Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: danielc on June 25, 2018, 07:58:21 am
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Hi Kevin,
Reading the new L type article, you gush quite a lot and it seems to be written as an advertorial.
I think it's important to disclose to your paying subscribers such as myself whether the article was paid for by L type or whether you personally or the company received free product in exchange for the article.
It's not necessarily a bad thing - You can review things for us if you receive them for free, but I think clear disclosure should be part of the sites ethics and policies.
Cheers,
Dan
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As I read this "article" there were backgrounds noises in my head - I think it was Michael turning uneasily in his grave !
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Will read their website again to double check when I have more time but it appears the introductory offer is very tempting :)
4 A3 prints shipped £12 to UK is extremely good value
Did I read it correctly ! !
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Hi Kevin,
Reading the new L type article, you gush quite a lot and it seems to be written as an advertorial.
I think it's important to disclose to your paying subscribers such as myself whether the article was paid for by L type or whether you personally or the company received free product in exchange for the article.
It's not necessarily a bad thing - You can review things for us if you receive them for free, but I think clear disclosure should be part of the sites ethics and policies.
Cheers,
Dan
I have been associated with this website for a very long time, and to the best of my knowledge, which Kevin can confirm or amend, the site neither receives money from companies whose products are reviewed, nor pays contributors for articles. It is a two-way voluntary street.
I read the article and I watched the video. There is nothing exaggerated in any of that material. The quality and presentation of the L-Type product is very much how Kevin described it. Kevin is definitely better at conveying enthusiasm with gusto than I am, but that's just a difference of style - our perception of the underlying fundamentals is the same. The L-Type prints are superb.
There are, however, only two statements in Kevin's piece that I need to comment on.
Kevin seems to be saying that with inkjet you are more likely to be seeing pixels or dots than with L-type. Well, not quite - it depends on how you make the inkjet print. I would need a good magnifier to see dot structure in the prints that emerge from my Epson SC-P5000. With bare, normal human vision one sees none of that either in L-Type or in my inkjet prints. Yes, if people make their inkjet prints too large relative to the available pixels, the quality degrades and as you get down to 180PPI and below, you can begin to see structure. Bur print correctly with a decent printer and you won't.
Next, Kevin makes a distinction between my technical review of the process and product and his "practical" review, as if to imply that somehow technical research into the quality of their product is not "practical". This is a false dichotomy. The high quality of the prints that Kevin extols is only possible because of the technical factors that I explored in some depth in my article. It's fine for any one with an experienced eye to tell you the quality is great, and looking at a print over the internet, you just have a choice of believing it or not believing it - like for paper reviews; however, when one has objective data to underpin the reality of the product, and the data coheres with the perception of the results, you have a much more robust story line. I would also remind, just to second Kevin's appreciation of the product, that I too sent files to Lumejet for printing and I was equally impressed with the quality of what I got back. I also covered this in my review, and as I mentioned there, it is factually difficult to distinguish quality differences between L-Type and well-made inkjet prints. So I'm with Kevin on this, but would only caution that it doesn't make sense to dichotomize between the technical and the visual in the context of a print review. Needless to say, as a consumer of the product you don't need any technical analysis to appreciate the prints - just look at them, and in the end that is what matters most to most of the people - other than to *some* reviewers, at least one of whom should have one eye on the technical and the other on the "practical", hoping that they connect somewhere in the mental ether! :-)
Cheers Kevin - good presentation, and well deserved for this product.
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As far as I know Kevin (I met him and spent some time with him talking several times), he pays for his stuff. Also, if I am not mistaken, bloggers in America are legally obliged to disclose if they are paid. And again if I am not mistaken, LuLa has such a general statement somewhere on the site. At least I remember seeing it some time ago.
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A friend here ordered a set of both colour and black and white L-type prints. Really fabulous quality and the box was neat too, all spoke of a classy outfit indeed. I particularly liked the black and whites (which would be my bag... and the two offers are really welcome.
Didn't strike me as an advertorial at all, L-type are a very interesting new option.
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Interesting product. I will likely try it. I am/was always weary of fugitive dyes in photographic colour prints, but the likely quality and presentation of the L-type prints and books are very tempting. I much prefer to make my own prints, so this is not a 'perfect' solution for me but it my be very useful for some of my clients.
Thanks for the video, although when I played it the sound was out of sync. Not big deal but I thought that you might want to know.
