way of Ted Roth (above) and was meaningful to him as a high school computer lab teacher.
Given the fact that Epsons have a reputation for clogging, the fact that the print head (which is what clogs) can’t be replaced by the user is meaningful.
Inkjet Ink
As Dale and I did our research we found that there are two different ink systems in the inkjet world:
1. dye based
2. pigment based
Inkjet “dye based” ink is not to be confused with dye sublimation which is a totally different technology.
Most low to mid range printers from HP, Canon, and Epson use dye based inks. Dye inks are cheaper and when combined with decent paper can produce a high quality print that will last for decades. The liabilities of dye based inks are lack of built-in protection against UV degradation (fading in direct sunlight) and a bit less color depth.
Pigment based inks, used only by Epson in their mid to high end printers (Canon is about to come out with their own printers in this category) are more expensive, have built-in protection against UV degradation, and produce richer, more saturated colors. When combined with high quality paper, prints made with these printers can last up to 100 years.
One can’t mix and match printers with inks: each printer model is built around a head and ink technology and soon, both Canon and Epson will have various models that use dye based inks and various models that use pigment based inks.
What is Archival?
I have a box of black and white photographs taken by my grandparents 100 years ago. Some of them were exposed to direct sunlight hanging on walls and some were in albums but they all look about the same, not much fading and decent contrast.
Color photography changed the chemistry of printing enough so that the color photographs (snapshots) my parents took of me growing up haven’t done as well, some look okay and most are fading. I’m 54 so those photographs have not lasted my lifetime.
Current photographic printing processes aren’t much better although I can say for sure that all of the images that I’ve had Apple/Kodak print for me including some 16×24 inch prints that are framed and on walls with exposure to sunlight have not faded noticeably. However, we’re now talking two years so I should hope not.
One of the reasons I avoided getting a photo printer for so long is that my early Epson printers (all returned or sold) produced prints that faded quickly (weeks) when put on the refrigerator. I knew that the technology wasn’t ready when that happened to me. Things have changed now but it’s important to understand that inkjet inks are not all created equal.
Pigment based inks are more expensive, take longer to dry and are more stable than dye based inks. I can’t say with certainty how soon a print made with dye based inks will fade but most research shows that it will happen sooner than a print made with pigment based inks.
The other variable is the acidity of the paper printed on, assuming its decent paper with a surface suitable for photo printing. Good paper is acid free so that it plays well with everything that comes into contact with it including the air. Newsprint is not acid free and I’m sure anyone reading this has kept newspaper clippings long enough for them to yellow and stiffen.
My friend Brad Smith who has years of experience as both a painter and printmaker prints large photographic landscapes with dye based inks and he knows that the print surface needs protection from UV light so he sprays the surface of the print with a clear polyurethane coating which does two things: filters UV light and makes the surface of the print easier to wipe off because its sealed.
If one is matting and framing prints, one can use glass with a UV protective coating on it to filter out UV light but be warned, this glass is expensive and whenever you filter light, you change the color intensity for people viewing the artwork through it.
The bottom line on this is that the word “archival” is not a single point in time, x years, it really describes a set of variables that you can try to understand and control the best you can. If you sell your work and state that it will last 100 years (many photographers who print on Epson printers state this because Epson states this) you may receive a visit from the offspring of one of your buyers when you’re in the nursing home requesting another print because the original has faded. Best to not make too many claims about longevity and just do the best you can lest your checker game is interrupted by a lawsuit.
If you want to dig into some deeper research on papers, inks, chemistry and longevity Wilhelm Imaging Research is the place to read. Warning, extremely nerdy.
Multiple Photo Printers?
I can easily imagine having two inkjet photo printers: a dye based ink model for notecards and lower end printing, and a pigment based ink model for higher end printing of prints that will be shown and sold for more money with the expectation that they will last longer. I can also see the continued use of online printing services even after one has home printing capabilities.
Why not just get a pigment based ink printer as a sole printer? The inks on these printers costs at least twice as much as dye based inks and in some cases, even more.
Print Size
All low and mid range inkjet printers will make 4×6 inch prints. Some of the portable printers will only do 4×6 inch prints but the majority of them will do all sizes up to 8×10 inches. Mid-range printers will do 4×6, 5×7, 8×10, 11×17 and up to 13×19 inch prints.
The next size jump, 16×24 and even bigger generally comes with the ability to use roll stock rather than just sheet stock. Buying thinner photo paper in rolls saves money and allows for bigger panorama shots to be printed. Some of these bigger printers may not be able to handle small paper stock like 4×6 inch.
