The shocking truth about modern inkjet printers. How to get the best from your printer.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- Yes, modern printers have a secret - they are excellent, and if you can't get great prints, it's your fault. Why this isn't a problem!
Looking at first steps with a new inkjet printer, profiles, paper choices, what to print and what software to print with for Canon and Epson printers.
Covering dozens of printer reviews, all indexed via
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All my free test images are at:
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For a full categorised index of all my videos, see:
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I worked as a professional offset printer for 10 years and you are spot on Keith! One has to understand what you see, really understand it, and use the tools that help you. Screen calibration, screen to bright = print to dark = way to much ink, understanding colour profiles and going from raw to jpg or should I use TIFF, all these things together determine wether your print comes out fine or regular. I got my Epson ET 8550 and R3000 just a couple of months ago and I learned a lot from you Keith, I enjoy the process of learning to know what I see again, and seeing the effects of correcting these errors. Thank you Keith for your splendid videos, I really enjoy what I learn from you!
Thanks - that really good to know!
@@KeithCooper Thanks you Keith, you mentioned something about questions, here I have some things I don't understand: I shoot always in raw, then convert to tiff to print, RGB with the prophoto colour profile, 360 dpi and 16 bit. (Recently I use more and more lightroom, used to use photoshop and DXO.) Then after saving the file I open it in Photoshop I convert to the profile I need and go from 16 bit to 8 bit since I noticed a more accurate color matching screen to print doing that, what I do not understand is, do I convert to CMYK first, in Lightroom, or whatever or leave it in RGB as recommended ? I mean, printer is CMYK always so that should be the most natural thing to do?
And another question is about DPI- Both of my printers are 5.760 x 1.440 dpi, that being said that I prepair my print files in 360 DPI, so what is this resolution of my printer stand for?
Thx a million Keith, If you made allready videos on these subjects please share the link, have a blessed evening!
@@fransschmitz2628 Don't go anywhere near CMYK - leave that in your commercial past. inkjet printers are not CMYK devices - they are characterised as RGB and profiled accordingly
Why are you converting files? 16 to 8 is not something I'd normally do, and there's normally no need to do any profile conversion anywhere either
See my video about why dpi is not ppi ;-)
See also my main index of videos at
www.northlight-images.co.uk/keith-cooper-photography-videos-index/
@@KeithCooper Thx for the homework Keith I will see the video right away! Back in the 80's when I worked as a printer we used to mix the colors according to the Pantone system, no CMYK involved there. As for the 16 to 8 bit conversion, the colors look more natural to me, perhaps I should do some more testing? Thx for the answer!
@@KeithCooper Hi Keith, I have been doing some testing (as I am fairely new to printing with inkjet printers) on the 16 bit to 8 bit conversion. Also did watch some videos about the issue and than proceeded with printing 16 bits with the recommended color profile from Hahnemüle for my Epson R3000.... Result: Marvelous!! when I converted the files to 8 bit The prints came out extremely dark, over saturated even using the recommended Hahnemühle profiles. So what I do now is prepare my prints in lightroom classic, export next in tiff 16 bits with the correct color profile and than print it with Epson print layout with the correct settings there as well. So I was doing everything utterly wrong up till now and thanx to your comment on the 16 to 8 conversion I did do some further testing and I am very happy I did!
Thx a million Keith, your videos really make a difference!
I appreciate your contributions to the printing community. Your experience and wisdom is invaluable and very helpful to fledgling artists aiming to do their own printing.
My pleasure! - glad it's of interest.
Haha, love how you're getting into the TH-cam 'vibe' and using punchy hook click bait titles!
keep up the great work Keith, good to see your subscriptions increasing!
Thanks - it genuinely took some effort to do this ;-)
I don't want it to become a regular feature though!
I agree with you, "modern printers have a secret-they are excellent, & If you can't get great prints, it's your fault". Good advice, 😎
Thanks
Your written reviews are great thanks
Thanks - that's appreciated!
You taught me how to use my Epson 8500. A little of this is repetitive for me because I watched the others a dozen times. Still watching tho! Never know what I can learn from you Keith! You are a gem!
Thanks. Glad to have helped - it's taken a while for me to truly appreciate that YT has 'no history' - when I write an article I link to it and reference it for years, but YT is at heart far too ephemeral for my liking.
Nevertheless, the guy from Canon was right and people do watch it... ;-)
@@KeithCooper Oh I don’t know. I use TH-cam to look up older videos of interest, both new to me and repeats regularly. I try and save anything I think useful and/or interesting to playlist folders on TH-cam.
