a question of quality (Canon User)

[on30trainman]

ultraviolet353,
Will be interested in your thoughts when you get your Hobbicolor inks. I have been using them in my ip4000 for about a month now. Just bought the ip6000D about a week ago - got the Hobbicolor kit for it in the mail today.
BTW I looked at the IMS ink kit at COSTCO yesterday - it lists about 6 or so printer companies as being compatible with it's inks. But I know that Canon and Epson use two different techniques for getting the ink to paper. That is why inks formulated for a specific brand of printer should be better. My experience with the Hobbicolor inks is that they definitely aren't dull (to my eye) on glossy finish paper. One downside of using the Hobbicolor inks is that I print many more photos. When I was paying $12 or so per Canon OEM cartridge I was very particular what I printed. Not now - but as my ink costs have dropped dramatically, my paper costs have risen. But using COSTCO Kirkland paper helps also.

An aside question to others with the ip6000D or other 6 color (using PM and PC) Canon printers, do the levels of your PM and PC fall quicker than the regular M and C? I have noticed that the ink levels in the OEM PM and PC cartridges are alot lower in the non sponge side than the M and C cartridge levels. Think I may have seen a post awhile ago about this, but that was before I got my ip6000D and don't remember where I read it.

Steve W.

 

[fotofreek]

The photo magenta and photo cyan are used at a much faster rate, followed by yellow, in my experience. Depending on the pictures you print, they will go from about 2 to 3 times faster. Granddad documented his actual usage of the different color inks in his i9900. Although it is an eight color printer, the red and green are used very little from what he reported. You can call the owner of Hobbicolors and order additional photo colors. I use MIS inks and usually get 2 oz containers of CMYK and 4 oz containers of the photo colors. in the same order. Although it is cheaper to buy larger quantities at one time I only buy what I expect to use for six to eight months at a time.

Printing anything, anytime you want in color with the low ink costs is a real pleasure. As you mentioned, the paper costs now are more than the ink! Fortunately, the Costco paper is so reasonable that it is less of an issue than if you used the more expensive OEM papers.

 

[RC]

To ULTRAVIOLET353:

The black ink from Costco is not a pigment ink, it is a dye ink, that is why it is not as dark.

I use dye ink for all my prints, they do come out a little less lighter, but, if you print on photos on plain paper or premium plain paper, you would get better results.

I also find that dye ink clogs the printhead less than pigment ink.

By the way, do not mix dye and pigment in the same cartridges, somehow they do not agree chemically and have a tendency to clog the printhead.

If you have mixed them, get some printhead cleaning cartridges and flush the printhead by doing some solid black prints on plain paper setting.

Canon printers use the large BCI-3e ink only when you print on plain paper setting, if you use any other setting, such as Glossy Photo Paper or others, it gets the ink from the small black BCI-6 cartridge.

Good luck
Robert

 

[on30trainman]

fotofreek,
Thanks for the quick answer - I knew I had read somewhere about the faster usage of the PM and PC. My experience with the ip4000 (CMYK and pigment BK) was that the C went fastest followed closely by the M with the Y lagging back. It makes sense then with the fast usage of the PM and PC in the ip6000D that the Y will be next - actually right now it is lower than the C & M, but nowhere near as low as PM & PC. If I don't do much printing of color on plain paper the C and M may last forever. Probably will need to order more PM and PC from Hobbicolor before the others - I still have C,M & Y inks remaining from the first kit. Will be loading the Hobbicolor inks into the ip6000D in the the next day or two - will cap and seal the original Canon OEM's so that I have them ready in case I have any problems and want to check with OEM cartridges.
Yes, the Kirkland paper is a godsend - allows me to do lots of printing without worrying about expensive paper. Just bought a new digital camera so I have lots of test shots I have been printing.

Steve W.

 

[fotofreek]

Steve - this whole digital scanner/camera/photo printer setup is loads of fun. I had a darkroom and did black/white photography for many years with a 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 Rolleiflex and a 35 mm slr. I did some color processing in my darkroom as well. What a hassle! I have all of my negatives and slides (even back to the days when Kodachrome was ASA 10). I also have all of my parents' b/w negatives going back to the early 1930's, and pictures of their parents and grandparents prior to their emigration to the US. Digital equipment makes dealing with all of this a piece of cake!

 

[on30trainman]

fotofreek,
Your comments sure bring back memories - years ago I had a B&W darkroom in my basement. Would usually spent all Friday evening printing - lucky if I got 3 or 4 decent pix for many hours work. Even tried developing color slides - talk about boring work. Many hours to get one roll of slides. but I was fascinated by it back then, in my younger days, seeing the pictures appear, disappear, then reappear depending on the chemical step being used. My son was friends with one of his teachers in high school (shop teacher) who was also a professional photographer. He taught my son to do color prints in the HS darkroom - much better equiped than mine. My son bought a set of filters and used my projector to do some work at home. Almost got me interested, but didn't have time. The darkroom area is now used by part of my model railroad.
Have the digital camera and the photo printer - need to get a new scanner. Have an old UMAX with SCSI interface that was never very accurate in scanning colors, but it had a 14" bed. Most scanners today are 11" max. My wife has a DELL All-In-One on her laptop that I use for any scanning I need, but would like to get an USB unit for my computer.
Guess enough of this - think we have hijacked the purpose of this thread.

Steve W.