As one gets into the larger, more expensive wider printers one has to ask the logical question: who has enough wall space to show prints at these large scales? How easy will it be to frame the print and is the print worth the expense?
It seems to me that most people will print a lot of 5×7, 8×10, 11×14 or 11×17 with an occasional 13×19 inch print. These sizes are possible on both Canon and Epson printers in the middle price range, with both dye and pigment based ink technologies.
Narrowing Things Down
After reading, talking, and taking notes for a few weeks, Dale and I came down to three printers:
Epson Stylus Photo R1800
13×19 inch prints
Borderless prints
Individual ink tanks, user replaceable
Pigment based ink
$537 at amazon
Epson Stylus Photo R2400
13×19 inch prints
Borderless prints
Individual ink tanks, user replaceable
Pigment based ink (the same high end K3 inks used in their higher end printers)
$799 at amazon
Canon i9900
13×19 inch prints
Borderless prints
Individual ink tanks, user replaceable
Head user replaceable
Dye based ink
$407 at amazon
Canon i9900
Gary already had an Epson R2400 but he had little experience with anything else. Ted, the high school computer teacher liked the Canon i9900 because it was relatively inexpensive to maintain and he had had no problems with his after a year of heavy use. Dale and I agonized for about a week and then I bit the bullet and ordered a Canon i9900 for the following reasons:
1. It would get me printing with the least hassle and expense
2. I could print notecards to sell on it (I am) without worrying about archival, pigment based ink issues
3. I could always buy another, higher end printer later if I wanted to sell prints that would last longer but if I stuck with notecards or smaller prints that would be less expensive to buy the dye based ink printer would be fine.
My printer came, I put in the ink, installed the driver (although not the other printing software) and then Dale showed me that there was a later version of the driver for OS X on Canon’s support site so I updated it before I’d printed much and started printing very quickly. The printer has to calibrate and adjust itself the first time you use it but once that’s done you’re ready to print.
Within an hour of taking it out of the box I had all sorts of prints to look at including a 13×19 inch version of a shot I’d taken of The Chrysler Building in New York. I was totally hooked on printing at home immediately. The prints looked better than anything I’ve gotten online through Printroom or Kodak.
Dale ordered his soon after and now other friends of mine are ordering this printer. Thanks Ted.
Papers
I have run a variety of papers through the printer to see which ones looked nicest with my photographs and like many of my photographer friends who make fine art prints, I liked the depth of color on matte and satin (low gloss) papers better than glossy papers for most of my work. The above mentioned Wilhelm Imaging tests not only inks but papers in combination with inks and it’s useful to do a bit of reading there to determine which papers work best with which inks. The simplest solution is to buy the paper from the manufacturer of the printer: Epson papers for Epson printers, Canon papers for Canon printers. Wilhelm has research to back up the printer companies own research that suggests that the best chemical fit can be had this way. However, this is really a razor and blade issue: the real money Canon makes is not in the printer, it’s by selling me ink and paper so of course they want me to buy their brand.
Any paper that you buy to print a photograph on should be made for photo printing. Printing a photograph on plain copy paper or card stock not made for photographs will work, but the results won’t be stunning and you’ll be wondering what I’m getting all worked up about. With the right paper, the results should blow your mind (providing you have a decent image to work with of course).
Any paper you buy should be at least acid free. This will eliminate the possibility of chemicals in the paper interacting with the ink or matting material in a bad way and hopefully eliminate yellowing in the long run. I like white, fine grain matte paper stock although I’ve gotten some nice results on more textured watercolor papers and even cream-colored watercolor papers (nice for sepia images).
Replacing Ink Cartridges
When I got started I wasn’t sure how the printer would communicate to the computer and the computer to me when an ink cartridge ran out but have since gone through plenty of cartridges and the process (OS X.4) is painless.
The printer will not stop in the middle of a print, it finishes the current print job, then a dialog pops up telling you that a particular color (or more than one color) has run dry and will need replacing. I pull out the spent cartridge, put in the new cartridge, close the lid, click OK on the dialog and I’m back in business in one minute. Simple.
For what its worth (a lot I’d say) I’ve found amazon to be the best place to buy ink cartridges for this printer. There is no need to buy a complete replacement set or, just buy a single complete replacement set and then, depending on the nature of your photography, buy a few more Photo Magentas, Photo Cyans, or whatever colors you’re using the most of.
Are off brand cartridges worth it? I have no idea, I don’t plan to try them. What about refilling cartridges? Again, I have no experience there nor do I plan to get any. I’m happy enough with the process as it is so that I don’t want to tinker with it, even to shave a bit of money off of the ink cost which in the long run will be the highest cost of printing at home. I’ve adjusted all of my photographs and narrowed to a particular paper I like and I’m getting consistent color and quality. Why mess with a good thing?
