Photo Tex

In my last posting (9 November 2019) I mentioned getting an interesting commission. This may involve printing on materials I've never used, which is part of what makes it interesting.

A client, for whom I've done some scanning and printing work, is looking for a photo to be installed or mounted on the doors of a large cabinet. He showed me a rough sketch of the cabinet, but the design is still in the conceptual stage. I don't have any dimensions, but the cabinet will hide a large flat-screen TV, so the print, which will span a pair of sliding doors, will be several feet wide. The client is an experienced carpenter and craftsman; he's made some beautiful furniture and built a number of custom high-end homes. I expect the cabinet to be nothing short of gorgeous, and I hope his idea of mounting a photo on its front doesn't impact that.

I could make a print (or prints) and then laminate it, or print on a plastic substrate, or print on metal; these last two would be farmed out, not printed on my 7900. I'd also thought about printing on Photo Tex®, a material I'd never used, nor even seen up close. I've sold images to clients who printed them on Photo Tex and then applied the material to mural walls or outdoor signage, but I've not seen the final results. Those clients claimed to be happy with the finished product.

I ordered a sample roll of Photo Tex from the maker. This got me a 42-inch (107 cm) wide roll ten feet (3 m) long, which of course is too large for the 24-inch 7900. This is a lot of material for $30 USD, plenty for making test prints with different profiles. It's a much better "deal" than the Photo Tex sample packs sold by my usual paper vendors.

The sample arrived quickly. I cut letter-size sheets from the roll, downloaded the canned profiles from Photo Tex. They offer two, one each for MK and PK. I had PK loaded in the printer so I printed my usual profile test page with the PK profile. It looked pretty bad, but I set it aside to view after 24 hours. I then swapped the black inks to MK and printed the same test image with the MK profile. A little better, but not much.

A day later I still found both test images to be wholly unacceptable. They are little better than a poorly made image printed on plain bond paper, or the lowest-gamut of mat papers. Washed out low contrast, faded-looking color, weak blacks.

Next I made a custom profile, something I don't often do in part because I so rarely need to, and in part because what I have for making profiles isn't very good. I use LaserSoft's Silverfast scanning software with both my Nikon V-ED 35mm film scanner and my Epson V850 Pro flatbed. Both are profiled with LaserSoft's "Advanced" targets. A print profile software package is available. The software is used to make a print with several hundred sample patches. After an adequate drying period the patch print is scanned on the flatbed, and the software generates a printer profile. My results have been quite variable and never really very good. In this case my print made with MK ink and the LaserSoft-generated profile was much worse than the prints made with Photo Tex's canned profiles.

Photo Tex is quite popular and I'm sure has its place. With the right printer and profile it may be possible to get a decent/accurate print on Photo Tex material. With what I have, and the kinds of images my client is likely to want, it's not.

Perhaps I expected too much. But it was an interesting experiment.

  --Jay

It's Been How Long??

I can't believe my last post here was 11 months ago. Those months have not been uneventful, and some of the events I could easily have done without. But more to the point of this poorly maintained blog:

My 7900 is now eight years old. Among the owners I've known of these things, that makes it the oldest still-functioning unit. And that is, I suppose, the reason my last posting was so long ago; there's been nothing to report. The machine is still running, still making gorgeous prints, and still only moderately painful to start up for each print job. Nothing has changed. Some days I can spend 40 minutes or more getting a good nozzle check print. Other days things "just work" such that I wake the printer, run a nozzle check, it's perfect, and I print. I love those days!

I've recently been commissioned to make some prints for a rather odd installation. There's no deadline (yet), and I'll need to do some experimentation with materials to determine what will both "work" and be acceptable to the client. More to come, and I promise the next posting will be sooner, rather than later!

  --Jay

LLK Problem Resolved?

My last two postings here mentioned the problem I've had with the LLK ink channel. To summarize, for several months, going back to the middle of summer (2018), each time I've awakened the 7900 and run a nozzle check the LLK channel's pattern has been partly to completely missing. Nearly every time a simple "standard" cleaning of the Y/LLK pair has cleared the problem and I've been able to print with the usual excellent results. I worried that this might be indicating my printer was nearing the end of its life, now that it's more than seven years old.

Several weeks ago I did an experiment that seemed to solve the problem. I've waited this long to report here so I'd have time to complete a number of print jobs and gain more confidence that the problem really is fixed. I now believe it is.

