Inkling Introduction / About Me

[Inkling]

I've just started to get serious about printing my photos. This forum is incredibly supportive. I look forward to many enjoyable discussions with the friendly forum members.

I have been a keen photographer for many years, but I have exactly one picture hanging on the walls of my apartment that I took myself. Before Christmas I printed some pictures for relatives on an HP Envy printer and the joy of holding my own pictures in my hand was incredible. At the time, I really had no idea how to put pictures on paper properly. At least I had an ICC profile created for the HP printer years ago.

Then I got a message from HP that they were increasing the cost of the Instant Ink program again, so I decided to cancel Instant Ink and get a new printer. After a lot of research, I bought an ET-2840 and initially filled it with 3rd party pigment inks. We often make greeting cards out of paper and smudge resistance was very important to me. I also thought that pigment ink would definitely be better than dye ink. After filling the printer for the first time, I got my first shock: the print image got worse with every printout. After a few cleaning programs that brought no improvement, I decided to go to bed and had a restless night. The next day I did another nozzle check and lo and behold - everything was fine.

Then I realized that my old HP printer had produced a much finer print image and the colors with the pigment inks were extremely yellow and magenta. So I bought a Datacolor Spyder Print, which I sent back after many unsuccessful attempts. Then I decided that I would only use the printer for text and craft work and that I needed a proper photo printer.

That's how I ended up with the XP-15000. I'm thrilled with the first prints and I'm excited to see where the journey takes me.
Maybe I should have bought an ET-8550 straight away, or an SC-P900, but I'm very happy right now.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

@Inkling , you are very welcome to this forum, and lots of problems, questions and issues have already been adressed over time and most of them resolved . I see that you are practising refill and as well switch ink types - dye vs. pigment - before you do it plese evaluate the impact. This could be a gloss problem or a longevity problem or a weak blackpoint or ...............

Datacol... there is no member on this forum actively using their print profiler, they had the same experience as you had - and even if you would get a 'normal' profile you would get into other issues - the use of the perceptual or relative colorimetric rendering intent is not recommeded but only the saturation RI - which on the other hand is not supported on Adobe's Lightroom............More reliable are the entry level profile packages by XRite like the older ColorMunki or i1Studio or the current ccStudio; you may try to find used packages as well. If you go with your choice of inks and papers you probably get into the situation that you need to create your own icc-profiles.

Please be aware that it is not the ink alone - dye or pigment - or the printer alone - XP15000 or ET_8550 - or Canon or Epson - or the paper alone delivering you pleasant and quality prints - it's a combination of all variables which need to be tuned for the best output.

 

[Inkling]

@Ink stained Fingers - Thanks for your kind reply. I have read lots of existing threads here and I have already found many answers to my questions already

For the ET-2840, I originally had no intention of changing inks and I filled the new printer directly with the pigment inks with the plan of selling the original inks. I was so convinced that this would be a good solution. To be honest, I regret the decision. I read in another thread that you have also switched between dye and pigment inks in Ecotank printers, with problems from switching from pigment to dye. Would you advise me against switching back to dye ink or can you recommend the best way to do it in your experience? I have found very little information on this so far. I can also ask the question separately in another thread if you prefer. Thank you very much for your help in advance

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I can also ask the question separately in another thread if you prefer.

Yes - please do - with a title specific to your issue