Higher End Printers
If I actually get good at photography and people start to want to buy my work in a serious way, or, I have a show, I’m going to have to buy a higher end, pigment ink based printer. Here are some preliminary notes on the ones I’d consider if I had to buy one now.
Canon will eventually replace my i9900 with a printer called the PIXMA Pro9000 although it is not shipping as I write this and may not until the fall. This will be a similar dye based printer that will print up to 13×19 inch prints. I would not buy this printer as a “sister” to my current i9900 as it’s got the same dye based printing technology.
Canon is also about to release a competitor to the Epson R2400 called the PIXMA Pro9500 which has a pigment based ink system and will print up to 13×19 inch prints.
Canon is also about to release an even bigger, faster, more capable pigment based printer called the imagePROGRAF iPF5000. This printer will compete directly with the Epson Stylus Pro 4800, Epson’s higher end pigment based ink model.
This last batch of pigment ink based printers are the ones I’ll be looking at and agonizing over. For what it’s worth, one of the “fathers” of the original Macintosh computer, Bill Atkinson is a serious nature photographer who has done considerable research on ink longevity and stability. He uses an Epson Sylus Pro 9800 which has the same K3 pigment ink system as Gary’s R2400 and the above-mentioned R4800.
Addendum
Since starting to write this post I’ve received a class action suit letter about the current class action suit against Epson for the fact that their printers seem to be notifying users that they are out of ink before they are actually out of ink. I did not join the class but this led me to look carefully at the spent ink cartridges my Canon i9900 is now spitting out regularly. I can report that my cartridges seem to be completely empty.
My friend Gary, the Epson R2400 owner has had some problems with his printer. It seems if the R2400 head sits for a week or more the ink in the head solidifies and has to be flushed out (with more ink). This isn’t such a bad thing except that the K3 pigment ink for the R2400 is expensive. Gary got frustrated and has since bought a Canon i9900 which he’s happy with. He says that on certain images the colors are more saturated on the Epson printer (to be expected) but the Canon is making him plenty happy. He’ll be selling his Epson at some point.
This is not to say that all of us would not consider an Epson R4800 as a high end printer, we are and we will.
Dale has had some problems with his Canon i9900 and he’s not sure if he got a lemon (he can return it) or it’s the way he’s sending images to it. Stay tuned on that one.
Excellent article. As always lots of useful information. Thanks for sharing it with us!
Mamen, glad you found it useful. I’ve had these notes for a while now and figured I’d try to whip them into some kind of shape. Let us know your experiences with the printer here as well, both good and bad.
Very good piece of writing and research, very helpful non-geek intro to the issues at hand in picking a printer.
There is one topic you only touch upon but would seem worth some expansion: actual costs per print for different papers/sizes. Sounds like you already went through quite a number of cartridges so maybe you could do some calculations. My experience in the past was that home printing costs quite a bit more than services because of expensive ink and expensive paper. What is your take on this?
There is another topic you do not even mention and that is how well these printers handle heavy paper. You mention printing note cards, these are typically heavier than plain paper. I think they also exist in heavy and heavier paper types and I am sure some printers can handle that better than others. To me this seems like an important factor in picking a printer. Did you look into this? Any thoughts to share on this?
David: good questions although I have to say that cost per print did not factor into my buying decision. The online printers will win almost every time in this department: .19 cents for a 4×6″ print is cheaper than I can do here. But, can you get an online printer to print that same 4×6″ print on matte paper? How easy is it to adjust margins if you don’t want a borderless print, etc. And, does the print look as good and last as long?
What you give up in a little money you gain back in control and looks. However, as I mention, for some print jobs I’ll continue to use Apple/Kodak because I don’t need fine art paper or all that much control.
I don’t think I’ve used any more ink than I expected: I’ve printed close to 1000 notecards (many tests and drafts as I learned about the printer and my templates) and many larger prints and have gone through 4 photo magenta, 4 photo cyan, 2 yellow, 1 black, 1 magenta, 1 cyan, and 1 red cartridge. I will be going through a lot more ink this weekend as I just sold 16 8×10 prints and I plan to print them today and tomorrow. Those 16 prints will pay for a lot of ink, the printer, all the paper I’ve bought and more.
My current main paper supplier has some calculations for their papers and typical inks you might find useful.