For searching for specific things, it’s most important that the author gives video titles great thought and care to include key words about the content so that a search by the potential viewer is bound to find content of relevance.
@@hedydd2 YT itself provides virtually no help in this aspect
It's why I decided to build a proper categorised index for all my videos
www.northlight-images.co.uk/keith-cooper-photography-videos-index/
Wonderful video, as usual, but you sure don't make it easy for me to not spend some money on my own printer. I think I have settled on, if I buy, to get one of the 2 you have here, and as soon as I do, a replacement for it will come along.
Thanks - The PRO-200 is probably the least likely to be updated in the next year or so - Canon keep these models going for a while...
@@KeithCooper Then I should get the Epson, so that all those a week after me can wait on the new model they would announce... And it wouldn't be right to have a Nikon camera (with a Fuji too) and print Nikon images on a Canon. That is an argument waiting to happen. :-)
My Canon 200 along with good paper (and good ink Canon semi gloss or Canson Baryta) give me good enough prints to sell. Yes, I useCanon or Canson profiles. I had a largish job (160 6x9 prints) that required very 'toothy " paper to have artists hand tint, I went to Red River and used there profiles.. The best prints I ever made were on Epson pigment based printers with Hanemule hi rag content. The printer was too expensive. The Ink was too expensive. Unless use daily, the ink cartridges would clog and i would hav eto replace them
Yes, the 200 is a good printer for some applications
I’m happy with my p800
Yes a fine printer - I did a detailed review when it first came out.
I use a shiny paper for photographs.
Fair enough - whatever you like, there is no requirement to use any specific paper type.
Excxellent advice!
Thanks!
I’m new to your channel what about printing on canvas?
Ah... What about it?
I do include examples of printing on canvas in most of my printer reviews. It's no different to printing on a photo paper - you just need the right profiles. Smaller printers may need sheets cutting from a roll.
The handling of it after printing requires framing/mounting skills, but the basic printing is not really much different to printing a photo on a photo paper
@@KeithCooper thank you I’ve been in the image making business for 40 years. 90% of the time the canvas prints I require are between 1 and 2 m so I usually farm them out to a lab. I should’ve been a bit more specific in my question as far as the archival qualities are concerned.
Archival is a term rarely applied to most canvas printing, it does very much tend to be influenced by cost and a commoditised approach [read 'cheap' ;-) ]
For higher end printing I'd be looking at a printer more like the P7500 and custom profiling
See here for example:
www.northlight-images.co.uk/epson-surecolor-p7500-printer-review/ [or P9500 for wider]
For media, I've used ones from the Innova range - but that depends where you are.
A good museum grade varnish will definitely help too
Glad I left ink jet junk with it cartridges' problems of not using it weekly behind and went laser and stopped giving the printer companies all that money If I want a real photo use a DNP PHOTO PRINTER of a Canon Selphy they use the DYE SUB process printers
It seems definitions of 'real' vary widely...
Wow..........
I still use a three year old £35 Canon TS3150 All-in-One scanner printer for the occasional 7x5 print as well as documentation and it's fine. Sometimes go a couple of months without using it but it fires up every time.
Scan quality 600x1200 is "ok" for standard use but I recently purchased an Epson V600 6400x9600 scanner and I just love it.
Copes beautifully with prints, negatives and slides so it's great for all of my late father's 1940's negatives as well as black and white photos.
Purely amateur work but delighted to see old photographs come back to life after scanning.
Also use Photoshop Elements 2024 which is enough for our family requirements.
Yes - find what works.
One reason I rarely ever make direct recommendations, since it's always "it depends"
Wow, I'm so glad I found this Keith, thank you. I've watched quite a few of your videos this week in the search for my first photo printer and was getting confused and bogged down by not knowing anything about profiles and how to apply them. I'm now planning to start with the Canon G650 (having seen and read your reviews and opted for A4 max and refillable inks) with Canon papers and see how my knowledge and experience grows.
Thanks - Glad it was helpful!
I’ve brought one on your brilliant knowledge
Hope it goes well!
Keith, how do you connect your printers to your computer? Wifi? USB? Ethernet?
My Canon PRO-100 is connected to my desktop with wifi. The printer produces good prints, but I wonder about the hesitant/halting paper feed. It advances about 1/8", pauses a fraction of a second, and repeats. Do you see that?
It varies - my own personal printers are all on Ethernet
These days, I usually test printers on WiFi - the PRO-100 was a printer I reviewed many years ago - quite possibly on USB
Hello Keith, thank you for this information. I have been struggling with an Epson Stylus Pro 9000 for years, I love to do large prints. I am really pleased to hear the Epson 8550 is good as I also love their ink tank system. Do you know of any large scale printers (24" plus) that don't cost the earth in ink? It's such an obvious gap in the market to me at least.
