Clear the Decks! Rig For Borders! Evenly-spaced Borders!

We've trundled out a special rack and sign at the front of the shop - you'll see it as soon as you walk in the door. It's a big cardboard dump bin that we are going to refill each week - with something new each time.

We're talking overstock here, and bargains, and combo deals. Good stuff, and the kind of equipment and material that you need, but at a great bargain price. You get 'em courtesy of our new shop fit and the fact that we are running out of space to rack things up. If we sell it we don't have to stack it.

This week's score is 200 sheets of Ilford paper for the price of 100. You buy an A4 box of 100 Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl for $ 85 and we throw in a free box of 100 sheets of the same paper in the 6" x 4" size.

Print big for yourself and then make some postcards to keep the family and friends happy. You win either way as Ilford Smooth Pearl  is one of the best general-purpose inkjet papers made.

Special goes for a week. Don't miss out.

How Do You Go Bust Baking Bread ?

I watched the rise of the franchise boutique bakery here in Perth - the Brumby's and Baker's Delight and such - and applauded it all the way. At least I applauded with the hand that wasn't holding the jam doughnut. They have achieved a success that is richly deserved - because they make a good product that everybody likes and uses. No-one ever complains about jam doughnuts. Jam doughnuts are a standard of the industry.

I would have thought that the Ilford company was in much the same position as the bakeries - and I am speaking about the division of their firm that manufactures paper for inkjet printing. Dance how you wish, their Galerie Smooth Pearl and Smooth Gloss have been the standard of the industry for as long as I have been inkjetting. One thought of them as classic cash cows, wandering through the paper paddocks and yielding profit for the company whenever they were milked...

Such would appear not to be the case. the paper division of Ilford has gone bust. They are casting about in Switzerland looking for a buyer or some other solution to the financial crisis. Out here in the boonies we are gathering all the supplies of the classic papers that we can to ensure that our clients can continue to print. We also hope for a buyer solution, but of course we will also be looking at other brands.

I wonder if they have the same accountant as Eastman Kodak? Or the South Sea Bubble...

Uncle Dick

Shake It Up, Baby

A client last week asked a question about the use-by dates on the inkjet inks cartridges - how come they were there and how much notice should he take of them. As I use Epson printers myself, I could give him an off-the cuff answer. I was wearing a short sleeve shirt at the time.

The inks do age and might make for less-than-perfect printing if they are well beyond the date. Whether it would be particulation or evaporation I cannot say - I just would not use one well past the date.

Remember to shake it up, Baby, when you put a fresh cartridge into the machine.

I would also make sure that some little amount of printing was done each week - even just an A4 sheet of a multicoloured test shot would exercise the machinery and ensure that the ink flow though the heads was normal. Each Epson machine has provision on-board to do ink flow analysis and head cleaning and some of the bigger ones can do a very vigorous cleaning indeed. But it uses up ink and the maintenance tank capacity if you are doing it a lot - better to just print each week and keep the problem at bay.

If you are in the habit of stocking up big be sure to look at the dates on the boxes at home and use up the oldest first.

Oh, and paper. Far as I can see paper doesn't expire but if you store it badly you can get some odd results later on. Keep the flat sheets flat and they will stay...flat.

First Tests On Promaster Paper

We reported the arrival of the new Promaster inkjet printing paper last week. When the place settled down on Friday we cranked two sheets of the Ultra Premium Metallic paper through the shop Epson 3880 to see what it was like.

Metallic paper is a bit of a fooler - you look at the surface straight out of the packet and it looks sort of dull - the silvery sheen can seem  a little grey in normal light. it is an illusion - turn the part to the light source and it flashes back.

So - the image size had to be adjusted in the printing program as these papers are the US Letter size - 8 1/2 by 11 inches. No real problem with Epson as there is a menu section that has all these sizes in a list - pick one and it will know what you want. As an aside, I was amazed that there should be such a variety of sizes all around a general theme...but then I reflected that there were no real sizes standards in the 1830-1890 period and studios just did whatever they thought was right...

Back to the paper. The images chosen were a southwestern water scene in colour and a Singapore cityscape in monochrome. both detailed and contrasty - they needed snap.

The recommendation on the net from Promaster re. Epson printers is that the high-speed option be turned off with this paper. It took about double the time for the printing but both images were delightful. Sharp, contrasty, good blacks and the highlights threw back the silver instantly. Glossy to the max - rather like the flashiest Epson papers.

We will open other sample packets and try other images on different surfaces. As it is, this one looks like a letter-sized winner.

Revolutionary Promaster Paper Here Now

Puff. Puff. Pant. Gasp.

Just stocked the shelves with the new Promaster inkjet and darkroom papers. There are a LOT of new papers there - and a new size as well.

Lett's start with the darkroom paper for analog users. Promaster make packets of Glossy and Luster  paper in 8" x 10" size - there are 25 sheets of paper in each packet. The packets are marked for a new wider range emulsion. The paper is shipped out of Connecticut so it may be Kodak ( but probably isn't ) or Oriental. The packets have been kept plain so be sure you read the label on the bottom - the two types look very similar.

In the inkjet papers there has also been a commendable plainness in packaging but they have put colour coding on the boxes to let you differentiate between fine-art surfaces or materials and plainer photographic paper. The following types are in stock:

1. Glossy
2. Pearl
3. Bright White Cotton
4. Soft Gloss Dual-sided
5. Glossy canvas
6. Metallic

The intriguing thing about these new papers - apart from them being new - is that their size is US Letter. This means that it is 8 1/2" x 11 "......or 215.9 mm x 279.4 mm. I looked into the printing section for my Epson driver and found that it does indeed include this size and the preplanning images can be shuffled about to see where the margins will occur. It will mean a little different proportions for my general work, but not by much. If I elect to shoot my images using a 4/5 ratio it becomes even easier.

Okay - why? Why do we get a different paper size like this when we are generally used to seeing the European A system - A4, A3, A3+ etc. Because there is a large part of North America that does not work in metric measurements. Squeak or sneer about this as you will, but there it is. So they can cut good quality paper at a very competitive price specifically for the market. If your images will fit here, this is a good substrate.

One final note - remember that these papers have 6 sides but you are generally restricted to printing on just one - in the case of the dual-sided glossy you can also do it on the back with equal success.