As far as heavier paper stocks, a general rule is, the higher end the printer, the more likely it will be designed to handle a variety of paper stocks including card stock. The above mentioned Red River Paper has some recommendations for printers for printing notecards and I trust them. Some of the printers they recommend are much lower end than what I bought. Dale and I both tend to buy a bit more than we need, preferring to err on the heavy duty side than trying to make a lower end tool do too much. And, the i9900 at $400 isn’t a huge investment for the service it gives.
Well done! I have a few points to add:
1. Although the first two set of cartridges for my Canon i9900 were official Canon cartridges, I have been using compatible cartridges from 4inkjets ever since. Purchased in groups of 5 cartridges or more, these cost just $3 per cartridge vs. more than $9 per for Canon cartridges at Amazon. Upon replacing my first two Canon cartridges (photo inks) with compatible cartridges I reprinted several of my photos. I observed absolutely no color change with the new cartridges. I have been using compatible cartridges since. I do get a bit of head clogging if I let the printer sit for a few days without use, but, even after longer idle periods, this clogging is easily taken care of without a full head cleaning, but merely by running the print test pattern which uses very little ink. I can’t say if Canon cartridges would be any better in this regard. The cost difference is so significant that I can’t ignore it. As for the fade-resistant quality of this ink, I have had several prints hanging in a sunny area of my house since September with no apparent fading. Obviously, this is too short a time for any major conclusion, but so far, so good.
2. I think it’s worth mentioning that one of my biggest surprises when I bought the Canon i9900 was discovering that the cartridges are all made of clear plastic so one can see the ink inside of them. This is also true of the compatible replacements I have been using. On my various hp and Epson printers the cartridges have all been opaque, and, as your comments suggest, after the printer software has registered cartridges as “empty,” I have restarted both hp and Epson cartridges to discover weeks more ink left in them. Having clear cartridges provides (pun fully intended) product transparency.
3. My experience with printers whose heads have clogged to the point of needing manufacturer repair is that out of warranty products are not worth repairing. I have tossed more than one Epson printer that functioned well in all ways except that most of the ink would not flow through them (i.e. no print). Epson’s charge for repairing these was more than the printers were worth.
4. Is it worth pointing out that photo paper made for inkjet printing is a very high-tech product. It is not merely a slab of paper, but an assembly of many layers of material designed to take in, hold without spreading, and seal the tiny droplets of ink produced by the printer. Each layer of the paper accomplishes a different task. The paper may have almost as much to do with color stability as which inks are used. The paper, much more than the ink, provides the sharpness and rich color of the image. For several years I had photos of students hanging in the school computer lab I ran. Most were printed on ordinary copy paper and began fading very quickly. Those printed on photo paper invariably faded far less or not at all. The lab was windowless and lit by fluorescent tubes.
5. Furthermore, each brand of hi-tech photo paper is significantly different. I don’t know enough about the technology to explain the differences. However, when I first bought my i9900 printer, I experimented by buying an assortment of different, high quality, glossy, photo papers (Canon, Kodak, Ilford (two kinds), JetPrint, InkPress, and Staples). All were very white and had a similarly smooth, glossy surface, yet each behaved differently in significant ways. Some needed significantly longer drying time. One even showed contour lines between different colors which gradually smoothed over the course of an hour or more of drying. All had somewhat different color characteristics (i.e. prints might be warmer in tone on one than another or even emphasize/de-emphasize a narrow color range more). All quality photo papers suggest installing their downloadable profiles to get accurate color reproduction. I have not yet done this, but I know it will be necessary as I try for more consistent results. I should add that in using my i9900, I have often found I have to make multiple prints to get the color to look as I want it. In some cases this leads to screen images that look very different from the printed images. Furthermore, each print seems to require different degrees of color tweaking, and some need none at all.
6. The mention of paper profiles leads to the issue of color calibration. This is an area I need to learn much more about. However, it should be patently obvious that the way one monitor may represent the color of an image may be very different from another, and as any monitor ages, its colors will change. In order to make use of the profiles that permit prints to accurately reflect what one sees on the monitor, the monitor must be an accurate presentation of the colors recorded in the photo file. To obtain consistent color and to avoid having two sets of finished photo files, one for on-screen viewing and one for printing, all the literature suggests that monitor calibration, printer calibration, and use of printer profiles is necessary. Calibration devices (hardware & software) range in cost from around $100 to over $500. I’m just beginning to investigate.
7. WARNING: Allow at least 24 hours of drying time before sealing prints behind glass or in plastic sleeves.
Thanks Ted, this is all great information to add to the pot.
My question for you or anyone else reading this is this: has anyone had a head clog using Canon inks? I think Dale might have but I’m not sure. I’ve had no clogs or anything else. Admittedly, I’ve been printing a lot (almost every day) which may account for the lack of ink drying in the head.
