Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: HSakols on December 12, 2013, 09:47:03 am
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I'm surprised there isn't more discussion regarding inks other than Epson or Canon. In fact sometimes I get the feeling it is a taboo topic. Surely in this day and age, one should be able to find inks that are just as good if not better for less money. I don't see Michael doing this, but I'd really like to see more discussion on third party inks. I'm getting ready to refill my Epson 4800 and have heard good reviews of Cone Inks which are considerably cheaper in price. I'm surprised that everyone on this site just settles with Epson or Canon inks with no regard for price? Aren't there some professionals out there that are bucking the Epson trend? Or are there too many problems at this point with third party inks. It just kills me what Epson charges and then the games they play with the chips - it really is highway robbery.
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It just seems to me that someone out there could make inks just as good as Epson's (Pigment) and create a little healthy competition, but maybe that is not to be mentioned on this site?
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I've posted many times here on my over-a-decade experiences with third party pigment inks and CIS systems on Epson printers. In short, my experiences have been all positive.
PM me for more info if you wish so we won't bore the other forum members.
regards,
Peter
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Thanks I just PM's you.
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I don't see why this should bore other forum members, though maybe you should have posted in the printing forum?
I share your good experience of third party inks and CIS, mainly B&W inksets which have given me the most neutral greyscales I've seen. On the other hand, Epson's various "games" and, to be fair, their product improvements seem to have gradually strangled the life out of the third party vendors. So I felt a slight sense of defeat when I recently got a 3880 and admitted I am impressed with its B&W. I wouldn't think of switching to their papers though.
John
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It just seems to me that someone out there could make inks just as good as Epson's (Pigment) and create a little healthy competition, but maybe that is not to be mentioned on this site?
So, you think Mike censors any talk about 3rd party inks? Got any evidence of that our are you just slinging mud on the wall to see if it sticks?
Fact is, there are indeed 3rd party inks that can work well for niche markets and uses–particularly Cone's B&W inks. But if your only purpose is to be cheap, I suspect that's the problem with 3rd party inks. Formulating high quality inks with large gamuts and good longevity isn't something that is easy. While 3rd party inks might appear to be a viable solution, the question you gotta ask yourself is why is the 3rd party ink cheaper? Lower cost to produce? Less gamut or print longevity? How will that cheaper ink work in your printer? More or less clogs?
One reason I suspect there aren't more people talking about 3rd party inks is that people here tend to be more interested in image quality and less in being cheap.
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I ask because I don't know. It just seems to me that printing technology is so mature that others could make just as good of a product at competitive prices. If you needed gas and one station had it for 2.50 a gal and the other had it for 5.00 a gal. which would you choose? Is going to the cheaper station being cheap or wise? It is not so much being cheap as feeling that I'm being taken advantage of. After all Epson once had a class action law suit for unethical practices with their inks. Now if you are saying that Canon and Epson inks are clearly better in regards to Dmax, clogging, and colors, then I'm not interested in third party inks. Yes, I'm mud slinging when I ask if we are able to talk about this on LULA, but hopefully to generate some good discussion. Even if I were making loads of money from my photography, I would choose the cheaper priced product if it is just as good. But maybe there are pitfalls that I'm not thinking about. This is more interesting at least to me than upgrading your camera body every year. Thanks for all the input.
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I share your good experience of third party inks and CIS, mainly B&W inksets which have given me the most neutral greyscales I've seen. On the other hand, Epson's various "games" and, to be fair, their product improvements seem to have gradually strangled the life out of the third party vendors.
Ok my situation is that I want to revive my Epson 4800 that has stayed idle all summer and will need a power cycle cleaning. Is there a noticeable improvement in print quality and ease of use by upgrading to an Epson 3880?
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Regarding the difference between a 4800 and a 3880, the difference is visibly noticeable with many images. Also an old 4800 is probably a high maintenance machine, and even might be nearing end of life on the head, whereas the 3880 is one of the best printers on the market from any maker with regards to clogging and needing to be cleaned.
As far as 3rd party inks, there have been plenty of discussions on the printing forum in the past. As Jeff mentioned, if wanting amazing black and white and wanting to dedicate a printer, then Cone's B&W set is worth researching. As far as color I don't think anyone has every really shown they have the longevity and unless you are giving the work away, ink costs aren't a significant production cost on a per square foot basis. One assumption of the original poster is the inks are amazingly cheap to make, which would motivate competition. Maybe that's a false assumption? Just the ability to obtain the almost perfect consistency of color between production runs is pretty amazing and probably requires some pretty specialized technology. Add the cost of packaging and distribution ... maybe it isn't that cheap. Then add in that most of the time people can buy their printers with pretty big rebates, meaning the costs of inks is subsidizing the printers. Just thinking while typing here ... it's never as simple as it seems.
An aside, wondering of the moderators can move threads to correct forums like many sites do? This one is certainly out of place.
