Some basic help needed please

[john frum]

Hi
I'm new to this forum which looks to be exactly what I need. I hope someone may be kind enough to give me some suggestions.

To summarise: I have been promising myself for years that I would at some point print (or get printed) a selection of a lifetime's worth of photos - for mounting and adorning my newly (and painfully) renovated home. My previous experience of photo printing is limited to using my Canon ip4000 to print 4X6s. Recently even that has proved infuriating as it regularly clogs the colour-black channel and generally requires incessant cleaning - with consequent ink consumption. It also now produces nasty yellowish undersaturated results of very low contrast unless I crank up the values in Photoshop. All in all it's just guesswork. I'm aware of the issues around ICC profiles etc so I don't expect professional repro standards.

The reason I have come to this board is that I recently priced up some printing and came to the conclusion that I'd be better off buying a larger format printer and doing my own. I saw ads for the HP pro B9180 (why oh why do Canon insist on calling products "Pro" when it's usually a g'tee of amateur specs?) and decided I want one. STOP! I've made this mistake before.

Reading some of the comments here, I realise that like everything else in the field, the subject is complex beyond belief, both technically and economically. I shouldn't be surprised, having worked for years in print media IT - but nothing useful for this topic unfortunately.

What I'd like to have is some indication of the economics of printing from this device. A quick search for ink supplies failed to turn up a source, which is ominous. I like matte prints and it would also be nice to go bigger than A4 sometimes. Could someone offer some benchmarks - prices of media, approx. cost per print etc, and anything else apropriate to my needs?

Thanks
John

[Costas L]

Hello John - sorry to hear about the problems with the IP4000, got one myself I use for general stuff rather than photo prints. Even so, never had it clog once. I keep it turned off when not in use and only use Canon inks - don't know if that helps!

The question about prininting stuff and costs is always difficult to weigh up. I think you should estimate, how many prints you actually intend to produce, if its just a few for round the house, it may be very much cheaper to get them printed via a photo processor.

As far as the HP pro B9180 goes, it seems to use larger ink tanks than many A4/A3 printers on the market, so ink printing costs could be much lower than we are used too from HP printers. For paper prices check out the link below
http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/default ... ARCH&comp=

As well as the HP media, check out the ICI matte paper and Ilford papers, but check with their sites to ensure print profiles are available for the B9180 before you buy.

You also need to think about calibrating your monitor and factor in that cost as well.

[john frum]

Thanks for taking the trouble to respond.

My concern, based on the limited experience I have with th Pixma 4000, is that I average out at at least 3 duff hits per successful print. Which makes a big difference to the price per useable print. My printer is about 2 years old now which, unfortunately, may be a factor.

The reason that I'm thinking of buying the printer rather than getting commercial prints is that I'm a control freak! I don't get much right first time either. Regarding quantity - this depends very much on how satisfactory the results are. Good results consistently = more. I have a lot of source material from a longish lifetime spent in some interesting places: plus London. I wouldn't mind trying to sell a few if I can get decent results - but I have no unrealistic expectation in this regard.

Am I right in thinking that monitor calibration involves a meter costing £150 or so?

Also, reading other posts about the HP printer (and I should read them all, but find them concentrating on details which are secondary in making an initial judgement about what to buy) I noticed someone saying that the printer needs to be left permanently in standby.... This doesn't sound like a mature technology to me - in fact in I'd say that this applies generally.

I guess in the end that I'd sacrifice minor deficiencies in relative quality in exchange for reliability and ease of maintenance. Is there anything else that meets this requirement better than the HP?

[Costas L]

Hello John

I think it is importantr that you understand exactly why your hit rate with the IP4000 is so poor. I find that using the correct profiles with that printer it gives good results similar to the "soft proofed" image displayed on my screen.

I suggest you download the test image Vincent uses for his printer tests, and print it using the correct profile for the paper. Is that an acceptable print?

I think your problem is your monitor may not be calibrated. Check this out to see if it helps. Not ideal but better than no calibration.
http://www.photo-i.co.uk/BB/viewtopic.php?t=183

I also am looking to buy an A3 printer, at the moment I have decided to avoid Epson due to the ink wastage if you need to print Matte as well as Glossy. (The R1800 would be an option since that uses the same inks as my R800 but I am looking for something that uses larger ink tanks to keep print costs low). I am currently waiting on information about the Canon Pixma Pro 9500, no pricing available yet but if comparable with the larger version should be quite frugal.

[john frum]

Re the 4000 - printing a file that I have a copy of, printed from the same application, unchanged, on a couple of different papers, is so different to the original that it's hard to assign the fault to the profile - I'd have thought. Everything NOW coming out of the printer is low-contrast and has a yellow cast. The previous results were acceptable. I don't expect to see accurate matching without spending a lot, which for the moment I don't want to do, but this printer is producing jaundiced output. I wonder why?

On the 1800/2400 issue, I prefer matte or semi matte prints and don't often do b&w, however if I see good results that might change. The price difference between the printers is pretty large, nearly £200, which buys a bit of ink...