I can't believe most of July has already passed; since late May we've been in Yellowstone once, Glacier three times, and running around locally in between. I've been photographing in all these locations, accumulating raw files that will keep me busy culling, processing, and printing for months to come. This is wonderful. It's what I live to do. Of course, the 7900 sits idle while all this other fun stuff goes on.

That's about to change. A new client visited this morning, with a flash drive full of Photoshop files for printing. In a first for me, this client also brought a roll of paper. I never calculated prices for printing on client-provided paper; I never had the need. It's not a challenge, of course. Just an hourly rate plus a little for ink and packaging. Because the client is a local photographer I won't even have to ship the prints. He's done most of the work, so this will be a low-value job for me, but a quick one.

Also coming up is the one outdoor show in which I exhibit every summer. I've got about two dozen frames to fill, both from existing inventory and from a frame order due to arrive here tomorrow.

Gallery sales have been slower than has been typical here in this "tourist town", a place where traffic increased dramatically in summer, which seems to start on July 4 and run through Labor Day (in the U.S., that's the first Monday in September). Still, I have my reliable sellers, which include several images I print and offer matted and bagged. Many of the tourists visiting the area fly in and out, or travel in motor homes, campers, vans, etc. They don't have a lot of storage space in their campers or the overhead bins in airplanes; these small images, without frames or glass, make taking home a photo of Montana's scenic and wildlife wonders easy for the traveler.

As I've mentioned in past postings, "Snow Raven" is my most popular image. A few days ago the last copies in both local galleries sold, requiring me to set up to print another batch. I do this on a roll of 24-inch luster, resulting in the prints you see above. Unlike the ugly situation described in my previous posting, I had no trouble with ink delivery (clogs) this time. This print job was fast and painless.

For these small prints I buy the mats and mount board (foam core) in batches of 24 from Redimat.com. The quality has been fine, the service reasonably fast, and the price can't be beat. I suppose you could cut your own mats for less if you put little (say, zero) value on your time. As should be obvious from my first paragraph above, I'd rather be out shooting!

  --Jay

A Frustrating Evening

My last print job ran on 24 June, twelve days ago. The printer's been idle since. Obviously I've not been printing much, instead spending my time outdoors, photographing locally, and in Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks.

In August, the Sandpiper Art Gallery in Polson, MT, hosts its annual "Art Festival", an outdoor show now in its forty-second year. This takes place 10 August, on the lawn of the Lake County courthouse. This will be my fifth year exhibiting in the show.

It's not too soon to be printing new work for the show, so there will be time to order a few frames and get everything assembled. Last night I set up to make the first new prints. I chose a couple of panoramas, one from Glacier shot just a few days ago, and a second that's been a good seller since I first printed it for a commission in 2007. I selected a third, smaller image, to nest with the panoramas on 24-inch-roll luster.

In my experiences so far with the 7900, getting the printer ready for this job was by far the most frustrating.

The first nozzle check showed about half the pattern for VM missing. A standard cleaning of the C/VM pair fixed that, but that second nozzle-check print showed both LC and LLK entirely missing. I did a standard cleaning of the Y/LLK pair, followed by another nozzle check print (#3, if you're counting). This showed about half the LLK nozzles were printing. Next, I cleaned the VLM/LLK pair. When the cleaning finished, the printer's LCD showed a "Replace Ink" message, with the flashing red X over the G bar on the display. This ink had been at 1% for a very long time. I replaced it, and after the printer pressurized the inks, the LCD again showed the "Replace Ink" message, this time on the O bar. Orange too had been at 1% for a long time. I should note that both of these inks were the original 110ml "starter" inks that had been included with the printer; both had expirations dates of last August. I replaced the Orange.

Now I could print another nozzle check (#4), which showed only a few lines in LC, and a bit more of the LLK channel restored. Giving up on standard cleanings, I did a powerful cleaning of VLM/LC, and then another nozzle check. This showed most of VLM restored, but a few tiny voids remained scattered throughout the pattern. LLK seemed to be improving on its own, that channel now missing only a couple of lines at the bottom of the pattern.

All of this cleaning and nozzle checking was burning time; I wanted to get the prints done, so I sent the print job to the printer. That was a mistake, of course. Banding was quite obvious in the gray/cyan sky and fog areas in the smaller panorama (bottom right in the photo below). I watched closely as the print emerged from the printer, and canceled the job from the printer's control panel as soon as I saw the problem.

After removing the roll paper I printed another nozzle check (#6), getting the same result I'd seen after #5. I then did a powerful cleaning of Y/LLK, and another nozzle check print. Finally, LLK was perfect. LC still had several very small voids in the pattern. I reloaded the roll paper and printed the job, which looked fine.

The final print, after spending far too much time and materials getting ink to the paper.

All of that took over an hour, seven nozzle check prints, reduced my LLK from 10% to 4%, and took my maintenance cartridge, the original included with the printer, from 25% to 21%. I've ordered replacements for both.

  --Jay