Jean-Michel
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...I think it's important to disclose to your paying subscribers such as myself whether the article was paid for by L type or whether you personally or the company received free product in exchange for the article....
We don't do advertorials.
Kevin is offline in the Arctic and cannot respond but it is my firm belief that everything was paid for by us. We shot this piece together several months ago and I know he was truly impressed with the results he received.
Chris
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Regarding those L-prints itself:
Wouldn't it be interesting to compare those to a normal Frontier print from a good lab on the same paper? I am one of those who prefer opto-chemical prints over ink/dye/pigment for unknown reasons, they just appeal more to me. But as the new invention of L-prints is the print head, I wonder how it compares when everything else (paper and chemistry) is the same ... any experiences anyone with this?
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We don't do advertorials.
Kevin is offline in the Arctic and cannot respond but it is my firm belief that everything was paid for by us. We shot this piece together several months ago and I know he was truly impressed with the results he received.
Chris
Awesome thanks for clearing that up Chris.
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Next, Kevin makes a distinction between my technical review of the process and product and his "practical" review, as if to imply that somehow technical research into the quality of their product is not "practical". This is a false dichotomy. The high quality of the prints that Kevin extols is only possible because of the technical factors that I explored in some depth in my article. It's fine for any one with an experienced eye to tell you the quality is great, and looking at a print over the internet, you just have a choice of believing it or not believing it - like for paper reviews; however, when one has objective data to underpin the reality of the product, and the data coheres with the perception of the results, you have a much more robust story line. I would also remind, just to second Kevin's appreciation of the product, that I too sent files to Lumejet for printing and I was equally impressed with the quality of what I got back. I also covered this in my review, and as I mentioned there, it is factually difficult to distinguish quality differences between L-Type and well-made inkjet prints. So I'm with Kevin on this, but would only caution that it doesn't make sense to dichotomize between the technical and the visual in the context of a print review.
Mark,
I especially appreciated the technical aspects of your review. By careful editing of your images you were able to mostly overcome the gamut limitations of the Lumejet process. From what I understand from reading the Lumejet documentation, they print the image as is without any adjustments. Photographers without your editing skill might not be able to duplicate your results with wide gamut images. What are your thoughts in this regard?
Cheers,
Bill
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Mark,
I especially appreciated the technical aspects of your review. By careful editing of your images you were able to mostly overcome the gamut limitations of the Lumejet process. From what I understand from reading the Lumejet documentation, they print the image as is without any adjustments. Photographers without your editing skill might not be able to duplicate your results with wide gamut images. What are your thoughts in this regard?
Cheers,
Bill
Thanks Bill.
Actually, it doesn't take huge amounts of skill - it's just soft proofing in Lightroom, watching both the histogram and the image as one adjusts the usual controls governing luminance and saturation under softproof. Whatever image editing software one uses, the most important inputs to a good print are a decent photo to start with, then knowing how to use the software, which comes with a bit of experience using the tools attentively.
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Well I thank LuLa for this introduction and I have already taken advantage of the offer. As a collector of photographs (and a sometime photographer) I am very interested in this technology. Some of the photographs we have bought recently have been produced with hybrid technology and it is an exciting and interesting avenue.
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There is nothing exaggerated in any of that material. The quality and presentation of the L-Type product is very much how Kevin described it. Kevin is definitely better at conveying enthusiasm with gusto than I am, but that's just a difference of style - our perception of the underlying fundamentals is the same. The L-Type prints are superb.
Mark,
What is the difference between this Lumejet printing process and Durst Lambda at 400 ppi? I tried to google it without success. We have a couple of print facilities here in Sweden that offers Lambda prints at that resolution, also much bigger size than A3.
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Sorry Lars, I have no idea and no ready way of finding out. But if the Lumejet people are reading this thread, perhaps they may have a fix on it and would respond.
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Thank you for a terrific article. Kevin (or others), is there a degree of metamerism failure when a black and white reproduction is viewed under various lighting conditions?
Kind regards,
Ernst Vegt
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Mark,
What is the difference between this Lumejet printing process and Durst Lambda at 400 ppi? I tried to google it without success. We have a couple of print facilities here in Sweden that offers Lambda prints at that resolution, also much bigger size than A3.
Sorry Lars, I have no idea and no ready way of finding out. But if the Lumejet people are reading this thread, perhaps they may have a fix on it and would respond.
