I have the pro-100 and the epson 3880.
Nice combo. I'm going to take a wild guess that you have others. Or not?
I am presently printing on the canon with refilled cartridges using ink from precision color.
I use OCP, and have been mostly satisfied. I probably out to give PC a try, but the thought of another gallon of ink (8 colors x 16 oz) makes me reluctant.
I have compared multiple prints between the 2 printers.
One is pigment, one is dye.
Prints do look different. Usually subtle, my friends do not notice. Sometimes I like one printer, sometimes the other.
Colors look accurate on both
Makes sense, and about what I expected. My impression is that prints made with dye ink might look like they have more dynamic range and/or saturation, but that may have been the case in the past, and not so much now. At least in the past, dye ink had the reputation of having more "pop" and "snap" than pigment ink. In comparison to dye, prints from pigment tended to look more muted. Or not? I've never owned or used a pigment printer.
Longevity?? Prints I hang and frame still get printed from the 3880.
I mostly feel the same way ... not confident that my combinations of non-oem paper and non-oem ink will have acceptable fade resistance.
But with all this Canon paper I not nave, it seems like it might be much better for using Canon oem-ink on some of my "precious" prints. My impression is that the "100" in ChromaLife-100 is meant to imply that a person can expect 100+ years of archival longevity. Or not?
My give aways-- which are a lot- the canon just chugs away.
Good for you, but perhaps some professional printers might not be happy about their perception you are "taking food off their plate".
I'm curious what a "LOT" is to you, if you don't mind me asking. For me, it varies by year, but I'd estimate I usually give away the equivalent of 1000 to 2000+ letter size prints a year. I expect that to increase quite a bit for 2014. Nice "1st world problem" to have.
With ink and paper approaching free that printer prints a lot. I do have to refill cartridges once a week or so.
Similar experience. I infer you print A LOT. Do you tend to refill a few carts at a time, or "bulk refilling" of 20+ carts at a time.
Between my CLI-8's and CLI-221's, I perhaps have 200+ carts that mostly started off as "virgin empties" from eBay. Several times a year, I'll refill 50 to 80+ at a time, kind of in an assembly line approach.
I anticipate with the 1000's and 1000's of Canon paper lying around the house from my binge of purchases, my amount of printing will increase dramatically. I worry that I've crossed the threshold of incurring the W.O.W. (wrath of wife)
To me, it's a hoot to be a "big spender" on prints that people perceive to be pricey. This weekend when a friend at the pantry asked about getting some prints from this summer's VBS, I can be a "big spender" and ask ... "would you like 5x7's or 8x10's ? " I can make 5+ letter size prints and not even think about the 50¢ out-of-pocket expense. Chump change.
I do not understand canon's business plan here, but will dance as long as the music plays.
I suppose the King Gillette model of "give away the razor handle and sell the blades at a premium price" applies? If I did the math right, Canon gets the equivalent of $10,000 per gallon for 9 ml and 13 ml hobby'ist carts. My impression is that HP and Epson are even more per gallon.
With the non-oem German ink I use, I can get 8 x 16 oz (128 oz = 1 gallon = about 4 liters) of high quality dye ink for about $100 USD. That's a factor of 100x less than Canon's oem ink MSRP.
My speculation is that as a vertically integrated company (cameras, lenses, paper, ink, etc.) Canon has chosen to semi-subsidize their camera and/or paper business units with their margins on very expensive ink.
Works for me! I'm more than happy with my prints that are now almost free.
