I continue the work most recently discussed in the post Exercise and the 100 Prints Project.
I use an Epson Style Photo R3000. Its print quality is very good; certainly more than sufficient for my needs. It is able to print on heavy paper (e.g., 18 mil, 330g/square meter) on sheets up to 13″x19″ and rolls of paper.
I have a few learnings and observations so far:
- It’s unclear that printing at home is less expensive than sending work to a professional printer.
Red River Paper did an assessment and they concluded that a single 8×10 print would use $0.88 worth of ink plus paper costs which can be anything, however a basic matte costs about $0.22 (see B&H) for a total per print cost of $1.10. Meanwhile, Costco sells 8×10 prints for $1.79. The cost of printing at home includes neither my time nor waste. Printheads need to be cleaned (which uses additional ink), prints have flaws (which need to be reprinted). It goes on. At present I doubt I can print at a lower cost, however, my expectation is as I get better this will change. Having said that, cost is not a prime motivator. - Increased control.
This is probably the primary motivation to print at home, at least for me. Printing at home enables experimentation over quick cycles. Different papers can be tried and different print sizes, for example. With tools like Lightroom it is possible to Soft Proof a picture on several different papers so determine best overall fit. Another side effect of printing at home is to become familiar with the different types of paper and thus provide better information to printers should one be needed. - The impact of the cost of ink.
While $0.88 / 8×10 sheet seems ok, the practical reality is buying a new set of 9 cartridges is about $350. It presents a psychological hurdle and a tendency to want to use every last drop of ink in a cartridge. This latter point is problematic as it increases the risk of running out of ink during a print, which in turn results in a re-print and thus incremental waste. There are non-OEM options which I’ve been looking into. Such options offer re-fillable cartridges that can be topped up before they run low. As well as the ink being significantly less expensive third-party manufactures offer different ink options. - The printer is quirky
- It periodically enters some cycle. What it is doing is unclear, but it makes some noise and spends several minutes doing what ever it needs to do. This can be frustrating at times as it disrupts the flow of work
- Loading paper is problematic. I have figured out which roller to press to make sure large poster boards load easily, but prior to that discovery paper loading was difficult. Yet other paper loading-related problems persist that I need to work through
- The printer is very sensitive to the proper paper being loaded. While this makes sense as, for example, different black inks are used on satin finished vs. matte finishes, the process can become confused as three separate items need to be aligned: printer set up; page set up and ink setup.
- On one instance I made three prints successfully, but was unable to complete the fourth because of paper loading issues. I don’t think I made a change … but something changed and I don’t know what it is.
Regardless of these challenges, I continue as the results are worth it.
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