This is a good question. Look at Figure 2 in Mark's review. In the conventional contone process (I don't know if this applies to the Lambda) the pixels are rounded and overlap whereas the Lumejet pixels are square and not overlapping. This reportedly enables the Lumejet to print text at very small point sizes.
This ability might be useful in printing optical resolution charts such as ISO 12233. If purchased from the usual commercial sources, these tend to be quite expensive.
Bill
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Am I understanding its 15% off PLUS the volume discounts? thats really great pricing ..
Matthew
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I think for normal photographic work, the difference between this printer and a Lambda would be most beneficial if printing a book that has some text. As has been pointed out the ability to print “square” pixels without overlap might offer some crispness to the text. As far as the photograph itself, the difference would certainly be more subtle.
Because of the research and development into this printer with it’s stated goal has been so extensive, they printer may also offer a slightly better color gamut and might be more accurate in producing consistent color ... something which is challenging with most RA-4 chemical processes and digital output devices.
I plan on trying out a book soon, as the process seems to offer a higher end product than can be had with current print on demand services such as blurb.
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........... they printer may also offer a slightly better color gamut and might be more accurate in producing consistent color ... something which is challenging with most RA-4 chemical processes and digital output devices.
I plan on trying out a book soon
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Wayne, you may have noticed my material on the colour gamut seen through their profiles in my article. But I had no way if comparing it with other chemical processes.
Re the book - yes, it should be better than Blurb at least in respect of reliability and consistency - they are very attentive to colour accuracy relative to the files they receive, so if you colour manage the stuff you send them per their instructions and your knowledge of soft-proofing, I would expect you to find the results very satisfactory.
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Where did you see this offer? I can't find it on their website.
Thanks
Will read their website again to double check when I have more time but it appears the introductory offer is very tempting :)
4 A3 prints shipped £12 to UK is extremely good value
Did I read it correctly ! !
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Kevin created a link to a "landing page" in the article towards the end. It's not on their website.
There is no way to create a book at the moment. I could not find a book link and asked them. Huw got back to me fairly quickly and said that they don't have an App but are working on one, due in 2-3 months.
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Just got off a ship after ten days in the high Arctic 82.2 degrees - great trip. As far as L.Type goes. I am not paid by any company unless I state so in my article. I explained my history with this company and how impressed I was with their product. Why do people presume because I am enthusiastic and like a product that a company is paying us? Just to make things clear we are loaned gear every now and then to review or look at. Sometimes we write about it. Most of the gear written about on this site we purchase.
I am a firm believer in the print and promote printing on this site often. If you don't make your own prints, then here is a company offering LuLa readers a good offer as well as a great high-quality product.
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Where did you see this offer? I can't find it on their website.
Thanks
At the bottom of Kevin's article there is a link to the Luminous Landscape landing page where details can be found in the first paragraph.
The offer is for new customers' first order but there is a discount for subsequent orders using the LL voucher code.
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Sorry Lars, I have no idea and no ready way of finding out. But if the Lumejet people are reading this thread, perhaps they may have a fix on it and would respond.
Hi - I'm sorry I'm late to this, but I run L-Type (LumeJet), so let me do my best.
My understanding is that the Durst Lambda was originally conceived and built as a 200ppi printer (it's before my time) and, with its 50" width, was really aimed at large prints that would be viewed at a distance. It was then upgraded to give a resampled 400dpi so that it could produce smaller prints that would be viewed in the hand. So my understanding is that 200ppi is the native print resolution and 400ppi is a resampled print resolution. We do not think there was any hardware modification to go from 200ppi to 400ppi (ie no refocussing of the beams to produce a smaller spot size) - it was a question of using the same hardware to print the extra pixels in between the ones that would have been printed at 200ppi. The result of this resampling is that the image is softer (because it every other pixel is effectively a pixel that is created by interpolation from the actual image pixels all around it). By just imaging a higher res (blended) file with the same lower res laser, you get a blurring effect at high contrast edges e.g. text and fine lines, due to the intermediate grey pixels between the black and white edges.
Our printer, by contrast, is designed from the beginning to print with a precisely focussed, sharp-edged pixel at a native 400ppi and each image pixel is, natively, printed 1-for-1 at at that resolution. Of course, if you start with an image that is only set at 200ppi, or try to print an image that is, say, 2000px over 10", then we will resample that up to give 400 print pixels for 200 image pixels.