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Often enough discussed in the printing forum where this thread should be too. If longevity of color prints is also considered then third party color inks still have to improve compared to the HP Vivera pigment ink. Aardenburg-Imaging and Wilhelm Research tests have shown that. For third party B&W inks the fade resistance can be as good or better. MIS Eboni matte black pigment ink is a good example.
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Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
July 2013, 500+ inkjet media white spectral plots.
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Thanks Michael for moving this to the right spot. Sorry about that. It sounds like I will save plenty of problems by first upgrading to an Epson 3880 which appears to be much less prone to clogs after sitting idle.
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If longevity of color prints is also considered then third party color inks still have to improve compared to the HP Vivera pigment ink.
Actually, so could Epson and Canon OEM ink sets aspire to be as good as the HP Vivera pigments. :)
HP has achieved a terrific yellow lightfastness which in turn reduces overall color shift over time, and while there may be some technical arguments regarding color constancy, gamut, etc., that caused Epson and Canon to go with one yellow pigment type whereas HP went with another, in practice all three OEM sets deliver excellent initial color quality. The achilles heel for both Epson and to a somewhat lesser degree for Canon is primarily the yellow pigment. If Dano or anyone else at Epson is reading this thread, how about considering the idea of offering an alternative yellow ink for folks that really do care about print permanence? If any third party vendors are reading, I also humbly suggest you have an opening by targeting an improved yellow pigment ink for Epson Ultrachrome printers.
Unfortunately, at this time nearly all third party inks I have tested to date have an even weaker yellow than the Epson Ultrachrome yellow and none have a more lightfast yellow which is not good considering yellow is already the weak link in the Ultrachrome lightfastness chain. Some popular third party pigmented ink sets (e.g., ConeColor Pro) have a weak magenta pigment as well which is arguably more problematic than a weak yellow.
Canon Lucia inks could use some modest improvement in both yellow and the red(orange) inks as well as the green ink to bring up total performance to HP levels but that said, the Lucia skin tone blend light fade performance still outperforms the Ultrachrome skin tone blend lightfade performance by a significant margin. One cannot overstate how important yellow ink lightfastness is for color blends like skin tones. It should go without saying that skin tones are an especially important subset of printable colors considering how many photographs are portraits of people. The very first fading problem people spot in many limited edition litho prints is loss of yellow and a consequent "purplish-blue" color shift in the print. Most litho prints are made with an incredibly fugitive yellow ink. Print collectors will eventually see the same problem in many fine art inkjet prints, maybe not soon, but someday because most of these prints are made with ink sets not nearly as well color balanced for fading over time as the HP inks. This "color balanced" fading of the HP ink set over time can easily be observed in the i* metric data published by AaI&A. I* color and I* tone scores drop evenly as the HP Vivera pigments fade whereas other ink sets show dramatic I* color loss well in advance of much I* tone loss.
Truth be told, I fully realize that most endusers think the print permanence issue has been sufficiently resolved, so none of the vendors, neither OEMs or third party vendors, are under any consumer pressure to improve ink or media permanence these days. Most printmakers believe all you do is just buy any pigment set and your print permanence issues are over. ;D The role of the yellow ink and the equally important role of media choice are not well understood in the printmaking community, IMHO, in part because most longevity claims are expressed in decades or centuries of "print life" with little or no information given on what the print will actually look like as it ages over time. To put the current state of Inkjet inks and media into perspective from a fine art point of view, consider the lightfastness specification of the United Kinddom's Fine Art Trade Guild for limited edition prints. AaI&A tests show that many pigment printer/ink/media combinations these days won't pass the UK Fine Art trade Guild's Lightfastness requirement that all colors in the finished print be equal or better in lightfastness than the Blue Wool #6 dye.
The UKFATG considers BW#6 (which shows "just noticeable" fade at 100 megalux hours of light exposure), to translate into 100 years of acceptable light fade resistance under typical indoor display conditions. BW #6 fade resistance would thus correlate reasonably with an equivalent AaI&A Conservation Display rating equal to or greater than 100+ Megalux hours, and only the HP Vivera pigment ink set reaches that CDR rating for both color and B&W prints in the AaI&A tests on a fairly wide variety of media. Canon Lucia can achieve the spec, too, but media choice needs to be more selective. Epson Ultrachrome makes it routinely for B&W, but media choice is the most critical factor for Ultrachrome color prints to achieve the UKFATG specification. Epson Ultrachrome HDR gives more safety margin for color prints to meet the spec because the HDR orange ink can be substituted more in skin tone color blends, but RIP/printer driver choice is then a factor as well. BTW, high OBA content in any media usually kills meeting the UKFATG specification no matter what inks you use. I can't give you a comparable Wilhelm rating for BW#6 because WIR tests are conducted to "easily noticeable" not "just noticeable" fading endpoints and are based on densitometry not colorimetry. The Blue Wool scale (consisting of 8 different blue dyes of roughly linear 2-3x increasing lightfade resistance between the dyed wool patches) has only been studied in the museum world using colorimetric measurements, AFAIK. I have never seen Blue Wool data presented in densitometric terms.
cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
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Of course there is a place for third party inks. It's possible I don't care if my works of art are around 100 years from now - if it doesn't fade for the next 5-7 years it's more than adequate - hopefully I am replacing them way before that. Also this question of extended gamut, more often than not for the majority of pictures differences are barely discernible to the average viewer. Seems like a lot of hype over very subtle differences. A lot of it comes down to personal choice.