I second the drying time comment, even on matte paper which dries faster than glossy it’s useful to let things dry, flatten, and otherwise lay out overnight.
Like you, Richard, when I was using Canon inks I was using the printer every day and had no head clogs. It may be worth repeating that the stuffiness (clog is too strong a word) I’ve experienced after the printer has been idle has been easily corrected by printing the test pattern a few times.
It’s also worth noting that when you run the head cleaning operation on the i9900 it offers you the option of only cleaning some of the heads. It groups them in two banks and one only cleans (and wastes ink from) the bank of colors that include the one that is clogged.
Red River has posted some tests including one on the BCI-6 inks that the Canon i9900 uses: New Inkjet Fade Tests Posted
The results don’t look very good for this printer… sigh…
I have now had uninterrupted time to read your post. You ought to think about publishing it — extremely well written, easy to understand and a great education and timesaver for a serious photographer looking to purchase a printer. (Reminded me of how Cooks Illustrated writes their articles on how the “best” recipe is developed.) Appreciate you doing all the research and saving me time!! (as usual)
Got home Tuesday afternoon and am in NYC now. Will be home late in the afternoon. Let’s get together — I’ve got a lot to show you and I want to WALK!!
Best,
W.
Thanks Wendy, glad you found it useful and of course, I’m glad you’re home safe from Afganistan. I’m off to NJ today to get my camera cleaned, home later today (hopefully).
Richard,
Was doing a search on cleaning of Canon i9900 and somehow wandered into your site. I almost wish I hadn’t because I’ve spent too much time browsing and I’m already behind on several projects that need turning around! You’re site offers much helpful information tho and I will definitely be returning.
Right now my concerns with the canon i9900 stem from an odd noise I’m starting to hear during printing. Before I get to that, I will say that I’ve used this printer heavily for about two years now and am absolutely in love with it. I have never had an issue with clogging or maintenance, although I do on rare occasions get stray color “spots” — pure color droplets pin-head size or so either on the print itself or on the white border. As I said, this happens rarely — when it does I usually do a print-head alignment and nozzle check, but I can’t say I’ve ever pinned down a cause nor do I think that re-aligning the head or checking the nozzles do anything but make me feel like I’m doing something when I’m actually not. It occurs so infrequently that I’ve never considered addressing it in any way, figuring it could be some minor issue with an individual ink cartridge.
The second — and only other — problem I’ve had with this printer, while again not consistent or “chronic”, is more of an issue than the infrequent ink spots. I haven’t had time to stop and do any kind of analysis on exactly which sizes, when, how often etc. but for some reason some prints print with the final inch or so showing faint fine horizontal noise lines (what to call those?). Again, it’s not a consistent problem, but to me, given the exceptional quality of the prints this printer turns out, any kind of indication on the face of the print of excessive pixelation or “noise” is unacceptable. It may be that it’s happening more often than I realize, just not noticable on certain images because the image composition itself camouflages it. But I’m fairly certain it is not happening on every print. When it does occur, it’s odd that the entire print looks fantastic till it gets to the last inch or so of paper to pass under the heads. Currently (tonite) I’m printing multiple 4×6 shots and it’s happening. These are not critical prints and the average customer will not likely mind or even notice these faint lines…but I do. When it is occuring, I can rotate the image to make the lines appear on less noticeable part of the image, but no alignment or cleaning etc. has eliminated the problem completely.
For anyone having this problem, Canon did advise me to set the print quality to finest (”fine”, where I always have it set) and turn off “prevent paper abrasion” (which I’ve kept on since an early experience with some paper edge streaking). That did seem to diminish the lines dramatically, though suddenly it’s happening again. If anyone can advise I’d appreciate the input. I still use “prevent paper abrasion”, btw, when I’m using an paper at all that’s thicker than CanonPP Pro.
Back to the current concern….these last few days when printing I’m hearing a strange, thick, “sticking” kind of noise instead of the smooth hum from this printer that I’m accustomed to. I’m not seeing any problem yet with the prints. It just doesn’t sound right. Best I can describe it is, as the paper feeds thru and it’s printing, it sounds like something somewhere is gunked up and sticking and needs to be cleaned. I tried holding the paper feed button down (the tip that brought me into your site to begin with!) and letting it do its thing there, and I’ve run thick fiber paper thru the printer to see if the rollers seemed dirty at all but they came out clean too. Nozzle check came out fine. Noise is still there. I’m not sure exactly what I’m hearing or if I should just ignore it but I’m having a pressing gut feeling that something somewhere needs to be cleaned. Can anyone shed any light here?