Put differently, my understanding is that if you wanted to print 2000px on a Lambda, this would naturally cover 10" at 200ppi. If you wanted it to cover 10" at 400 ppi, then you'd resample and create the intervening pixels and then print them all with a 'soft-edged' laser dot that was designed to print at 200ppi, but is now printing on a 400ppi pitch.
If you wanted to print the same 2000px on our printer it would naturally print at 5" wide at 400ppi. If you wanted to print it over 10" then we would also need to resample, but each resultant image pixel would be printed by a very precisely formed hard-edged pixel on the paper, rather than the soft-edged laser dot. So although our image would also be slightly softer due to the resampling, it would be much crisper and sharper than the Lambda version. And, most importantly, out printer images the paper using multi-parallel beams hitting the paper vertically at 400ppi at all points of the print with virtually zero sideways pixel overlap to maintain edge sharpness. Of course if someone sends us a res’d up file we will still have a somewhat softer edge, but imaged with a hard dot – not the other way around as with the Lambda. Also, laser systems use long path lengths (several meters), spinners, mirrors, Ftheta lens (not flat across the whole bed) and 3 beams for RGB – each of which will have some chromatic aberration (different paths for different wavelengths).
I was not involved with the company before late 2015, but I believe that in 2009, Durst held discussions with LumeJet about replacing its print heads with the LumeJet 400ppi print head (as did at least one other major manufacturer). In the end, Durst pulled out of printer manufacture and switched entirely to inkjet, and the other manufacturer went bust. And at that point, development of silver halide printing by anyone other than us pretty much stopped.
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So my understanding is that 200ppi is the native print resolution and 400ppi is a resampled print resolution. We do not think there was any hardware modification to go from 200ppi to 400ppi (ie no refocussing of the beams to produce a smaller spot size) - it was a question of using the same hardware to print the extra pixels in between the ones that would have been printed at 200ppi.
It would be nice to have some proof of this other than speculation, because a Lambda print at 400dpi was visually obviously superior to one at 200 dpi. I was using other technology at the time (Kodak Pegasus, Durst Theta) but saw many prints made from Lambda’s. I thought the upgrade required a technician, not just a firmware/software thing. I don’t know what the technician did and what hardware (If any) had to be switched out, but my impression was it was a little more complicated than you imply.
Don’t misunderstand, I’m not disputing your claim to superior technology, but to me that rests with the ability to produce extremely sharp square pixels at resolution. I haven’t tried your service yet, but fully intend to sometime in the next few months.
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On orders placed just say you are a luminous-landscape subscriber. That will get you the discount every time.
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It would be nice to have some proof of this other than speculation,
+1, just sayin'
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It would be nice to have some proof of this other than speculation, because a Lambda print at 400dpi was visually obviously superior to one at 200 dpi.
+2. IMHO, the article I saw months ago and the claims of some of the technology advantages were rather technically bogus marketing speak from (https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=123382.msg1030819#msg1030819) the company. A side by side blind test of similar technology in an updated article would be useful.
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In a few months maybe I will do a side by side and have the same images done at a lab stateside and then L.Type. Btheefore I was at Phase One I ran one of the largest US color labs and pioneered digital workflow. We had the second Symbolic Light Jet 5000, the very first LED KOday printer and even pioneered CRT printing. Oh, and eventually a Lambda. I know printing from these devices and what L'.Type is doing is so much better. Of course, there is a lot of advancements over the years.
The technology for what L.Type is not a concern for me. The quality of the images I received back was and I am now getting ready to send more work to them.
Huw will have to have one of his techies get back to us. I'm sure he will get to it. The bottom line for me and others who have written to me is that the results were outstanding and no one seems disappointed.
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In a few months maybe I will do a side by side and have the same images done at a lab stateside and then L.Type.
The quality of the images I received back was and I am now getting ready to send more work to them.
Without comparing technologies, isn't this a bit like one hand clapping? I'm not suggesting the products provided were not outstanding. I'm asking if the marketing speak I'm hearing has any effect on the output or not compared to the competing and similar technology. Only a side by side blind test will tell us.
Huw will have to have one of his techies get back to us. I'm sure he will get to it.
I don't recall that happening last time this conversion took place.
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The folks at L-type have shuttered their shop.
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The folks at L-type have shuttered their shop.
If only they were able to produce trillions of colors... :-)
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If only they were able to produce trillions of colors... :-)
Knowing how much dedication, financial investment, technical savvy and sheer hard work that went into creating and managing this enterprise, and given the very high quality of product they produced ,which Kevin Raber and I examined with considerable care and objectivity, I find this kind of remark unbelievably snarky and heartless.
