BulkInkJetCarts

[JV]

I ordered more carts from www.bulkinkjetcarts.com and now have enough supplies to print 400 photos 8.5 x 11.

Scott from BIJC now stocks carts only from Chinese manufacturer #2. He confirmed that the carts were from
www.inklabcartridge.com but the manufacturer is Multi Union, www.globalsources.com/si/6007000022298/multinn.co , who recently agreed not to import certain (Print-rite) Epson compatible carts to U.S.A.

When ordering carts from China, inks can be specified, with Inklab ink usually specified for the better quality carts.

JV

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using iP8500 printer, Kirkland paper, BulkInkJetCarts and grandad's Old InkGrabber carts Printer Profile.

 

[JV]

I have printed 94 photos and 75 plain sheets all 8.5 x11 with BulkInkJetCarts from Chinese manufacturer #2. These carts are like OEM carts in appearance and weight of disassembled details. Printed colors are "good plus" with grandad's printer profile.

I had not fully appreciated the importance and cost of printer profiles. The OEM ink/paper generic printer profiles are provided with the printer. For non OEM inks/papers custom printer profiles are needed to get the best colors. They can be ordered at $40 per profile (how many would be needed?) or Eye-One Photo ($1200) can be bought to do your own profiles. Grandad has published 15 profiles and is willing to do a few more widely useful profiles for the forum. Other less expensive profiling solutions apparently are not as good.

I am printing unaltered "Getty_Images_Test_Image.jpg (11.1 MB) (see www.chromix.com/ColorSmarts/ "Test Images") with various printers and inks to better judge colors and print quality. The Test Image is a high quality studio photo showing skin colors of women from three races and many other colorful objects details. It would be difficult to post meaningful comparisons on the web because the rquired scanning and processing would vary between induviduals doing the posting. However we could exchange prints of unaltered Test Images.

After profiling my monitor with Eye-One Display & Match v. 3.2a software ($60 with free shipping from jr.com and a free software upgrade) the monitor display and prints look very nearly the same. It was well worth the effort and now I can adjust skin colors accurately with Photoshop, where previously I had had difficulty.

The carts were replaced at the "empty" signal, based on weighing, except the Photo Cyan cart was replaced at "low ink" because only 2.4 cc of ink remained in the sponge chamber. The least ink I have found in a functional printer was 2.1 cc at "empty" in a BCI-6Y OEM cart from an i950 printer.

In printing the above photos the cost for one 8.5 x 11 photo was 15 cents with an order of 26 cartridges (6PM, 4PC, 3BK, 4Y, 3M, 3C, 2R, and 1G). 26 carts x $1.86 average cost per cart with shipping /320 pages printed = 15 cents per page. This was the most economical combination of carts based on the measured ink usage.

JV

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Using iP8500 printer, Kirkland paper, BIJCarts #2, and grandad's Old Ink Grabber carts Printer Profile.

 

[JV]

The Getty Images I have printed are summarized in www.jv70.cjb.net by clicking on getty_images_prints.htm

The comparisons only reflect my judgment and are very subjective. I believe that all the prints, except the last two, would be acceptable to most people if shown without side by side comparisons.

One person is Frank Trotti (forums.dpreview.com): "For my Canon's I use OA100 for over 2yrs now with excellent results"

The table has helped me to keep track of the best settings I have tried.

If there is something in the table you would like me to clarify, please ask.

JV

 

[Nifty]

JV, I'm getting a blank page, could you check your link / page?

 

[JV]

nifty,

I am geting the table in www.jv70.cjb.net by clicking on getty_images_prints.htm

JV

 

[Nifty]

Oh I see now. Thanks!

 

[Grandad35]

JV,

In test ID 3, I note that you discarded the embedded color profile (Tiff RGB) when the image was loaded into PSCS. I loaded the .tif and .jpg versions using the embedded profile, and they both had the same embedded profile and color values when I sampled the color chart. I then loaded five versions of the .jpg file and measured the color values in the "2-B" color chart location:
1. 103/36/40 - Use the embedded profile.
2. 103/36/40 - Discard the embedded profile.
3. 116/52/56 - Convert to sRGB
4. 102/55/59 - Convert to aRGB
5. 102/55/59 - Use the embedded profile and then convert to aRGB

By discarding the embedded profile when the image was loaded into PSCS, I would expect to get different color values when the image was printed. To check this, I soft proofed all 5 images to a default Canon "PR1" printer profile. The 4 that used the original color information all looked the same - only the "Discard the embedded profile" version had different colors. For this reason, the results of this single test are specific to those situations where the original image has a "TIFF RGB" embedded color profile and where the profile is discarded before the image is printed - not a common workflow. This would also explain the difference in colors from the second test.

 

[JV]

Grandad,

I reproduced your results. With "Discard the embeded profile" there is more magenta appearance on the asian woman when soft proofing compared to the other four soft proofs.

As an exercize, I measured the following color values in the "2-B" chart location for:

6. 96/64/60 - Convert to Wide Gamut RGB

When soft proofing to Canon "PR1" printer profile "6." looked the same as the other four soft proofs (items 1,3,4,5 in your list)

I have to study this to understand how it works.

JV

 

[Grandad35]

JV,

If you want some references on this subject, look at:
http://www.normankoren.com/color_management.html#Basics
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/color_management.htm

 

[JV]

In printing the Getty Image at Costco, I learned that printer profiles for Costco are available from

www.drycreekphoto.com/Frontier/index.html

I used the profile for the Kirkland, WA Costco printer and obtained an uncorrected profiled print. It was lighter due to the apparently smaller gamut of the Noritsu printer. The profiled print looked the same as my monitor display, allowing accurate Photoshop editing and printing at Costco in the future.

The Post #23 Getty Images table has been updated.

JV