Photo printing

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whitbyframer
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Photo printing

Post by whitbyframer »

My not so old, but out of warranty, desktop printer has died. So I'm looking at new options.

I do occasionally get asked if I print photos, but knowing nothing about the print world, have always said no. However, I'm trying to grow the business and have noticed that A3 all in one printers that provide photo quality prints are not that expensive - starting at around the £300 mark, and am wondering about introducing a limited printing service.

Anyone out there already tried this route?
Richard Photofusion
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Re: Photo printing

Post by Richard Photofusion »

My default response would be no, don't go there.*
My day to day work is printing - I hang out here, as 30% of what I do gets handed over to framers, so I need to know what and why, if not how, and I enjoy the comaderie - and I've spent a couple of decades learning to deal with colour management, to ensure that I get the output that will make my customers happy.

* My printers have always been pigment 8-12 colour machines, mostly using fine art papers, with all media calibrated and profiled. I recently picked up an Epson SureLab printer** to spit out 6x4 or 10x8" printers to compliment our other services, and to save me time in trimming "snaps". This machine uses dye based inks and is aimed at events photographers, or small photo shops for 1 hour printing. It uses a six colour dyebased ink set. Out of the box, with Epson's media and print drivers, the colours were kind of OK, but B&W prints were greenish. The print technology is the same as used in the vast majority of dry photolab printers. I profiled the machine, and now have almost neutral monochrome prints, and results that at first look, rival my 44" 12 ink art printer.

**The SureLab was £2K, plus £1K for the workflow printer driver; The fine art printer was £5k, plus £1K for the RIP, and the calibration kit was another £2k. Calibrated screen, £1.5K

The Epson Ecotank printers use the same ink family as the SureLab, and may have the potential to produce acceptable prints, when compared to a machine you might find in Boots or a not particularly careful Jessops. These machines, you pay up front for the printer, and then get what feels like free printing (until you buy more big bottles of ink). Having an A3 printer is great for when you want to lay out mockups, or draw plans is great. I can't promise that you'll get a pro-lab print out, but with semi decent papers, and going through the learning curve, you may be able to generate prints that you feel moderately happy to sell to customers.

Just make sure that you tell the customer to use UV glass, and tell yourself that you'll be retiring int he next ten years, so there is less chance of the customer coming back and saying their prints have faded, and turned to mush.

Of all the printers I've used, the SureLab is the most fun - material costs for small prints are so low, that my minimum order is 50 prints, as the time communicating with customers costs me more than the output. Not having tiny little lock my printer cartidges is a very liberating feeling.

If you're happy to do the learning, and have a reasonable computer screen, then you might consider going beyond my default response.
whitbyframer
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Interests: Walking when my back allows me, photography, travel, cars, gaming on the PC

Re: Photo printing

Post by whitbyframer »

Thanks Richard. I've gone ahead and bought an expensive desktop Canon that hopefully can print the odd small piece but not really wanting to go down the full print route.
Not your average framer
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Re: Photo printing

Post by Not your average framer »

This sounds to me, like an intelligent move, with some worthwhile potential to generate some additional business for framing the printed photography as well. An excellent idea! May I wish you much success with this idea, as you take it forward,
Mark.
Mark Lacey

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― Geoffrey Chaucer
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StevenG
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Re: Photo printing

Post by StevenG »

We bought an Epson SureColor P800 a while back and it's worked out pretty well. We're not a 'print house' but we can achieve excellent photo prints which really is what most of our customers want. We can print up to A2 or there's the paper roll option for really wide stuff but that really isn't too common. One thing I do like about that particular printer though is that we can print onto mountboard which has been useful on several occasions
Not your average framer
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Re: Photo printing

Post by Not your average framer »

If you are thinking of printing onto mountboard, I would suggest that you find out what sort of mountboard is being used by others to print onto. Not all mountboards are going to be the same, particularly with regard to absorbency, surface finish and ink jet printing characteristics, such as dot gain, which can considerably affect resolution and accurate printing of details. I have at times done a bit of re-printing customers damaged photographs and my method has been to print the image onto high quality ink jet paper and to drymount this onto mountboard, with a matt heat seal laminate over the printed image. Some heat seal films have ultra violet blocking characteristics, which help to reduce any tendancy towards fading. I think that this may be something useful to be able to offer to some customers. As this is a rather specialist service, it may have considerable potential as a niche market thing and I think that it also offers some interesting creative possibilites, which customers might really go for.

I have lined mountboard boxes, used in the back of deep box frames, with either pieces of maps of even images related to the item being framed and customers often love stuff like them. I often only done things like this as something new to try, but I've had good success with doing such things and it's been great fun to do as well! Being based on the edge of dartmoor, I tend to get people who pick up bits and pieces while walking across dartmoor, who want these items framed. It's often old rusty broken bits and pieces of no great significants, but it may be something which reminds them of that day. I even get asked to frame Stalks of dried grass in seed, the items are very often of no real value, but people like to frame things like this as decorations in their homes and including a photo taken on that day often will help them to remenber the day. Many of the locals come to me because they know that I don't mind doing odd ball things for customers! It's not really any big deal, but mostly only simple stuff. In reality many of us can do stuff like this!
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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