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Knowing how much dedication, financial investment, technical savvy and sheer hard work that went into creating and managing this enterprise, and given the very high quality of product they produced ,which Kevin Raber and I examined with considerable care and objectivity, I find this kind of remark unbelievably snarky and heartless.
You can feel that way, fine with me. Had the company in the link I provided earlier, not provided such egregious marketing BS (https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=123382.msg1030819#msg1030819), I wouldn’t have had to joke about it.
So much for the August 12 comment: In a few months maybe I will do a side by side and have the same images done at a lab stateside and then L.Type, where potentially useful info, not marketing hype could have been provided.
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You can feel that way, fine with me. Had the company in the link I provided earlier, not provided such egregious marketing BS, I wouldn’t have had to joke about it.
So much for the August 12 comment: In a few months maybe I will do a side by side and have the same images done at a lab stateside and then L.Type, where potentially useful info, not marketing hype could have been provided.
Andrew, there is absolutely nothing that compels you or anyone else to "joke" about something like this. You didn't like their marketing, that's your call; but at least in my culture, and I know many others, we don't beat up on other peoples' undeserved tragedies just because we didn't like this or that aspect of the their M.O while they were in business, and a business failure like this is a serious tragedy for those who committed their lives to the success of this enterprise. It's just not done. I have no relationship with them, I am only commenting from a perspective of common decency.
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Andrew, there is absolutely nothing that compels you or anyone else to "joke" about something like this. You didn't like their marketing, that's your call; but at least in my culture, and I know many others, we don't beat up on other peoples' undeserved tragedies just because we didn't like this or that aspect of the their M.O while they were in business, and a business failure like this is a serious tragedy for those who committed their lives to the success of this enterprise. It's just not done. I have no relationship with them, I am only commenting from a perspective of common decency.
Perhaps you'll consider venting your outrage at those accusing our beloved LuLa site as producing an advertorial, rather than my joke about a company using silly marketing hype about billions of colors (which is nonsense) to 'sell' a print service.
I have no idea nor care about this companies successes or failure but I have pretty firm ideas that they used marketing hype in these forums. They are not alone and I'm not pinpointing my opinion of marketing hype solely to this one company.
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Having been involved in failed enterprises, some fairly substantial, I can attest that it is not a tragedy. Sometimes it is an outright relief.
This failure was not a surprise. They launched a kickstarter to raise $318,000 in late Sept, and managed to raise $2,600 on a grand total of 16 backers. This is a company that has never had any traction whatsoever, the kickstarter was probably a come-to-jesus moment. It failed and they no doubt began to discuss a wind-down at that time.
It sucks, everyone has to get new jobs or whatever, and no doubt some people lost some money. Maybe someone lost more money than they should have invested, and that would be a shame. But this was always a bit of a long shot, and if they were even remotely attentive during the life of the enterprise they knew that this was nothing more than a gamble to see if there was a little life left in an old horse.
There wasn't.
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Having been involved in failed enterprises, some fairly substantial, I can attest that it is not a tragedy. Sometimes it is an outright relief.
This failure was not a surprise. They launched a kickstarter to raise $318,000 in late Sept, and managed to raise $2,600 on a grand total of 16 backers. This is a company that has never had any traction whatsoever, the kickstarter was probably a come-to-jesus moment. It failed and they no doubt began to discuss a wind-down at that time.
It sucks, everyone has to get new jobs or whatever, and no doubt some people lost some money. Maybe someone lost more money than they should have invested, and that would be a shame. But this was always a bit of a long shot, and if they were even remotely attentive during the life of the enterprise they knew that this was nothing more than a gamble to see if there was a little life left in an old horse.
There wasn't.
Much investment is a gamble, that's the nature of the beast; some win some loose. And sure, they may make a mistake or two along the way which peeves some people one way or another. That still doesn't justify beating up on them. They weren't looking for "a little life in an old horse"; they were trying to innovate and improve a technology that they thought held promise with their particular approach to it. They redeveloped the print head and other aspects of the process and they put a huge effort into maintaining consistently high standards of accuracy in the work they did. They were offering a service which from all appearances looked competitively priced, technically very good and was convenient to all those who wanted to have prints and photobooks but leave the work to others. The real problem may have been that this is a very crowded field. Competition is intense and the level of broadly-based marketing expense required to break through was perhaps much more than they were able to sustain. It looks to me more like a marketing failure than a technical failure.