One last comment. My concern with this printer has never been with performance or quality. I give it the highest marks there and with ease of use. My only concern is with print longevity. Best estimates early on had print life, using canon inks and photo paper pro, at 40 yrs or so when protected from direct sunlight and air exposure. This easily matches the life of some of my commercial prints of 15 yrs or less which are not holding up well at all. But print life is a major concern when selling prints professionally. A lot of what I do is quick turn-around, event-type photography that is not critical and priced economically — in other words, things that are, I believe, suited to a projected life-span of 30 to 40 years or so. That said, I want to be sure that I’m not selling people images that will degrade dramatically in just a few years. I’m also beginning to move into higher end imagery and portraiture and am reluctant to relinquish control of my prints to a lab again. I’ve been struggling with this issue since I started my business one year ago, but have been uninspired to switch to the epson pigment based inks/printers because I have been so completely wowed by this i9900. I’m hoping beyond hope that the new Pro9500 and imagePROGRAF maintain the current i9900 print quality and ease of use and put this issue to rest, for me anyway, once and for all. Then my only issues should be deciding which jobs to use the i9900 for and which to use the pigment printer for. Again, any thoughts/feedback on the above would be appreciated.
Having used the i9900 for, as I’ve mentioned, over two years now, I have lots more I could say about it but will shut up now unless anyone asks. Well, almost…will mention that I bought my i9900 at CompUSA with whatever warranty that is that let’s you walk in and grab a new printer if your old one is malfunctioning in any way. About one year ago, I came home and found my i9900 dead. Just plain dead…wouldn’t power on after a storm and electrical outage though my pc was fine. Walked in and out of CompUsa with a new i9900 in less than 15 minutes. Can’t beat that, can you? Does anyone know if Canon plans to keep producing the i9900 or are they fazing it out with the pixmas?
Thanks, Richard, for sharing your vast and diverse knowledge and your beautiful photography on your website. And I haven’t even gotten to the most of it yet! How you have the time to do all of this boggles me. And you do it ALL so well! Multi-Man! I’m impressed.
Darlene
Baton Rouge, LA
Darlene, Wow, I should turn your comment into a post. Actually, it’s a self-contained blog!
Thank you for the kind words about this site, glad you found it fun to browse.
Two things about the i9900 that I know: my friend Dale, who prints almost exclusively from photoshop had similar problems until he changed the dpi settings on the images he was printing. Essentially, too much ink was getting laid down and it was causing problems. You might consider some changes in image resolution on a few of your images as an experiment.
I print from iPhoto with no problems and from Pages (a Mac dtp application) with no problem (so far).
I have noticed, of late, that the rollers on my printer are collecting “gunk” and sometimes I’m seeing some gunk streaks on prints or on white edges of paper. The solution, as it says in the manual, is to take the paper out of the printer, turn the printer on, then hold down the other button (the form feed button) until the light blinks three times, then let go. The printer will go through some convulsions as it tries to feed paper and does something to the rollers. I’d do this 2-3 times. On the last time, put a small stack of 8×11 inch photocopy (cheap) paper in and it will feed a single sheet through when it’s done.
I did this above cleaning and it really worked. I’m now going to do it “preemptively” before problems arise, maybe after 20 or so prints.
As far as I know this printer will be replaced by the dye-based lower end model of the two new Pixmas that are coming out “any day now.” I’m very much interested in the pigment based version of this duo: the 9500 I think.
As far as print longevity, I bought the i9900 primarily to do notecards. Yes, it’s overkill for notecards but it sure does a fine job and I’m less concerned about longevity with these items. I was planning on buying a pigment based printer either Epson or Canon later as I learned more about color management and printing with the cheaper, more forgiving dye-based printer. The i9900 is perfect for that and I might even consider buying another one just in case this one needs a rest every now and then. However, if the pixma model replacing it is about $500 then maybe that’s the way to go.
I’m just finishing up work on another photo web site you might find interesting: http://www.rwanderman.com although I’m still working out kinks in how it displays in IE (ugh). The images are a bit bigger and easier to browser through up there and it has a nicer gallery/index than flickr or this site. No comments there so if you like it, drop me an email or come back here and let me know.
Again Darlene, thanks for the great comment (sorry I took so long to find and approve it, I’ve been swamped all day) and I hope you’re keeping dry and doing well down there in hurricane land.
Your rwanderman site is beautiful. No problems with IE display here. Again, I’m sitting here wandering off-track with your links instead of working….gotta stop that!
