Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: Pete Ferling on August 18, 2009, 11:29:52 pm
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/technolo.../19hewlett.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/technology/companies/19hewlett.html)
At my day job we've already switch to "digital posters" for much of the sales and booth displays. We no longer route hard copy proofs of brochures, as PDFs are now the standard.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/technolo.../19hewlett.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/technology/companies/19hewlett.html)
At my day job we've already switch to "digital posters" for much of the sales and booth displays. We no longer route hard copy proofs of brochures, as PDFs are now the standard.
Thanks for the link. I wonder if Epson (or Canon) sees the same trend in its printers & inks business?
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So why is HP surprised?
Perhaps the clue is in its plan to "raise prices" to make up the revenue decline. They just don´t get it, any of these companies, do they? You raise prices and you drive away even more punters.
I have an HP B9180: an excellent machine for my beloved b/whites but the cost of ink is a turn-off of the first magnitude. They say people are buying less "spare" ink - no damn wonder! Even some of the current supplies I have have such short expiry dates left that I await with renewed interest those little warnings popping up yet again telling me how using such ink can be bad for my health...
You want people to use your product - then make it accessible and painless so to do; learn from the gasoline industry: high costs mean fewer visits to the pumps. What do these firms expect? Perhaps it´s the banking industry mindset all over again, the fantasy of the ever-full wallet.
Rob C
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So why is HP surprised?
You want people to use your product - then make it accessible and painless so to do; learn from the gasoline industry: high costs mean fewer visits to the pumps. What do these firms expect? Perhaps it´s the banking industry mindset all over again, the fantasy of the ever-full wallet.
Rob C
Not sure I'd quite agree. Companies like HP, Epson & Canon have tens of millions of dollars sunk into the development of photographic inkjet printers. They've provided us with an entirely new artistic tool with huge advantages over the chemical darkroom, and I'd never go back. But they have to recoup that investment somehow; inks are the cash cow that permits them to develop the next generation of even better printers.
Certainly the consumer-grade printers swilling ink from those little cartridges like a drunken sailor are economically painful if you do any significant volume of printing. That part of the printer business is very obviously going to evaporate over time, as the masses spend more time e-mailing jpegs and less printing paper cards with every passing month.
Wide-format printers are a different story. Ink costs are almost reasonable per page or per square meter, and a 72 dpi jpeg is no substitute for a beautiful 18x24" print.
None of these companies are in the business just to make us happy. They have to earn enough in the process to convince managers and investors to keep pursuing better printing technology.
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My z3100 is coming up on a need for a refill. You’d think HP would offer discounts, like everyone else, to keep sales going.
Who sells HP inks at a discount?
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My z3100 is coming up on a need for a refill. You’d think HP would offer discounts, like everyone else, to keep sales going.
Who sells HP inks at a discount?
Justan, There are a bunch of outfits out there selling "compatible" ink cartridges. For instance: http://www.eink2go.com/ (http://www.eink2go.com/). The only real problem with "compatible" ink is that you need a way to make your own color profiles for your printer-ink-paper combinations. I use third-party ink on three of my Epson inkjets and I find that even when I buy replacement cartridges with the same brand name, the colors drift from time to time and I have to make new profiles. But if you're willing to do that you can save a fair amount of money with "compatibles." But you don't want to use "compatible" ink for exhibition photos or photos for sale. There's no guarantee how long the colors will last without fading.
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Thanks Russ. I’ll keep that in mind. For the time I don’t need more variables.
I did a little poking around and $107 is the best value I found for a 2 pack.
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Not sure I'd quite agree. Companies like HP, Epson & Canon have tens of millions of dollars sunk into the development of photographic inkjet printers. They've provided us with an entirely new artistic tool with huge advantages over the chemical darkroom, and I'd never go back. But they have to recoup that investment somehow; inks are the cash cow that permits them to develop the next generation of even better printers.
Certainly the consumer-grade printers swilling ink from those little cartridges like a drunken sailor are economically painful if you do any significant volume of printing. That part of the printer business is very obviously going to evaporate over time, as the masses spend more time e-mailing jpegs and less printing paper cards with every passing month.
Wide-format printers are a different story. Ink costs are almost reasonable per page or per square meter, and a 72 dpi jpeg is no substitute for a beautiful 18x24" print.
None of these companies are in the business just to make us happy. They have to earn enough in the process to convince managers and investors to keep pursuing better printing technology.
Perhaps an alternative---at least for me---would be for them to recoup the costs (or a larger portion of them) upfront in the price of the printer. Right now the ink costs are so high and the need to print test prints so routine (even with color management and its associated costs) that I find myself printing less and less. In the future I will probably take those few prints of larger than A-3 that I need to a professional printer. Not cheap in Tokyo, but cheaper than buying those inks to be wasted in testing or drying out.
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Thanks Russ. I’ll keep that in mind. For the time I don’t need more variables.
I did a little poking around and $107 is the best value I found for a 2 pack.
Ten bucks less at Provantage.com.