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Much investment is a gamble, that's the nature of the beast; some win some loose. And sure, they may make a mistake or two along the way which peeves some people one way or another. That still doesn't justify beating up on them.
Beat up? LuLa was (https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=125506.msg1051724#msg1051724) to a slight degree; in the first post here. They (LumeJet) were called out for bogus marketing speak on a technical level. Other than that, beat up, really?
The lady gentleman doth protest too much, methinks ;)
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My read is a little different.
I see a small group of guys who got going on improving the print head around the time when digital C-printing looked like it might be The Thing, when inkjet was still kind of iffy. Inkjet, on the face of it is completely bonkers, you have to build all this actually very very tiny and very very precise mechanical crap and there are huge engineering problems and the inks and pigments, holy hell, what are we going to do THERE?
There was surely an interval when it was obvious to some people that building stuff relatively big and optically reducing as late as possible was the clear answer. These guys probably got going about that time.
Then it became slowly clear that inkjet was it. It was winning and it was going to win. Inkjet is, by the by, going to own all of it. I don't know where the engineering and adoption is, but inkjet is going to eventually crush offset as well. They are doing some seriously nutty stuff for big high speed offset-style presses.
So these guys were left there holding the bag as C-prints died under them. C-prints are a dead horse. They tried to ride it into the future. The last 2-3 years, assuming they were paying any attention at all they had a pretty good idea that this was not a good horse, but they held out hope for a niche, which did not materialize. By Oct 21 of this year they knew that if there was a niche someplace, they were not going to uncover it, and they probably had a good idea that there was no niche.
I didn't find their marketing as offensive as (the other) Andrew, I just found it sort of sad. Honestly, I would have been perfectly happy if they're found a niche, and I would have quietly characterized that niche as "suckers with too much money" but fortunes have been made on such niches.
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Andrew R., the only thing I'm protesting is your unbecoming reaction to their demise - regardless of the "billions of colours" issue. I'll have nothing more to say about this aspect of the discussion.
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To further add what amolitor stated, C-printing is dirty and polluting. Ink jet isn't totally immune but a heck of a lot cleaner to the environment.
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Andrew R., the only thing I'm protesting is your unbecoming reaction to their demise - regardless of the "billions of colours" issue. I'll have nothing more to say about this aspect of the discussion.
As I have already said, I'm fine with your first point above and super fine with the 2nd! :P
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Then it became slowly clear that inkjet was it. It was winning and it was going to win. Inkjet is, by the by, going to own all of it. I don't know where the engineering and adoption is, but inkjet is going to eventually crush offset as well. They are doing some seriously nutty stuff for big high speed offset-style presses.
Yes you have a good point; an interesting case in point is the Canon "DreamLabo 5000" (https://www.canon-europe.com/for_work/business-products/production-printing/production_photo_printing/dl5000/). This thing is a beast - the quality it produces is simply amazing, as are the throughput specs - beats the pants off what we can get from just about any of those book printing services in the contemporary market. The problem is that the investment is so high that there are very, very few outlets in North America using them. But this will evolve. (It may be more commonly found in Europe, I don't know.)
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Yup. Fixed full width heads. Holy crap, let that sink in a second. Once you've figured out how to BUILD these ridiculous objects, huge swathes of mechanical problems simply vanish and all you really need is paper handling which, while no cake walk, is a thoroughly understood problem.
1000 A4 sheets an hour. Double-sided. With other specs that look a lot like any good quality photo printer (7 inks, 1200dpi, etc).
The paper is moving at 4-6 inches per second. It's not a newspaper press, but it's alarmingly fast.
If you're willing to go down to 600dpi and just CMYK inks, you can get into the VarioPrint line which will do almost 300 pages a minute. Duplex. Pricing? Well, they say it has "low Total Cost of Ownership" which means "holy shit that's a lot of zeros"
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Yes you have a good point; an interesting case in point is the Canon "DreamLabo 5000" (https://www.canon-europe.com/for_work/business-products/production-printing/production_photo_printing/dl5000/). This thing is a beast - the quality it produces is simply amazing, as are the throughput specs - beats the pants off what we can get from just about any of those book printing services in the contemporary market. The problem is that the investment is so high that there are very, very few outlets in North America using them. But this will evolve. (It may be more commonly found in Europe, I don't know.)
