Grandad35, I am back after four years!

[JV]

After retireing for the second time a year ago, I got involved in photography via www.nikonians.org and now I am starting to look at printing again.

Four years ago you were printing with a Canon i9900 and non OEM inks. With your printer profiles you were getting excellent quality photo prints. You were about to finish UV and ozone exposure testing of some 40 different inks that you reported in......... As I remember all the dye inks were fading.

How are you printing now and what have you learned recently?

 

[Grandad35]

JV,

Sorry for the delay in responding, but we were visiting Mickey and I wasn't about to pay the $10/day for internet access that his minions demand.

I'm still using my old i9900, but I now have 2 complete working spares and 3 extra print heads to protect against future hardware problems. As long as I can keep an XP machine running as a server, I should be set. As the printer suppliers get increasingly serious about protecting their ink profits by making it harder to refill each new generation of printers, keeping the i9900 running looks like my best alternative.

When Alotofthings dropped out I bought a supply of Formulabs inks, and am still working off those stocks. Most of my printing is for snapshots, so longevity isn't that big of a problem. When I frame a large print, I print it on a swellable paper and frame it behind glass. They are always hung away from direct sunlight, and I don't have fading problems with them - at least in my house.

The snapshots (printed on Costco paper) were fading in a few months when hung on the refrigerator in one daughter's house, but I noticed a slight Ozone smell from one of those "air purifiers". Once the hazards of Ozone poisoning were pointed out and the purifier removed, her fading problem went away.

 

[JV]

Grandad35, thanks for responding. I am still using my old iP8500 with costco paper and ColorBat (Image Specialists) ink. My photos from a few years ago, unprotected, have faded. I plan to continue using the iP8500 for text printing.

For photos I recently purchased an Epson R2880 from www.atlex.com that uses Epsons latest pigment ink. The serious photographers on www.nikonians.org mostly use the larger Epsons 3800/3880 and up. I do not print enough to justify them .

Now I have to relearn color management and later how best to refill the 2880.