As mentioned in my last posting, I'd replaced the LLK ink cartridge, which had about 20% of its ink remaining, with a new one; that didn't help. A while back I stumbled across Marrutt USA's Web site and found a section about using "purge files" to clear stubborn clogs (which may or may not really be nozzle clogs). Each purge file is a jpeg of a single color patch corresponding to one of the printer's color channels. I downloaded their files for the 7900, but didn't have an immediate use for them. I revisited their site and found they'd changed the files a bit, making the color patch a bit larger, so I once again grabbed the files.

I then set up by waking the printer and sending the LLK purge file. I did not print a nozzle check prior to this. The file puts a LLK patch in the middle of a sheet of paper (I used plain bond paper). I then ran a nozzle check and it was perfect.

In the weeks since then I've printed a number of jobs both for clients and of my own work. Various papers, various print sizes. As usual prior to each job I've run a nozzle check, and each time LLK has been perfect. There have sometimes been little nits missing from other channels, requiring a cleaning to include that channel. Pretty normal behavior. But LLK has been perfect every time. I can probably remove the question mark from this posting's title!

You can get these files here, and I'm grateful to Marrutt USA for making these available.

  --Jay

It DIdn't Help

The new LLK cartridge I ordered (see the previous posting) arrived and has been installed. I ran a nozzle check and got the expected result, most of the LLK channel missing. I then did the usual standard cleaning of the LLK/Y pair, which as usual fixed the problem. I had one small print to make, did, and it looked great, also as usual.

A week later (yesterday), having four small prints to make, I started up and ran a nozzle check, found LLK mostly absent, cleaned LLK/Y and then got a perfect nozzle check print.

Clearly the new LLK didn't resolve the issue, leading to the obvious conclusion that something in the cartridge-to-nozzles path for that channel is failing. As long as I can get a good nozzle check I'll continue, expecting LLK to need a cleaning any time I want to print. I'll let you know if (when) things change.

  --Jay

Seven Years....

My 7900 is seven years old, as of a couple of days ago. This wouldn't be interesting except it seems seven years is approaching the typical end-of-life for these things. Of the people I know who have had x900 and x980 printers, none has maintained a working machine very much beyond its seventh birthday. The sample size is small, but beyond those few reports, there's ample evidence on various forums that seven years is a pretty good life for these models.

My printer has been inactive lately. My "print studio," the room in which the printer lives and where I do my matting and framing, suffered a water leak back in July, an event about which I wrote for the articles section of my Web site. The article includes a few photos of the damage. Here it is 1 November, and the final part of the restoration, the painting of the repaired ceiling, is just now being completed. I hope to get the last coat of paint on tomorrow.

The printer has been powered down and stored in a clean, dry space while the sheetrock work, with it's "mudding," sanding, and spraying of texture were completed. This weekend I expect to return the 7900 to its place, along with all the other "stuff" that belongs in that room.

I've had a recurring problem with the machine most of the summer: every time I start it and run a nozzle check, more than half, sometimes all, of LLK is missing. Every time but one a standard cleaning of the Y/LLK pair cleared the problem and I then printed as usual. Once when that didn't work, a "powerful" cleaning did. I should mention that at last check LLK was at around 20% capacity, so it's not an issue of low capacity (which I've seen, too).

This sort of thing has happened with other channels, and a new ink cartridge solved the problem. To that end I've ordered a new LLK, which will be here before I'm ready for it. That may resolve the issue. If not, it could be the capping station, or any of the many components between the ink cartridge and the head.

I need to make a couple of prints, which I should be able to do early next week. I'll post here with the results of the new LLK.

  --Jay

The Best Packing Ever

Continuing the story I started on 22 June: For the MAM printing job I started by printing the largest of the images, on a 24-inch roll of EEF. At a final size of 37 inches high X 24 inches wide (94 x 61 cm) the print required careful handling until I could get it packaged for delivery.

Next I made six prints on 11 x 17 inch sheets. That consumed the last of the EEF I had in appropriate sizes, putting the job on hold until I received the 24 x 30 inch sheets I'd ordered a few days earlier.

Most of my orders for paper and ink over the years have been with IT Supplies. They have the papers I prefer, the ink the 7900 uses, and much more. When I compare prices they are always competitive, and often the lowest. Shipping is free for orders over $149 (it had been $99 for a long time, but recently increased when they 'merged' with Atlex, with whom they've shared an address for years). It's pretty hard to place an order for less than that amount, which, at least in my case, means free shipping all the time.