For most purposes the subject and the story that the picture tells is of primary importance not the slight difference in the say the greens. Also no one can convince me that Epson inks cost anything significant to produce probably next to nothing at most for a cart. I am guessing the ink formulation is not rocket science and is relatively easy to reverse engineer. Bottom line I don't see why third party inks should be a viable cost-effective alternative for a lot of needs.
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Of course there is a place for third party inks. It's possible I don't care if my works of art are around 100 years from now - if it doesn't fade for the next 5-7 years it's more than adequate - hopefully I am replacing them way before that. Also this question of extended gamut, more often than not for the majority of pictures differences are barely discernible to the average viewer. Seems like a lot of hype over very subtle differences. A lot of it comes down to personal choice.
For most purposes the subject and the story that the picture tells is of primary importance not the slight difference in the say the greens. Also no one can convince me that Epson inks cost anything significant to produce probably next to nothing at most for a cart. I am guessing the ink formulation is not rocket science and is relatively easy to reverse engineer. Bottom line I don't see why third party inks should be a viable cost-effective alternative for a lot of needs.
Yeh, but it depends if the subtle green tone is on the subjects face.
For me, I've spent much time and effort using a colour calibrated workflow just to be blown out of the water by cheaping out on the inks. They are such a small cost of the entire process, why bother cheaping out?
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Of course there is a place for third party inks. It's possible I don't care if my works of art are around 100 years from now - if it doesn't fade for the next 5-7 years it's more than adequate - hopefully I am replacing them way before that. Also this question of extended gamut, more often than not for the majority of pictures differences are barely discernible to the average viewer. Seems like a lot of hype over very subtle differences. A lot of it comes down to personal choice.
You make some good points, and as a landscape photographer I don’t believe there will any of my images remaining in 100 years. But I also believe 5-7 isn’t nearly adequate, as I have clients now who have images up that are older than that. In my “previous" life I was a portrait photographer, and I do believe some of those images will have value in the future, so the issues mentioned which affect skin tone are real and important. Unfortunately the majority of people shooters out there have no clue, and many are still producing most of the work with chromogenic paper. Some are using inkjet, but do so mainly to speed delivery or “save money” (doubtful they are saving anything). As far as the hype over gamut etc. perhaps you are right, but they are discernible to the artist and to some discriminating viewers. Most artists are pretty picky about the finished product, even if they are the only one that can see a difference.
For most purposes the subject and the story that the picture tells is of primary importance not the slight difference in the say the greens. Also no one can convince me that Epson inks cost anything significant to produce probably next to nothing at most for a cart. I am guessing the ink formulation is not rocket science and is relatively easy to reverse engineer. Bottom line I don't see why third party inks should be a viable cost-effective alternative for a lot of needs.
Again you make assumptions, but I don’t see either Canon nor Epson awash in cash from this amazingly profitable product line. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head and answered your own question ... if it was indeed so cheap to make there would be alternatives. In fact, if it were that cheap to make, one of them would have probably dropped the price to gain market share. So the fact that ink costs are pretty consistent across the 3 companies indicates the costs are driven like all other things in business, real costs and expenses.
Ink costs seem high based on the price of a single cartridge, but to me really isn’t that significant in the final price of a print.
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I wonder if Epson and Canon get their inks from the same place? Or does each company make their own? Yes I have to be mindful of my costs, because I do not sell enough to make a profit. Still I want my prints the very best they can be using the best techniques. I've been looking at 3880 and ink is between $50 and $60 dollars for 80 ml while I can still get 220 ml carts for my epson 4800 for $80.00. On the other hand the days of spending $75.00 to have a 16x20 print made are gone. I see Jeff's point about being cheap, but he probably could afford ink if it were $100 a ml. Again if I were making a good living at this we wouldn't be having this discussion. Still, I don't want to be wasteful.
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I got into the ink business in 2000, when I discovered that the inks for my Epson 9000 printer were quite fugitive, depending on the media printed on. Researching, I found that Ilford had the most permanent dye inkset on the market at the time, (about 25-35 years depending on the media) but these inks were not formulated for the Epson printers. I worked with an ink chemist to get them to run in Epson printers properly. Unfortunately another company thought they could do the same thing, but just use the thermal printer based ink in the Epson printers. (The Epson 3000 could handle the ink--sorta) What happened, was the newer Epson printers didn't do so well with that ink formulation, and this resulted in the waters becoming contaminated for 3rd party inks at the time.