After looking at the specs on the PIXMA Pro9500 I’m so glad I’ve procrastinated just long enuf on buying an epson. I just never wanted one (epson) but knew I needed to jump into pigmented inks. The 9500 looks absolutely awesome and apparently they were smart enuf not to abandon everything that’s good about the i9900. The PROGRAF has me dangerously close to considering selling off one or more of my three beautiful children to acquire so I pledge now never to revisit that spec site again.
We here in hurricane land are taking no chances and reaching far back into our ancestral heritage looking for whatever means we can to stave off another disaster like last year’s. Prayers, offerings, black magic, voodoo….you can bet it’s all being considered.
Darlene: Thanks for the kind words about my other site, I’m delighted you like it. I’m continuing to help it along daily and I’m delighted it’s okay in IE.
Seems we’re in exactly the same place. If I had bucks and a big studio the prograf would be a consideration, but, I think the Pro9500 is a nice compromise. Same ink system and not quite as big on image size but big enough for most jobs and within our range (I hope) at about $1000 or less.
Let’s stay in close touch on this stuff so we can compare notes as it gets closer to release. I’m sure dpreview.com will have a review of it before it goes retail and that will be meaningful to read as will the other scuttlebutt on the web. I agree on Epson, I’m trying to stay away even though I know its the standard. I want a tool that just works. It doesn’t have to be the top of the heap in terms of print quality but it has to be able to make prints day in and day out, not clog, not break, not jam, etc. The i9900 has been very close to that so far and I’m really doing a lot of printing on it.
I notice you’re doing restoration on Katrina ruined photos. Are you scanning and retouching things for people? Great service if you are. Good luck with your site and when the construction signs come down, let us know, we’ll make a link from Warren to Baton Rouge!
Some really good information here. I have a couple of problems that seem related to the roller “gunk” issue you covered. I can’t wait to try your solution out (I must have missed it in the manual). I see roller marks on the backs of my prints - especially 4X6’s.
Also I have had an issue similar to Darlene’s where I see small dark smears or smudges on some 8X10’s and 13X19’s. They can be found toward the end of the print. They may be on all the prints, but are only visable if there is a clear section (such as sky).
I hope that the roller cleaning helps to fix that. If not I will try changing the print quality and DPI settings of the individual prints as you suggested.
Thanks again for the great info. I’ve done a lot of searching to solve this, and this was the first place that seemed to directly relate to the issues I was having.
Eric, another piece of learning that’s come my way since posting the original article is that humidity can make paper curl just enough so that the trailing edge pulls across the head in a way that can leave smudges on corners. When I break the seal on my paper boxes I keep them in air-tight plastic boxes to keep them drier. I even bought some dessicant in pouches I put in the plastic boxes to hopefully soak up some of the humidity. So far, so good. I’d say humidity is a large problem with certain kinds of papers like mid-range thickness card stocks.
I love the i9900 printer and the prints I’m getting out of it are spectacular. Almost every problem I’ve run into I’ve solved eventually and none of them has to do with the printer itself, they generally have to do with paper or humidity.
I’ll be interested to hear how you solve your problem. Thanks for your comment and good luck with a solution.
I’ve actually gone through a few more extreme techniques. Red River paper actually sells a alchohol soaked paper that they say will help with the blac streaks from the rollers. However, I believe that the pad under my print head was oversaturated, and the plastic piece that holds the paper away from the pad was where the streaking originated.
Tonight I just removed the print head and sprayed the nozzles with a can of air (after making sure to cover the copper side so i wouldn’t spray ink all over the room).
I also have been spending a lot of time blotting the ink pad with q-tips and paper towels. I don’t know an easy way to remove this pad, so it has beem an long process. I also removed the 2 pads from where the print head sits, and rinsed them under warm water.
There is now way to get all of this excess ink, so I hope this works for awhile. I love this printer, too. I’ve had it just over a year, so I’d prefer to keep it working until the i9500 comes out.
Eric: this is wonderful information, thanks for sharing it. I’ve done some of what you’re talking about but not all of it and will give it a go today. I’ve cured the ink blotches on the backs of my notecards by just keeping the paper dry; that works 100% of the time for me. However, the ink is there, and building up, I know it because I’ve tried printing envelopes and they smear (the printer isn’t built for envelopes but I wanted to try anyway).
I bought the Red River alcohol soaked paper and a refill alcohol bottle for it (guess I could use regular drug store stuff, ‘eh?) but have not used it yet.
Like you, I’m happy with the printer and I’ve printed a lot on it with little problem. And, like you I’m waiting for both the i9500 pigment printer but also the i9000 dye based replacement for this printer. Pigment inks, while more long lasting will clog. At least they do in Epson’s models and I have nothing against dye based inks if they get the chemistry right for longevity. Supposedly in Canon’s Chromalife 100 chemistry things are much more archival than our inks. Time will tell with all of this I guess.