The two boxes of 25 sheets would be large, heavy, and prone to shipping damage. Here in rural Montana, it's rare that a package arrives via UPS or FedEx, the main shippers, in good condition. Without exception the boxes arrive filthy, as if there's some kind of contest to see how cruddy they can make a package. And they often are smashed, with crunched corners, punctures and tears, and broken tape seals. If the corner of a paper box is crunched, you can be sure every single sheet in that box will have damaged corners. I've had to return too many packages to any number of suppliers because of this; the contents simply weren't packaged to accommodate whatever abuse the shipper might inflict. While the vendor has little control over that, I can fault them for embarrassingly bad packaging. The typical practice seems to be to fold and tape the bottom of the box, toss in the product, and then stuff bubble wrap, or a wad of crumpled craft paper, or a few inflated air pillows on top of the product, and then seal the box. This puts the product in direct contact with the bottom and at least one edge of the carton, with protective cushioning only on top at perhaps another edge.

With all of that in mind, I asked IT Supplies (via their ordering Web site) to please, please package the order carefully. I needed the paper right away; there'd be no time to return a damaged shipment and wait for a replacement (which may well be as damaged as the original).

A few days later the delivery arrived in an enormous 39 pound (18 kg) box. Inside I found enough crumpled craft paper to wrap the Golden Gate Bridge, miles of bubble-wrap, and two large boxes of EEF. All of this centered in a double-walled cardboard carton. A note on the packing slip, intended I'm sure for the warehouse crew who packaged the thing, simply said, "Please double-box."

Pictured above is the outer carton against the back of my 2010 Toyota RAV4, just to give you an idea of the scale. The dotted outline is my estimation of the size of the Epson boxes inside the carton. Those boxes looked perfect. IT Supplies did a great job, no doubt burning through much of the profit on this sale just to make sure it arrived here in good condition.  Nicely done, and thank you.

Interestingly, Epson's normally robust product boxes didn't fare so well. The cardboard bumpers that center the pack of paper inside the box were completely smashed, allowing the paper (which is inside a heavy plastic bag) to slide around. The condition of both boxes were identical. They looked perfect on the outside. It's not impossible that this damage happened before my boxes were packaged into the large outer carton, which contained so much packaging that the product should have withstood the worst UPS could do. Whatever the case, the paper was undamaged.

I've now completed the MAM job

(Other than being a long-time happy customer of IT Supplies, I've no affiliation with them, and did not benefit from this posting. I just wanted to pass on a story of what was, in my opinion, impressive customer service.)

  --Jay

Here's What 46 Prints Look Like

For several weeks I've been working on a large job for the Missoula Art Museum (MAM). This is a Big Deal for me, and perhaps my most "prestigious" client so far. While certainly not the Art Institute of Chicago or New York's MOMA, the MAM is quite nice, with one very large gallery, several smaller ones, library and media rooms, and an outstanding curatorial staff that's brought in some spectacular exhibits over the years. In 2017 they added, in cooperation with the City of Missoula, an impressive outdoor art "park" adjacent to the museum.

This job has been in the works for a year, and finally, in May, I received 46 files. The images, made by a Salish Kootenai College photography student, capture and narrate a story of modern Tribal (American Indian) life on and around Montana reservations. Some of the photos are beautiful, some are gritty, one or two are just disturbing. But my job is to make prints, so I'll withhold my opinions and get back to my story.

Part one of the job was to make small proof prints of the entire lot. I used letter-size sheets of Epson luster, in part because it's cheap, and also because luster has a tough, durable surface and would tolerate the handing I expected the prints to receive. They'd be spread out on a large table; the photographer, his teacher, and the museum's senior curator would rearrange, stack, sort, and otherwise cull the lot down to something appropriate to the narration, to fit within the available space for the exhibit, and to stay with their budget for printing and framing.

Everything about the job was routine. There is some time pressure, so I printed over four days. During that time the photographer and his teacher visited here to look at paper choices for the final prints, and I also had some other small client jobs to complete. The printer behaved as I've come to expect: each day's start-up and nozzle-check print revealed some missing nozzles (this aging 7900 is never 100% clean anymore at start-up), some cleaning was done (which, as always, required swapping out some ink cartridges for fuller ones, and usually required multiple channel-pair cleanings as I'd chase missing nozzles around the channels), and then I'd print the day's batch. One small problem: making room for 46 prints! I prefer to let them dry at least 24 hours before stacking them, so I often had a couple of day's prints spread out.

For the picture below, after all were printed, I spread them out on my main studio bench and a couple of temporary tables.

The group met at the college, culled the images, and then called me in to talk about final print sizes. With that sorted, I placed an order for the paper (more on that in another posting), and then did other work while burning off the lead time.

I'll follow-up with another posting or two about making the larger prints.

  --Jay