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Author Topic: Printers with back printing available?  (Read 729 times)

Pic One

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Printers with back printing available?
« on: December 07, 2014, 09:57:34 am »

It occurs to me how useful it would be if the printer manufacturers added a single simple lo-rez 1-color inkjet head to print on the backs of papers.   Being able include a couple lines of copy behind each print would be eminently useful (eg. website, contact info, copyright info, filename, location, date, etc..).  Are there any photo inkjets out there that have this built in?
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jferrari

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Re: Printers with back printing available?
« Reply #1 on: December 07, 2014, 10:17:13 am »

Great idea on paper (pun intended) but not as easy to implement as you might think. Most inkjet media have an ink receptive layer or coating applied to only one side not both. If you were to send ink to the wrong side of the media it would make a mess and likely ruin your piece. Another consideration is that the second print head would be "upside down" from a gravity perspective and therefore subjected to any dust, stray ink and carp that would fall from above. And finally too many users complain about one head clogging imagine if they had two!    - Jim
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MHMG

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Re: Printers with back printing available?
« Reply #2 on: December 07, 2014, 10:41:15 am »

I agree that back printing is highly useful.  While a picture may be worth a thousand words, a picture with words can be worth a thousand pictures :)

Because metadata on the backside of a print can be wonderful for the historic record of the image, I've learned to routinely back print on printers that aren't even really well suited to the task (like my iPF8300).  I carefully align a thin interleaving sheet on the printed image side of the paper, feed this image protected sheet in by hand as a "cut sheet" on the printer with backside now facing the print heads, and then print whatever info and/or logo I feel is appropriate for that image. One other caveat is to choose media that will accept ink on the verso. RC photo papers fail in this regard, as do some fine art media like Ilford Gold fibre Silk because IGFS has a somewhat unusual anti-curl coating on the verso of the print that doesn't play nice with ink loading.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
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Ernst Dinkla

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Re: Printers with back printing available?
« Reply #3 on: December 07, 2014, 10:47:46 am »

Dry minilab models have that if I recall it correctly.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2014 update, 700+ inkjet media white spectral plot
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Pic One

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Re: Printers with back printing available?
« Reply #4 on: December 07, 2014, 11:52:17 am »

Great idea on paper (pun intended) but not as easy to implement as you might think. Most inkjet media have an ink receptive layer or coating applied to only one side not both. If you were to send ink to the wrong side of the media it would make a mess and likely ruin your piece. Another consideration is that the second print head would be "upside down" from a gravity perspective and therefore subjected to any dust, stray ink and carp that would fall from above. And finally too many users complain about one head clogging imagine if they had two!    - Jim

Not sure what other inkjet technology exists, but seeing as we'd only need this one head to handle some type and be legible, perhaps there is another inkjet/ink/toner technology that could work on more print surfaces than the pigment/dye heads being used for the photo side of the print?   eg..  Videojet or comparable comes to mind but no idea whether a scalable solution for size we'd want..
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Pic One

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Re: Printers with back printing available?
« Reply #5 on: December 07, 2014, 11:54:46 am »

Dry minilab models have that if I recall it correctly.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2014 update, 700+ inkjet media white spectral plot
Exactly..  I get eg. smugmug prints with date/website inkjetted on backs.. even the lustre glossy prints that have the resin/plastic feel backs..  so there's some type of inkjet head that works with these surfaces out there that might be feasible to install within a photo inkjet.
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