For the retiring five months , I ’ve been living in printer heaven , testing some new inkjet printers designed for professional photographers and lifelike artists . I have retrospect Canon ’s imagePROGRAF iPF5000 ( ) , and Hewlett - Packard ’s Photosmart Pro B9180 ( ) , and am getting ready to calculate at Epson ’s newStylus professional person 3800 . I have printed more than 1,000 images on many different newspaper types , and had quite a few discussion with printer vendors , photographers , paper company and people concerned in impression . It ’s been fun , trust me .
All of these printers share one chief feature — they print using pigment - based ink , instead of the traditional dyestuff - based inks found in most inkjet pressman sold today . Epson was the first companionship to ship a printer based that used paint ink , which are made up of tiny , encapsulate particles that model on top of the paper , instead of being absorbed into a paper ’s fibre , which is what happens with dyestuff . When I blab out about this with photographers and people who have n’t endure with these printing machine , the biggest interrogation I get is , “ Why should I like about what eccentric of ink my printer has ? ”
The most of import reason for using pigment ink are archival print living and color constancy . The dye inks used in most early inkjet printers exhibited sign of fading or teddy in gloss after a poor period of meter ( as promptly as days , in some cases ) . As a result , the graphic art and okay art market turned to paint ink . Pigment inks are much more stable and can last more than 200 twelvemonth on some paper types under ideal ( museum - timber light and framing ) conditions , according to testing done byWilhelm Imaging Research , the drawing card in this field . ( you may find out just about anything in this field of force on Wilhelm ’s internet site ; I highly commend it if you ’re interested inlotsof information on the matter . )
It ’s important to note that the newspaper ( called thesubstrateby printing machine geeks ) is as important as the ink in measuring print biography . Glossy papers , with their knavish finishes , are ordinarily the worst offenders in terms of print life , but any paper with so - address ocular brighteners — used to make a paper ’s finish bright , bright white — will have some outcome with either ultraviolet promiscuous oratmospheric pollutants , as Wilhelm terms gases like ozone , which can quickly dampen down dye inks on unprotected prints . This is why companies likeHahnemuehle , Crane ’s , andMoab , to name three , have been so successful with their raw - fiber papers , even though they do n’t have the brightness that we have become used to in the world of the consumer inkjet .
The drawback of pigment inksPigment ink are n’t perfect — they’re broadly more expensive than dyestuff ink , and they do n’t have the brightness and broad color range of a function ( or gamut ) that dyestuff inks have . And , most printing machine manufacturers extend to push the print seniority of dye inks . mightily now , many dyestuff - free-base prints , kept under drinking glass and off from verbatim Christ Within , can last for up to 25 or 30 age , which is more than adequate for most of us . But Wilhelm has prove a few dyestuff / paper combinations that show archival life ofnearly 100 twelvemonth — that ’s the primary reason why dye printers are n’t going forth any fourth dimension soon .
Another job that some other pigment inks had was a phenomenon called metamerism , which is essentially the human eye detecting a shift in color when viewing a mark under different wanton sources . For example , an double might look normal under fluorescent light , but exhibit a greenish color roll when take in outside in bright daytime or under a reading material lamp . Metamerism harass the first generation of paint ink , but Epson , who pioneer pigment inks as a mainstream engineering , make for extensively to keep down this ( through more interpersonal chemistry than I want to know about ) , and companies like Canon and HP are reaping the benefits of Epson ’s initial forays into this securities industry .
[ I ’ve since been corrected — a color vision investigator helpfully inform me that it ’s “ metameric failure , ” not metamerism , that I ’m touch to above . I plead guilty ; as should most of us in the inkjet printer creation , who have mistakenly been touch to this phenomenon for long time . ]
custom-made inksIn addition to the big three printer manufacturers , a minor bungalow industriousness frame of third - company marketer has arisen that provides custom ink set . I ’m not talking about the low - price cartridge - refilling company ; I ’m denote to company likeMIS Associatesand people likeJon Cone , who has created a wide range of paint ink Seth that work in commercial-grade printers and provide even greater tonic cooking stove for specific printing needs , most commonly ( but not define to ) bootleg and white image , peculiarly some of the split - toning method that originated in the darkroom . Cone , for illustration was one of the first people to use quadtone black ink , four grim inks of varying densities that produced sincerely neutral ( or custom - chant ) monochrome print of stunning quality . Cone ’s printing workshop at hisstudio in Vermontare highly regarded , if you ’re serious about diving into the world of digital printmaking .
The bottom lineWhen thinking about why you would require a more expensive , pigment - based printing machine and specialized written document , there is one compelling reason : money . If you are a photographer or an artist see to trade your oeuvre , the stability and seniority of paint - ink - base prints have in mind that you’re able to do so without worrying about a vendee coming back in a year complaining that your print has yellow or turned green .
Remember too , the report : Crane ’s Museo and Hahnemuehle ’s Photo Rag are my current favorites , followed by Epson ’s Premium Luster semi - gloss report , but I ’m always playing with newfangled document as I encounter them . If you ca n’t find papers at your local full - service photography store , see outDigital Art Supplieson the Web . They ’re a bang-up source of traditional and unequaled papers for digital impression , including some great papers from Japan that work with inkjet printing machine .
And , one last away : by comparison , traditional photographic photographic print on rosin - cake or fiber - based papers are expected to last at least up to 100 years under museum stipulation , but lamentably , no one is quite certain , because less research is being done here than it is in the digital impression realm . I for one , would detest to see a photographic print as beautiful as Paul Strand’sWall Street , impress in 1915 , disappearance on the walls of the Philadelphia Museum of Art ( which might be one reason it currently is n’t on view ) . As much as I am committed to digital printing , I have a easygoing office in my heart for the darkroom , chemicals and all .
[ Updated December 5 , 2:10 p.m. : Changed choice of words in last paragraph to correct computer error regarding RC newspaper . See this assembly spot for more information . ]
[ update December 6 , 1:40 p.m. : Added inter-group communication to HP Photosmart Pro B9180 review , clearing on metameric nonstarter ]