In the mean while, Epson discovered the clammer for more durable inks, and started using the pigmented variety--ala the Epson 9500. (the prints plainly looked "prefaded")
I looked at the available formulations out there, and found that the only way to compete with Epson was on price, for a product that was not quite as good, and most people were weary of using 3rd party inks for fear of damaging their printers. Unless you were also an Epson mechanic, using 3rd party inks was always regarded as "scarry".
So wisely, I got out of the ink business, because the margins just were not there, for a quality product on a small scale.
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Suggesting that third party inks result in decreased image quality is something I'd like to see proven rather than intimated. My experience is otherwise. My 40" prints impress the heck out of me and everyone who sees them. In nearly a decade of hanging in a sunny room, I see zero fading. In the same environment, several framed Cibachromes faded to uselessness in a few years.
Mark's statement "BTW, high OBA content in any media usually kills meeting the UKFATG specification no matter what inks you use" indicates that, at least for longevity, the media plays a more important role than the inks.
In addition, for me, the issue goes beyond simple costs.
from Wikipedia: "By 2012 500 million laser cartridges and 1.8 billion ink cartridges will be dumped in landfills"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink_cartridge
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from Wikipedia: "By 2012 500 million laser cartridges and 1.8 billion ink cartridges will be dumped in landfills"
Which begs the question; why don't Epson, Canon and HP offer refillable carts and bulk inks as modern environmentally aware corporate citizens?
Is it not possible to produce refillable cartridges that are reliable and do not damage the printer?
Is the answer purely economic or are there technical reasons that the major printer companies do not offer refillable cartridges and bulk inks?
Brian.
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Which begs the question; why don't Epson, Canon and HP offer refillable carts and bulk inks as modern environmentally aware corporate citizens?
Is it not possible to produce refillable cartridges that are reliable and do not damage the printer?
Is the answer purely economic or are there technical reasons that the major printer companies do not offer refillable cartridges and bulk inks?
Brian.
I would think contamination would be a big deal. If you open up the cartridges, you open up the possibility of contaminants getting in a plugging up the ink supply.
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Epson sells a six-ink, refillable-cart tank system in Asia. Users refill the carts from squeeze bottles.
Google "Epson L800"
If it was available here in North America, I'd have one in a heartbeat.
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I am not a person who makes money off of my photography or printing. Yes I do some shows but I certainly haven't recovered my expenses of an Epson 7900 or the ink refills but even though I use 3rd party inks for my artisan printers, as I print out 35 calendars for friends and family, using 51 cartridges at 11ml ea. I just printed a 13 x 18 print using epson cold bright on my Epson 7900 using Epson inks.
paper cost was $ 4.20 and ink came to $1.58 for a total tax in cost of $6.53 so I don't see where the savings will be using 3rd party inks.
Maybe its just me but I like to save money as much as the next person
Pierre
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Epson sells a six-ink, refillable-cart tank system in Asia. Users refill the carts from squeeze bottles.
Google "Epson L800"
If it was available here in North America, I'd have one in a heartbeat.
That printer is a low cost consumer oriented system, not in the same leagues as the 3880 or 4900.
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Of course not. It's limited to letter size, for one thing. The point is, it can be done. I'd still have one in a heartbeat.
And what exactly does "consumer oriented" mean? We're all consumers.
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Of course not. It's limited to letter size, for one thing. The point is, it can be done. I'd still have one in a heartbeat.
And what exactly does "consumer oriented" mean? We're all consumers.
That means the level of quality and consistency is not the same as a professional oriented printer.
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Suggesting that third party inks result in decreased image quality is something I'd like to see proven rather than intimated. My experience is otherwise. My 40" prints impress the heck out of me and everyone who sees them. In nearly a decade of hanging in a sunny room, I see zero fading. In the same environment, several framed Cibachromes faded to uselessness in a few years.
Mark's statement "BTW, high OBA content in any media usually kills meeting the UKFATG specification no matter what inks you use" indicates that, at least for longevity, the media plays a more important role than the inks.
Well, to clarify, I think choosing both inks and media wisely are important goals for printmakers who truly care about their craft, but the weight of the print permanence problem still probably tilts in favor of choosing a good ink set first. I say this because most printmakers will be printing on numerous media but mainly using one printer and ink set at a time. Choosing a bad ink dooms even the best media to substandard results, but use of multiple media offers the prospect that some prints will be good if a good ink has been chosen. In other words, if you use a good ink set but simply choose media randomly, on price, surface aesthetics, or whatever, without regard or access to any objective research on media stability, not all your prints are statistically likely to exhibit poor stability over time, whereas choosing a lesser quality ink set pretty much guarantees sub standard results on all media.
As for all the well reasoned arguments about why print permanence really doesn't matter anymore or matters only to varying degrees under varying circumstances, I do think this forum in particular has already pretty much covered all that ground and done so with gusto :). Print permanence only matters when it eventually matters. I've learned over the years that evangelizing the need for print permanence is like admonishing teenagers about the dangers of smoking. If the effort helps a few to avoid mistakes they will later come to regret then I believe it's worth it, but one shouldn't expect many to listen.
best,
Mark
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That means the level of quality and consistency is not the same as a professional oriented printer.
