chromaroll.com

[Mike Sellers]

Has anyone printed with this- impressions? "Chromaroll™ 2.0 is a unique substrate for inkjet printers - polypropylene with a thin layer of aluminum - treated so it can accept standard (pigment based) inks from a wide variety of inkjet printers. Chromaroll™ comes in both sheet and roll formats up to 44" wide - so sizing is nearly unlimited for this amazing material."

[Landscapes]

Looked it up here:

http://www.chromaroll.com/chromaroll-2-0-sample-roll-12/

Sounds very interesting.  If a regular guy with a pigment printer could produce a metal type of print at home, this would be a great advancement.  Not only does the economics of selling metal prints not work for the photographer, the fact that the inks are dye and might fade in about 10 years from what I hear is also an issue.  Using pigment inks will I'm sure extend this. 

I just wonder how delicate the surface is.  Canvas that doesn't supposedly need to be coated isn't durable enough.  But with this even having a glue backing that makes you supposedly be able to stick it right onto an aluminum panel or dibond after printing would be a nice way forward.

[Mike Sellers]

there is a nice video on mounting it on youtube

[Mark D Segal]

They recommend sRGB colour space and Printer Manages Color. But elsewhere they say one can use ICC profiles. In one place they say available in sheets and rolls, but in another it's rolls only. To get further information you need to ask for it by submitting your contact information. Altogether very poor marketing. I wouldn't spend a cent on this unless I had reliable assurance (without providing contact info) it could pass through my 4900 trouble-free, and that I could profile it and print with it from LR with the profile managing colour.

[Royce Howland]

I have a friend who has printed through a roll of this stuff, and I've seen some of the results from it firsthand. A couple of the examples looked promising. But the vendor clearly is not well educated about colour management and isn't marketing the product very effectively so far. And the surface of the roll my friend got was quite problematic leading to many of the test prints being unusable due to material problems. At the very least, that indicated some quality management issues going on.

I've been meaning to get some to test out myself but haven't had enough time to get around to it, especially given the issues that my friend encountered with it.

[disneytoy]

interesting but all the videos say PRIVATE.

[Ken Doo]

Was your friend's test on the current version?  From looking at the materials it appears there was an earlier version, and then now the current release.

I may try some....but this stuff ain't cheap. It needs to provide some commercial interest (profit) and viability beyond personal artistic projects for me....

ken

[disneytoy]

Its just Mylar with an inkjet receptor coat on top. Kind of gaudy, but interesting. I see this more for store signage. But then again they can just UV print onto regular mylar.

[Landscapes]

Yes... once I finally saw some videos on youtube and saw how thing the sheet was, like mylar,it turned me off.  It would be very difficult to work with I think given the fragile nature of such a thin material.

[disneytoy]

It would make a nice kite!

[Jglaser757]

I tried it,,I couldnt get colors right due to profile and my inexperience printing..I did find some sheets available on ebay awhile back!

[dgberg]

It was about 3 years ago when the first version of this came out.
They were touting it as metal. I ran a little test and lit a match to it and it burned right up in my hand. Mylar, plastic whatever you want to call it.
I called the US Sales person and asked where I could find the profile for the new product. His response,"What is a profile?"
That should tell you something.
The thread is here somewhere if someone wants to dig it up?

[disneytoy]

Considering we are printing on reflective Mylar, I wonder what's the point of a profile:-)  Time to print some custom birthday balloons...