Mark,
I did look at your link to the Canon printer and saw that is uses dye based colorants. Years ago Epson and others used dye based inks with their inkjet printers and encountered severe fading on exposure to light. Then they went to pigment based ink and the prints are said to last 200 years. Has dye based ink improved since then?
Regards,
Bill
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Mark,
I did look at your link to the Canon printer and saw that is uses dye based colorants. Years ago Epson and others used dye based inks with their inkjet printers and encountered severe fading on exposure to light. Then they went to pigment based ink and the prints are said to last 200 years. Has dye based ink improved since then?
Regards,
Bill
How about offset printing with its big tubs of thick gooey C, M, Y and K inks. Are those inks dye, pigment, or something else?
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Mark,
I did look at your link to the Canon printer and saw that is uses dye based colorants. Years ago Epson and others used dye based inks with their inkjet printers and encountered severe fading on exposure to light. Then they went to pigment based ink and the prints are said to last 200 years. Has dye based ink improved since then?
Regards,
Bill
I removed my response because I used wrong information - sorry, too early in the morning; I'll revert when I've got it right!
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Mark,
............ Has dye based ink improved since then?
Regards,
Bill
Hi Bill,
OK, back again on this one: the short answer is yes. The dyes have improved a lot since the early days of inkjet printing. To take Canon's ChromaLife 100 inkset in the Pro-100 printer using Canon Luster paper with no coating as an example, Aardenburg results indicate that for 51 "Wilhelm Display Years" (100 Megalux hours of testing) you can expect about 80% I* rating , which Aardenburg would judge to be "good" - not excellent, but good. If you are subscribed, you can consult the Aardenburg report - much more data than I'm mentioning here.
Canon, from what I could find, does not publish the name of the inkset used in the Dreamolab 5000 and I could find no longevity data for it, but I would be inclined to expect the performance should be at least similar - if only because in this day and age, service providers using such an expensive piece of equipment would want to market respectable longevity expectations.
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How about offset printing with its big tubs of thick gooey C, M, Y and K inks. Are those inks dye, pigment, or something else?
Toner based as found in products like HP Indigo, Nexpress, Xeikon. We call em 'digital presses' or 'on demand' presses. They have advantages and some nasty disadvantages Ink Jet's don't.
Every get output from Apple's products in the past, or Blurb books out of Lightroom, you've seen this kind of output.
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Toner based as found in products like HP Indigo, Nexpress, Xeikon. We call em 'digital presses' or 'on demand' presses. They have advantages and some nasty disadvantages Ink Jet's don't.
Every get output from Apple's products in the past, or Blurb books out of Lightroom, you've seen this kind of output.
I was asking about traditional offset printing. What is the ink - dye, pigment or something else?
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I was asking about traditional offset printing. What is the ink - dye, pigment or something else?
Usually ink with a pigment component but 'offset printing' covers a massive range of possibilities and products.
http://sites.tech.uh.edu/digitalmedia/materials/3350/Offset_Inks.pdf
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Also have a look at http://www.offsetprintingtechnology.com/sub-categories/offset-printing-inks/
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Usually ink with a pigment component but 'offset printing' covers a massive range of possibilities and products.
http://sites.tech.uh.edu/digitalmedia/materials/3350/Offset_Inks.pdf
Thanks. Interesting text. Offset inks are pigment inks.
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Also have a look at http://www.offsetprintingtechnology.com/sub-categories/offset-printing-inks/
That seems to be same text that Andrew posted.
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Could be - that's the one I found by doing a search in order to answer your question and it seemed relevant so I posted it.
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Too bad about Lumajet folding. A friend had a set of black and whites and another of color work printed with them. Stellar work and the presentation boxes were not too shabby either. I had them in mind for future projects.
I've been shopping around for high end print services and been recently impressed by Picto in Paris. Those of you on this side of the Atlantic might check them out - https://www.pictoonline.fr/en/ The offer piezographic printing, I've not found a service who does that in Ireland or the UK so got sample prints which were remarkable, revealed a lot more detail in the shadows than my humble Epson P600 with Epson inks.
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I much prefer to make my own prints, so this is not a 'perfect' solution for me but it my be very useful for some of my clients.CCleaner (https://downloader.vip/ccleaner/) Happy Wheels (https://www.happywheels.vip/) VLC (https://vlc.onl/)
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I much prefer to make my own prints, so this is not a 'perfect' solution for me but it my be very useful for some of my clients.
Except that they are out of business.