Oh! So you've actually seen and used this printer? Excellent! Tell us more.
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Oh! So you've actually seen and used this printer? Excellent! Tell us more.
I don't need to use it to know it's target market...and that is not fine art that sells for hundreds if not thousands of dollars with the expectations of the art being in the same condition tens of years from now. The difference between professional and consumer grade products is quality, durability ad consistency. When I print out a photo 2 years apart on the same printer, I want the two photos to look identical. Professional equipment, and that includes the ink and paper, assure this whereas consumer equipment, again including ink and paper have much more lenient tolerances resulting less ability to control the quality of the end result.
Each system has their place, but please don't think a consumer system and process will achieve professional results.
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The landfill issue is one being addressed by many companies - as one example:
https://www.epson.com.au/prographics/recyclingprogram/registration.asp
At no cost to the end user, your used cartridges will be collected and recycled and not go to landfill. I'm sure other companies have similar programs - people just need to make use of them. I wonder how many third party providers offer such a service? Possibly some? Obviously refill options avoid it to a very large extent anyway, but many third party options are just cartridges, too.
http://global.epson.com/SR/environment/vision/vision2050_index.html
At least some of the price paid for ink is being used to deal with it in an environmentally responsible way. I have no idea what portion, but it's worth thinking about. And, again, I'm sure this is not restricted to just one company.
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but please don't think a consumer system and process will achieve professional results.
That is a common, but misguided perception. Again, my experience differs from your opinion.
I am a (retired) Director/Cameraman. In addition to several decades of Hollywood cinematography using "professional" cameras from the likes of Panavision and Arriflex, I've traveled and worked in over fifty countries and earned considerable income using "consumer" cameras and camcorders. One client alone paid me over $100K for my "consumer camera" work and was delighted enough with the results that he continued to hire me. The LuLa videos are shot on "prosumer" and consumer cameras and I hear few complaints about the image quality of those productions. With cameras as with printers, it's more about the content and the user's ability than it is about the hardware.
Nobody's expecting "fine art" (whatever that is), multi-thousand dollar prints from the Epson L800, a six-ink, letter-size printer. What I expect is a printer that produces satisfactory results at a price per page that encourages, rather than inhibits printing. When the price of a set of carts for a printer exceeds the cost of the printer, something's wrong. And I think we know what's wrong.
As for cart recycling, I see this offer as a political, rather than practical move, driven in part by government eyebrow-raising in Europe over cart disposal issues. Printer manufacturers won't even service printers at my location, let alone pick up used carts. (of which I have none) Besides, it seems to me that used cart recycling would be problematic due to the difficulties in extracting the remaining inks from the plastic components. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to not require the carts to be disposable? It can be done, it is being done and it should be done.
I don't sell prints, not even 40" canvases. I'm past that. I give them away to friends and family and bask in their enjoyment. For that reason, I'd like to keep my costs as low as I can, and if Epson marketed the L800 in North America, I'd be first in line. Not so that I can sell thousand-dollar prints from my D800, but so that I can make satisfactory, everyday prints economically and responsibly.
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That is a common, but misguided perception. Again, my experience differs from your opinion.
I am a (retired) Director/Cameraman. In addition to several decades of Hollywood cinematography using "professional" cameras from the likes of Panavision and Arriflex, I've traveled and worked in over fifty countries and earned considerable income using "consumer" cameras and camcorders. One client alone paid me over $100K for my "consumer camera" work and was delighted enough with the results that he continued to hire me. The LuLa videos are shot on "prosumer" and consumer cameras and I hear few complaints about the image quality of those productions. With cameras as with printers, it's more about the content and the user's ability than it is about the hardware.
Nobody's expecting "fine art" (whatever that is), multi-thousand dollar prints from the Epson L800, a six-ink, letter-size printer. What I expect is a printer that produces satisfactory results at a price per page that encourages, rather than inhibits printing. When the price of a set of carts for a printer exceeds the cost of the printer, something's wrong. And I think we know what's wrong.
As for cart recycling, I see this offer as a political, rather than practical move, driven in part by government eyebrow-raising in Europe over cart disposal issues. Printer manufacturers won't even service printers at my location, let alone pick up used carts. (of which I have none) Besides, it seems to me that used cart recycling would be problematic due to the difficulties in extracting the remaining inks from the plastic components. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to not require the carts to be disposable? It can be done, it is being done and it should be done.
I don't sell prints, not even 40" canvases. I'm past that. I give them away to friends and family and bask in their enjoyment. For that reason, I'd like to keep my costs as low as I can, and if Epson marketed the L800 in North America, I'd be first in line. Not so that I can sell thousand-dollar prints from my D800, but so that I can make satisfactory, everyday prints economically and responsibly.
Then you have met your printer...you are exactly the type of customer this printer and inks were developed for. Now I do sell my prints and there is no way I would use ink or papers that are not proven to stand the time. No chance...that would be a disservice to my customers. That is why there are professional grade printer, inks and papers and consumer grade. If I calculate the actual cost of creating a print for sale, the ink costs are not even relevant.
