Printers & Inks & Papers, Oh my!

[venchka]

There's a paper thread in Equipment. A new B&W digital printing thread here. So, let's put it all together. Printers. Ink. Paper. The Good. The Bad. The Ugly. Bring it on!

My current and probably future for awhile printer inventory consists of an ancient low mileage Epson 1280 and a much newer low mileage HP Officejet 7310. Both print color & black and white to my liking. The Epson printer prints up to 13" wide and accepts 22.5 mil Moab entrada 300 paper. The HP is letter size only and gags on thick paper. However, it does accept Vivera 6 color and 3 shades of gray photo cartridges.

Every time I spend $50 for Epson cartridges I wince in pain. The HP is worse since I need to buy 3 cartridges to print color and B&W photos.

This brings me to continuous ink supply systems. I can buy a CISS for the Epson 1280 for anywhere between $100 and $300+. I need to retain color for the Epson. My concern is that the inks may or may not be equal to the Epson inks in quality, color, print head compatibility, etc. I guess my biggest concern is opening a big can of worms and ending up going back to the Epson inks.

Paper. This seems to be one of those "It depends" subjects. It depends on who you talk to. It depends on what you are printing. Etc. Etc. I printed a few photographs on some HP glossy paper and liked the results. I'm just not sure that I am a fan of glossy paper. I'm not even sure that I am a fan of luster paper. As I said earlier, I am a fan of the Moab rag paper. Made in the USA appeals to me as well. I am probably going to order a sample pack from Red River Paper. Their Aurora rag is a lot thinner than the Moab and it might work in the HP printer. I may even learn to like their glossy and luster papers as well. The price is certainly right AND they are located in Dallas.

Toss Museo papers into the mix as well. They are made in the USA.

I sure will be glad when I get the darkrooms up and running. Fewer choices for sure.

What say Ye? All of this is making my head hurt.

[studiocygnet]

I print 99% matte black and white on an Epson R2400. I'm using Red River Paper, I'd get the sample box and find one you like. That's what I did. They are all marked as to which paper they are, so it's easy to experiment.

[venchka]

Tom,

Thanks! I'm going to order the Red River sample packs very soon.

Matte paper or matte black ink? Which Red River paper/papers are you using? Have you tried their Auroa rag paper?

[jeffkohn]

Although I have my opinions, I'm not going to get into the discussion of whether 3rd-party inks are 'as good' as OEM or not. I will say you should probably stay away from 3rd-party inks (including CIS ink systems) unless you're

a) doing your own custom profiling, or
b) the ink manufacturer has profiles available for the paper you want to use

Epson's standad profiles and the profiles that paper manufacturer make for Epson inks will not produce the same results if you use a 3rd-party ink. If print accuracy is important, you're going to need profiles specifically made for the 3rd-party inks to get acceptable results.

I share your feelings about matte versus glossy/luster. I prefer the look of the rag papers. I usually only resort to semi-gloss paper for color images that really need better saturation in the shadow tones than rag paper can deliver.

[jeffkohn]

BTW when I tried it a while back, I found the RR Aurora Art paper to be a dead-ringer for Hahnemuhle Photo Rag as far as color and DMax. The only real difference was that the RR paper wasn't quite as thick, and was a little smoother than the 308gsm HPR. I seem to recall it wasn't really all that much cheaper than HPR 250 though.

[georgep6506]

I second the opinion on the stay away from 3rd party inks unless you can profile. I do use 3rd party inks and love them. But no matter what the sales men will tell you they do have different color profiles than the OEM inks.

[johnastovall]

For color, I would only use the manufacturer's brand.

[venchka]

Jeff & George, Thanks! I'll keep it simple. I want to try the RR Auroa in the HP printer. The paper path makes a U-turn and thick papers don't seem to work well. The Auroa paper may be just thin enough to make the turn and not gag the paper feeder.

John: I wish I had the luxury of two wide printers. One for color and one for B&W. For the time bieing, I need to keep the 1280 dual purpose.

[johnastovall]

Look at referbed 1280....

[studiocygnet]

Originally Posted by venchka

Tom,

Thanks! I'm going to order the Red River sample packs very soon.

Matte paper or matte black ink? Which Red River paper/papers are you using? Have you tried their Auroa rag paper?

Wayne, I'm actually trying to position myself, as far as fine art print sales go, as leading edge environmentally speaking. So I'm using Red River Greenpix recycled paper, and I'm starting to frame without matting. You know, being in Austin and all that.

[venchka]

Hmmmmmmmmmm...I reckon a feller in Wood County could try that as well.

[johnastovall]

For simple tests of fine art papers check out Inkjetart's sample packs.

I've found these people very good to deal with and will answers serious question on papers and printers.

[johnastovall]

Originally Posted by studiocygnet

Wayne, I'm actually trying to position myself, as far as fine art print sales go, as leading edge environmentally speaking. So I'm using Red River Greenpix recycled paper, and I'm starting to frame without matting. You know, being in Austin and all that.

Framing without a matt is just asking for trouble... Milldew. I'm surprised a reputable gallery will take an unmatted print.

[venchka]

I ordered all of the Red River Paper sample packs. Even the 13x19. Ouch! Shipping was expensive.

[ChuckW]

I have used a lot of Red River's Ultra Pro Satin and have had good results with it. Often I get the 11x17 size which can be used for somewhat larger prints and if I need 8.5x11 I can just cut it in half on my paper cutter. The Epson papers that I have used most frequently are the Ultra Premium Luster and the Premium Semimatte, both provide very acceptable results. While not a big fan of glossy papers, I have found that Pictorico Hi-Gloss White Film produces some stunning colors and really deep blacks when doing black and whites.

My current photo printer is an Epson 4800. I use ColorByte's ImagePrint RIP so finding good profiles for many brands of paper is not a problem - Colorbyte publishes literally hundreds of profiles for their RIP specific to different printers.