Hi Tina
What do you mean by digital giclee prints? I think
someone else asked about this. You might want to reply
on list.
Thanks
Colin
Hi Colin!
Giclee is a "fancy" term used to describe photographic inkjet
prints. They were originally produced on Iris proof printers which
cost $20,000.0 plus. Over the past few years Epson has come out with
a number of printers capable of making real photo quality prints on
a wide variety of artist papers such as watercolour. The problem
with Epson is that their inks are not very archival at all. However
many third party companies producing archival ink for both colour
and black and white work soon appeared, and people started filling
their own cartridges with the archival ink. The printers range from
desktop 8 1/2 x 11 in size up to the epson 9000 which can produce
prints about 40" wide and any length. The latest wrinkle is that the
newest epson printers have a digital chip in the cartridge to
prevent third party non epson ink cartridges from being used. No one
is happy about this, and it remains to be seen if Yankee ingenuity
can get around it!
It looks like Brit ingenuity might do the trick! See:
http://www.alogic.co.uk/ILRS.htm
The reviews of epson's latest effort to produce an archival
ink/paper combination are mixed. It also gets quite expensive if one
cannot refill or use a continuous bulk ink system feed.
Continuous flow systems are now available for a wide range of Epson
printers and are quite affordable ($60-125). Archival color and
quadtone inks are also available. I just got a continuous flow
system with four 4-ounce ink bottles -- an incredible amount of ink
compared to Epsons cartridges. The 16 ounces of ink cost $58. I
cannot imagine how many Epson cartridges I would go through to equal
that.
I was able to get a new Epson 860 printer for $80 (www.outpost.com).
Small format (8.5x11"), but the price was right. (The 1160 13x19"
printer is now $299.) Continuous flow quadtone system with ink was
$120. Both the 860 and 1160 were highly recommended for B&W work.
For color, six-tone printers seem to be the preferred route.
I got my CFS from http://www.inksupply.com/.
Other options are:
http://www.tssphoto.com/sp/dg/
http://www.inkjetmall.com/
Lots of good inf at each site.
Tom