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As for cart recycling, I see this offer as a political, rather than practical move, driven in part by government eyebrow-raising in Europe over cart disposal issues. Printer manufacturers won't even service printers at my location, let alone pick up used carts. (of which I have none) Besides, it seems to me that used cart recycling would be problematic due to the difficulties in extracting the remaining inks from the plastic components. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to not require the carts to be disposable? It can be done, it is being done and it should be done.
They're turned into e-plastic and the process isn't problematic enough to prevent it being done. One of the issues with CIS systems is that they are messy and prone to air exposure. The largest users of ink in the large format area, far and away, are print-for-pay, sign and proofing. These operators typically don't want to be pouring ink into containers or risk contamination. Home users, to look at the other side of the model, similarly don't want to risk spilling ink anywhere which is why a product like the 800 is clearly a test case to see what the acceptance levels are like and how to make it a more friendly process.
There's also the issue of getting the ink to the consumer. Somewhere along the way, it has to be stored - if not in a cartridge then in a bottle or a bladder and so on. The weaker the container, the higher the risk of damage or contamination and the container still needs to be dealt with at some point.
If you area isn't serviced by a program like the one I mentioned above, you may want to contact vendors and ask them why not?
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Using information from international chemical journals we were able to calculate the cost of aqueous pigment inks used in LF machines. We used typical margins at each stage and included cartridge costs. Our estimated was price about 25% of that widely charged for Canon iPF inks at the retail end of the chain.
We then did the same for similar liquid volumes sold where the components were identifiable and found some under, some over and some around the same as retail prices. This doesn't prove our methods, but none were so far from the retail price as printer ink.
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Using information from international chemical journals we were able to calculate the cost of aqueous pigment inks used in LF machines. We used typical margins at each stage and included cartridge costs. Our estimated was price about 25% of that widely charged for Canon iPF inks at the retail end of the chain.
We then did the same for similar liquid volumes sold where the components were identifiable and found some under, some over and some around the same as retail prices. This doesn't prove our methods, but none were so far from the retail price as printer ink.
Using the cost of a CD I can buy at my local Staples, the margin software companies make selling their software puts the ink suppliers to shame. We must not forget the cost of R&D that goes into both the printer technology and ink developments. It is very naive to just use the cost of raw materials as a measuring stick.
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Using information from international chemical journals we were able to calculate the cost of aqueous pigment inks used in LF machines. We used typical margins at each stage and included cartridge costs. Our estimated was price about 25% of that widely charged for Canon iPF inks at the retail end of the chain.
We then did the same for similar liquid volumes sold where the components were identifiable and found some under, some over and some around the same as retail prices. This doesn't prove our methods, but none were so far from the retail price as printer ink.
Of course you are just guessing and making assumptions on just what it takes to encapsulate the pigments as well as manage the quality control and package the results in to pressurized cartridges. But even if the costs are in that neighborhood, margins required to maintain a profitable and sustainable company are amazingly variable, the companies don't just sell ink. I guess even if the 25% were true, that doesn't necessarily mean they are rolling in cash from this product line. As I said, if it was that cheap to make, I think one of them would have price slashed the price on inks for market share. This isn't a case of a monopoly here so the fact that one doesn't substantially undercut the prices of another seems to indicate there's more to it than us on the outside think there is.
As far as the "consumer" vs Pro printers, many consumer printers are dye based which fall well short of longevity standards now set by pigment based ink sets. Those that might be pigment based sport ink costs substantially higher than pro level printers which feature large ink capacities. A few high end "consumer" grade printers are quite capable, but will fall apart quickly if pushed too hard.
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I wonder if Epson and Canon get their inks from the same place?
Do you have any clue how printers work? If you did, you wouldn't ask the question...Canon & HP use thermal heads (called "bubble jet" where the ink is heated to generate the ink droplet), Epson uses piezoelectric technology (google both) which uses no heat. The chemistry differences in the inks are huge between the ink/print head types.
And no, you really need to understand both physics and chemistry to understand that developing non-EOM inks with large color gamut and print longevity is neither easy nor cheap. Cheap inks are, well cheap for a reason...less R&D, less testing, lower quality control...some 3rd party inks can cause clogging or print head damage. Certain niche 3rd party inks are indeed useful–the Cone B&W inks is a prime example...but I would argue that switching a printer to Cone B&W inks isn't a cheaper alternative...the expense to switch is considerable and the workflow is pretty funky unless you employ the QuadTone RIP (http://www.quadtonerip.com/html/QTRoverview.html) from Roy Harrington...
The physics of laying ink on paper to make continuous tone photographs is not simple and easy–far from it. I think you need to develop a more respectful attitude regarding the efforts of Epson, Canon & HP for the milestones in printmaking they have achieved...to assume they are simply out to rip you off belittles their efforts.
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"The physics of laying ink on paper to make continuous tone photographs is not simple and easy–far from it.".
