Digital Prints

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Mastering Digital Printing
Six, seven, or eight colors is currently as far as desktop inkjets go, but wide-formats go
even further. The ColorSpan DisplayMaker X-12 comes with 12 separate printheads,
which allows you to choose different print modes and inksets. Want to print difficult colors
and make spot-color matches? You could configure the X-12 to be
CCcMMmYK+Orange, Green, Red, and Blue. Or, you could have both dye-based and
pigment inks loaded at the same time (CMYKcm×2) and switch between them as the
work requires. (The Mimaki JV4 Series printers offer a similar feature.) Of course, none
of this is push-button. Highly specialized printing software is required to deal with this
type of color flexibility.
Ink Droplet Sizes: The smaller the drop or dot sizes, the finer the detail and the smoother
the color variations. The smallest drop size currently available (at this writing) in the U.S.
is 1.5 picoliters (a picoliter is a liquid measurement unit) from the Epson Stylus Photo
R800 desktop. One thing to keep in mind about dot sizes: Uncoated papers are much
more forgiving of large dots, which tend to spread or bleed together and create a softer
look. That’s one reason some of the older printers, such as the Epson 3000 with its gargantuan
11 picoliter drop size, can still produce acceptable prints, especially when used
on uncoated art and watercolor papers.
Variable droplet sizes are a further advancement for increasing fine highlight detail and for
optimizing photographic quality. The Epson 3000 was the first desktop printer to incorporate
variable droplet technology, but it used only one dot size per print. Following Epson
models began offering differing dot sizes within an image. Now, several brands offer different
drop sizes per line including IRIS/IXIA, Epson, Lexmark, Roland, and Mimaki.
Notwithstanding what I’ve said in this quality section, the numbers alone do not tell the
whole story. More important is what your eyes tell you when looking at a print. That’s
why it’s important to request sample prints (see the “Sample Before You Buy” note below),
figure out a way to see others’ prints (this is one benefit of joining a “Print Exchange”), or
have prints from your files made for you on any potential printer.
Sample Before You Buy
As part of your research into printers, try to gather actual printed samples for review. For desktops, office
super stores will frequently have sample prints available next to the printer on display. Online retailer
inkjetART.com offers custom sample prints from several of the inkjets it sells for evaluation/comparison.
(InkjetART.com also has some excellent output comparisons and recommendations on their website.)
In addition, most manufacturers will send you sample prints from their various printer models. Narrow
your list down to the top few and call their 800 numbers for samples and product brochures. For desktop
samples in the U.S., call these OEM pre-sales numbers:
Dell: (800) 624-9896 Epson: (800) 463-7766 HP: (800) 888-0262 Lexmark: (888) LEXMARK
The next step up is to have sample comparison prints made from your own test files. This is usually only
done by vendors of the more expensive wide-formats. When printmaker Larry Thomas of Gleedsville
Editions in Leesburg, Virginia, was trying to decide on which wide-format printer to buy, he sent the
same test image to several different vendors who made prints for him. He then presented the prints to a
panel of friends and associates for blind testing and asked them to pick the best one. He went with the
printer (a Roland) that produced the winning sample.