Thanks for your report Eric and let us know what else you find out.
[...] Richard’s Notes » Blog Archive » Buying a photo printer (tags: printer photo) [...]
Richard
great post, and i have been reading you other post “Pigment vs. dye inks - Which is best?” and i am still not sure which printer you would recommend should one get the PIXMA Pro9000 or the pigment printer PIXMA Pro9500 does the pigment printer make a big difference or is it only the archival properties that is the difference?
Edward, if you decide to go pigment, avoid the 9500 as it’s been a problem for Canon. I’d stick with dye if I were you, it’s more versatile for what you might be doing. The 9000 is a great printer, inks are relatively cheap and readily available, and it works fine with Aperture, Lightroom, iPhoto, pages, whatever.
great thanks for the advice it seems like the 9000 is the way to go.
Richard–This should say “Pigment-based ink”:
Narrowing Things Down
After reading, talking, and taking notes for a few weeks, Dale and I came down to three printers:
Epson Stylus Photo R1800
13×19 inch prints
Borderless prints
Individual ink tanks, user replaceable
Dye based ink
$537 at amazon
John, right you are: Epson Stylus Photo R1800.
Just not their newer K3 inks.
Thanks, I’ll update the post.
Richard,
thank you very much for this well-researched and balanced article on the decision process that precedes the purchase of a new inkjet printer.
You are only touching on the issue of colour management by mentioning the profiles that are either supplied by printer manufacturers or that are provided by paper manufactures for certain popular printers. Since reading your article a few question regarding the colour management on a Windows PC arose.
I became aware of colour management when I acquired a Gretag Macbeth i1 Display to calibrate the screen of my notebook. This made me more confident with tweaking colours in Lightroom or Photoshop, especially when seeing that the results on screen matched the prints, produced in a professional lab or on my Canon printers (Pixma iP8500 and an old S9000) with Canon papers (Photo Paper Pro, Photo Paper Plus Semi-gloss and Matte Photo Paper).
At the beginning I had a problem with images that I converted from my Canon 20D’s RAW files into the Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB colour spaces. When I sent photos from one of these colour spaces to my Canon printers (Photoshop print settings: “printer manages color” and either “relative colorimetric” or “perceptual” as rendering intent), the colours of the prints looked extremely desaturated. I never bother unearthing the profiles, supplied by Canon, as I quickly developed a work around and was told by a friend that the Canon profiles aren’t perfect.
In order to get a print, which matches the colours on screen with my Photoshop print settings, I need to convert my photos from Adobe RGB/ProPhoto RGB to sRGB. I believe, the Canon printer drivers cannot deal with Adobe RGB/ProPhoto RGB files. So far this slightly more labour-intensive “conversion to sRGB” workflow yielded good results.
Recently I became fond of Hahnemuehle’s papers, especially their Photo Rag Duo 276, Photo Rag 308 and Photo Rag Pearl 320. I am also quite excited about their new FineArt Baryta 325, which I hope to try soon. However Hahnemuehle doesn’t supply profiles form my printers and I am not too pleased with the prints when using my workflow and the canned paper profiles in the Canon printer driver. I can’t say that the colours are off, but I believe that the printers could do better on these papers, especially with regard to shadow detail. Hence I am considering to get a custom profile for these papers and at least one of my printers to see whether it yields a “significant” improvement in print quality from a inkjet printer with 6 and 8 colours respectively. I am also hoping that custom profiles will allow me to bypass the “conversion to sRGB” step and enable Photoshop as well as Lightroom to handle the colour management.
There’s another question regarding custom paper profiles for my printers. Ordering high quality profiles, made from test prints with 700+ patches, can become quite costly, especially when one needs profiles for several paper-printer combinations. On my search I came across Colorvision’s PrintFix Pro device. Some people get very good results with it out of the box or after tweaking profiles in the software. Others adamantly dislike PrintFix Pro’s LED-based spectrocolorimeter, because they believe, sampling more than 700 patches is too awkward and only more expensive spectrophotometers as offered by x-rite can produce high quality profiles. If PrintFix is any good, it would be an obvious choice, as I can get one fairly cheap (approximately for the cost of 6 professional custom profiles, ordered from a reputable expert).
I appreciate your feedback and thoughts regarding my colour management workflow, custom profiles and printer profiling devices like PrintFix Pro or i1 Photo. In advance thank you very much for your input on this topic!
All the best,
Andy