I wouldn't be so impressed. Yes it may have been novel a few years back now it's a matter of refining, manufacturing and marketing and new advances are happening rather slowly. We don't sit and marvel at the advancement of what goes into a new cellphone, tv or automobile. Last year's advances are already history today. I think because of the nature of the market in high-end printers as any other appliance the manufacturers can command a premium today because of competition, volume of units etc. If tomorrow say Samsung decided to focus on this market and came out with 24" printers for consumers at a price point of say $700, Epson/Canon would find a way to lower their prices. When I buy a lens - a hunk of glass and metal from Canon for say 2K, I always go in my head "really how much did it really take to put this together".
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If tomorrow say Samsung decided to focus on this market and came out with 24" printers for consumers at a price point of say $700, Epson/Canon would find a way to lower their prices. When I buy a lens - a hunk of glass and metal from Canon for say 2K, I always go in my head "really how much did it really take to put this together".
The Epson 9000 44" just before 2000 cost me approximately 15K Euro (the Euro didn't exist yet and the guilder bought then what a Euro does now). It came with 660 ML ink. Compare that to the wide format prices of today with say 6000 ML of ink aboard. Canon and HP already changed the market, the saturation of the market and the economic climate did the rest. Epson diversifies its printer palette, HP partly went out of this market. Océ was bought by Canon. So I do not see Samsung entering this market. Besides that I never had much luck with printers from brands like Brother and Samsung, lasers or inkjets :-) Ricoh is a more interesting company as it has capable inkjet head technology but I think they are wise enough to stay out of this market.
For lenses you wouldn't buy a Samsung one either, even if it has Schneider Kreuznach written on the rim. For lenses you have at least some reliable testing reports where a 2K Canon may not deliver 2K in quality. DXO, PhotoZone, ColorFoto. The wide format inkjet market does not know similar testing facilities. Flaar certainly isn't and many printer reviews touch only the surface of the machines.
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Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
July 2013, 500+ inkjet media white spectral plots.
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Nobody's expecting "fine art" (whatever that is), multi-thousand dollar prints from the Epson L800, a six-ink, letter-size printer. What I expect is a printer that produces satisfactory results at a price per page that encourages, rather than inhibits printing. When the price of a set of carts for a printer exceeds the cost of the printer, something's wrong. And I think we know what's wrong.
The L800 is as much a marketing scheme in Indonesia as selling cheap printers with small expensive cartridges is in the rest of the world. The market is different there and Epson adapts with an OEM CIS. If you check the size of the bottles etc then you can find similar alternatives for an exterior CIS in printer models here that have the carts separated from the inkjet heads and feed through tubes to that head. But that "CIS" is integrated in the printer. Larger carts and ink cheaper per ML. The Epson B310, B510, several HP Officejet models and there are more. With a print quality that you probably could accept given your comments so far. You pay a little more for the printer but you get larger carts with a lower ML price. Sturdier build too. You can get refillable third party carts for them if that reduces the environmental impact and the impact on your wallet. Of course you must be sure that the third party dye manufacturing plants in China are ecologically sound. Check as well that the printer is not arriving earlier at the scrapheap than when loaded with the OEM cartridges.
The European measures on the use of cartridges are hardly effective in practice. Printer manufacturers did lip service and emphasized their (new) efforts on the intake of used carts. That's all. What percentage goes that route is unknown. The consumer printer's carts mass versus ink content is not changed much, there still are chips on the carts. Carts are declared empty or expired that still contain a high percentage of ink. It is the third party recycling that does most on the environmental impact of printer use. I think a company like OCP in Germany is also controlled enough by the German authorities that its manufacturing, in Germany at least, is ecologically sound.
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Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
July 2013, 500+ inkjet media white spectral plots.
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The physics of laying ink on paper to make continuous tone photographs is not simple and easy–far from it. I think you need to develop a more respectful attitude regarding the efforts of Epson, Canon & HP for the milestones in printmaking they have achieved...to assume they are simply out to rip you off belittles their efforts.
Jeff,
I'm sorry if I have come across as disrespectful. It certainly is not my intention to belittle anyone. Yes, I asked some pointed questions, but in hopes of better understanding what it entails. Maybe bringing up the Epson lawsuit was a low blow, considering that it is old news. I understand your frustration of someone asking who really does not understand what the technology fully entails. I do appreciate the fact that thanks to Epson, I have been able to make my own archival prints at home. And I do see myself upgrading to yet another Epson printer that may in the end be just easier to use. I asked because, I have gotten very different messages on this topic in the past and just wanted to understand what is going on. There are people that won't use a Sigma lens because it is the wrong brand, regardless of results. I'm just trying to understand fanboy vs what is real. It sounds like this is not the case when it comes to printing. I appreciate your insight. Yes to really know I would have to switch myself and see if I'm happy with the results. However, I'm probably not going to do that because, my real job won't allow time for that. Yes, maybe I did come across as flinging dung but at least there was some discussion. Happy printing!
He is afraid to ask is ashamed of learning.
