Digital Prints

4. What Different Inks and Media Can I Use?
Some photographer-artists consider printing merely the final step in a long digital workflow.
They’re mainly concerned with accurately reproducing on paper what they’ve worked
hard on and now see in front of them on their computer monitors. Others are true printmakers
and view the selection of ink and media as an integral part of the creative process.
How you locate yourself on this continuum will help determine how important inks and
papers are to your decision-making process.
Inks
We’ll go into much more detail about inks in the next chapter, but here are a few issues
that might affect your printer-picking process.
Dye or Pigment?
Most inkjet printers come from the factory pre-configured to run either dye-based or pigment
inks. Desktops come one way or the other, while some wide-formats let you switch
between the two systems or even run them simultaneously. With Epson Stylus Pros—
7600, 9600, and 10600, you have to choose between the Photo Dye or the
Archival/UltraChrome pigment version when you set up the machine. The same choice
of either dye or pigment exists for the HP Designjet 5500 (there is an optional “ink
changeover kit” so you can switch), and some HP Designjets run pigment-based black
inks in combination with dye-based colors. With the Epson 4000, you can switch back
and forth between two different ink modes: Photographic (CMYKcmkMK) and Dual
CMYK (CMYMK + CMYMK)—the “MK” means Matte Black; you can switch between
Photo Black and Matte Black inks to tailor the black to your specific media.
If you’re concerned about OEM print permanence (also see “How Permanent Are the
Prints?”), your choices are either one of the pigment-based printers (or one that can be
adapted for third-party pigment inks) or a dye-based printer that can offer long-lasting
prints on specific swellable-coated media. For dedicated pigment printers for the desktop,
your choices are simple and all Epson. For wide-format, the field opens up considerably
with Roland, ENCAD, Mimaki, Mutoh, MacDermid ColorSpan, HP, and Epson all offering
several models from which to choose. For long-lasting OEM dye-based prints, HP
leads the pack at this writing.
Cartridges and Capacities
Out-of-the-box inkjet printers use ink cartridges or tanks to feed the printer, and in general,
desktops have small cartridges, while the wide-formats have larger ink tanks, which
makes them run longer before ink changing and also helps economize ink costs. At one end
of the spectrum, a single desktop ink cartridge might hold as little as 17 milliliters of ink
(approximately one-half fluid ounce), while the tanks on the ColorSpan DisplayMaker X-
12 have a whopping 960 ml (almost a liter or 28 fluid ounces) capacity. The wide-format
ENCAD 1000i has a unique intermediate ink reservoir system that maintains a constant
ink supply to the printheads, and that allows you to change 700-ml ink bottles on the fly.
Chapter 6 ■ Selecting an Inkjet Printer 189