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These kinds of arguments never go anywhere, because none of us really know the long-term costs of producing ink, including research and development. However, my feeling is that Epson and Canon are ripping us off on ink. I have several office printers in various places, and most recently, I paid more than $141 on Amazon for a Canon cartridge for my Image Class black-only printer...
Another indication that ink prices are out of line is that Kodak took a different approach to marketing, which may be why Kodak isn't around so much anymore -- but in any case, they apparently tried to charge the full price for the printer, while charging the normal profit for pigmented inks -- and their inks are a fraction of the price of Epson and Canon.
So, I don't know the details, but there are some valid indications I think, that we're being overcharged...because they can.
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If someone offers something at price A and the market pays price A, then price A is the correct price.
Additionally, larger companies have far more costs to cover than 3rd party specialists, for example (it's far more expensive to provide support and warranty and conduct R&D and safety testing and chemical testing and certification and environmental support and so on than to just provide relatively low volumes of ink to an existing market.
No doubt we could have lower ink prices, but then hardware prices would go up or support would go down or quality would go down and so on.
If you've read the details of the new PrecisionCore, for example, it's quoting making 2.5B decisions a second regarding ink firing in that technology and it's taken about 7 years to bring that idea to market.
Let's look at it another way. How much does it cost in materials (including electricity and so on) to make a fine art print for sale? How much do good ones sell for? Does everyone rely on a 5% marign? No. You pay (as a consumer) what you think something is worth to you and no more which is why some prints sell for more than others and some printers and ink sell for more than others.
Since you have a choice of alternatives (including different brands, different printing methods, out-sourcing, third-party consumables and other systems), you're hardly being forced to do anything and the cost of the ink and the capital costs of the printer, as always, represent only a portion of the total cost of printing (and in the case of ink, not even the largest portion). As such, I'm not sure you can claim to being ripped off.
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When there is a very small number of producers of a product, as with LF photo printers, market power overwhelmingly determines price. It is naive to believe otherwise.
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Yes, but you're missing the point - photo pritning is the smallest portion of the use of these printers. Proofing is the largest followed by sign and display and then print-for-pay and then professional photo printing a long way behind that. They all use the same ink. There is very strong competition amongst the "traditional" players in these markets (Canon, Epson, HP) and a number of alternatives outside of those markets (solvent is becoming viable, particularly for print-for-pay doing canvas, for example) which brings in Mutoh, Roland, Mimaki and others).
It's not so closed as you might think once you expand beyond the view of a photographer.
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So true, and Mutoh, Roland and Mimaki all use Epson heads.
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And their own inks in many cases (and the availability of refill or third-party solvent inks is much larger than for aqueous).
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I don't understand people being upset by thinking they are being ripped off by ink prices. You don't like Epson ink prices, get a 3rd party brand or do your printing at Costco. It's a free market, speak with your wallet.
I know the price I pay for my HP inks and I know in making a fine art print, the cost of the ink is very small relative to all other costs including my camera equipment, travel to locations and my time devoted to making the print from image capture to final framing. Am I going to chance using some fly-by-the-night ink manufacturer on my art when the savings would be pennies....not a chance.
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Using information from international chemical journals we were able to calculate the cost of aqueous pigment inks used in LF machines. We used typical margins at each stage and included cartridge costs. Our estimated was price about 25% of that widely charged for Canon iPF inks at the retail end of the chain.
We then did the same for similar liquid volumes sold where the components were identifiable and found some under, some over and some around the same as retail prices. This doesn't prove our methods, but none were so far from the retail price as printer ink.
When you buy a coffee in a cafeteria what goes in cost around 25% of what you pay for it!
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If this story and the technique proves effective, I promise to end forever my rants against high prices for inkjet ink.
Medical researchers in the UK claim to have printed with piezoelectric print heads (ie Epson) two types of retinal cells. This technique promises to restore at least some sight to those affected with retinal damage. I can think of no higher calling for these technologies than restoring sight.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25405542
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Another indication that ink prices are out of line is that Kodak took a different approach to marketing, which may be why Kodak isn't around so much anymore -- but in any case, they apparently tried to charge the full price for the printer, while charging the normal profit for pigmented inks -- and their inks are a fraction of the price of Epson and Canon.
Kodak’s reduced ink costs were due to the fact they put a permanent head in the printer, so cartridges were ink only, much like pro level printers. Most consumer printers combine the disposable “head” on the cartridge.
So the printer costs more because it’s more expensive to build (a permanent durable head vs a throw away head on each cartridge), and the ink is cheaper because it’s just ink. As far as what happened to Kodak, that ship sailed long before they came out with that particular line of printers.
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If this story and the technique proves effective, I promise to end forever my rants against high prices for inkjet ink.
Medical researchers in the UK claim to have printed with piezoelectric print heads (ie Epson) two types of retinal cells. This technique promises to restore at least some sight to those affected with retinal damage. I can think of no higher calling for these technologies than restoring sight.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25405542
Brilliant!