Ah - a gap which no-one is in a hurry to fill.
At the much more expensive end, Epson are moving to ink in bags [P20500 for example] but I don't see this or fillable tanks in 17/24/44" for a while
This clickbait is, I think, some jokr for your readers and viewers. I knew what you wanted do say to clarify it before i clicked, but can imagine how surprised could be a new person.
About ICC profiles - beware. Not all profiles provided by paper or ink manufacturer/supplier are worth much. I bought two rolls of papers, and the profiles from manufacturer worked like they got random profile from the net and described as a profile for the paper they sell. Muddy faces, greenish grays. What?! Paper itself is one of good renown brands, my printer used properly, gives expected results. But not this time. So, sometimes, if you know your printer is good (thanks to mr. Cooper for clarifying that all modern are) and you know your paper is good (not random cheap one), but you still get results that even random person see bad, try to custom profile the paper. Get Color checker or let some company do it for you. You may save a lot of frustration, money and badly printed images.
Yes - someone I've known for years challenged me to do it with the title to see ;-)
Yes - icc profiles can be wrong - I've come across it on rare occasions even from reputable paper suppliers. In general, it's why I only ever suggest a few paper suppliers I know and have dealt with.
I always learn something from you. Now I know I’m wasting my time with soft proofing 😂. I’m still very very new to printing and I frequently struggle, especially with magenta/green tones compared to what I see on my monitor. I even share it to my phone and iPad to see if I can see a shift before printing to try and limit waste. Hopefully one day I’ll get a system going and waste less prints. I went with the Canon Pro 200. I’ve been away from your channel for a couple months because your videos haven’t been popping up on my feed and getting things sorted for my 4 year olds 1st summer vacation….but I’m now trying to catch up on all the videos I’ve missed 😃
Thanks for sharing all your knowledge.
Addition to my comment because I heard your talk about printing from your phone… 95% of the time I do print from my computer and I’m just using my iPhone and iPad to see if I can catch anything.
Also, my computer monitor is a Ben Q 4K… Unknown model at this time but when I purchased it I made sure to look for colour accuracy with a decent delta (I think that’s what it’s called) over other “specialty” specs, for “gaming monitors“.
Thanks - Whilst I might have a go at print quality from phones, it's important to know that I'm coming to that very much from a print quality POV. That means that for a lot of people it simply won't matter - producing a load of 6x4's from an event is a social thing, not a 'fine art' one ;-)
The key to accuracy is often paper profiles - that and testing your setup with a known good test image rather than one of your own, so you can see where the problems lie.
I bought a ET8550 on the back of your review and cross referencing others. The beauty of the 8550 is negligible print cost. As a beginner and taking your lead, I found test, test and test is the key to producing beautiful prints. I have created a gallery in my home which I love to look at bc the prints are so pleasing. I find in LR i need to boost the brightness in the printer module by 32% in some cases if printing from my Pentax K1. When printing from my Fujifilm X100t (raw) there's less adjustment to make. Currently I'm on a PS course which is expanding my PS knowledge no end. For me the trick is to use paper like permajet with profiles already available for the 8550. It's a little dearer but cheaper than buying a specrometer I might use rarely.
Thanks - glad to have helped with that!
arrested, laddy!
Keith, you are a darned fine master of taking the breadth and depth of your knowledge and experience, then refining 'the message' to the real core bits, and producing smooth and enjoyable videos, let's say: "enjoyably consumed, easily digestible, but chock-full of the necessary nutrients!" 😄
All the best from the 🇨🇦 🐻❄️ in 🇩🇪
Thanks!
Printing through Lightroom on my 8550 on (great) Fotospeed paper with their supplied profiles, getting the desired results. Thanks for the helpful videos over the years Kieth.
Great to hear! I do like that printer...
Totally agree Keith, I have a Pro200 & doesn't matter what I edit the photo in I always use the Canon Professional Print & Layout, superb piece of free software!
Yes - it's partly why I often show its use in my testing.
Appreciate your input Keith. I'd never heard of paper profiles until watching you. Wouldn't print without them now.
Thanks!
As usual concise and to the point. he most known secret to improve our results is improve ourself. Modern western people seek for revolutions, but in my opinion the Japanese Kaizen concept is the key, continuos learning and improving, small steps every day. With a few small revolutions here and there ... avoiding big mistakes. That's all.
Thanks!
@@KeithCooper And, of course, last but not least, looking at videos like those of Keith, very important for a B&W laser addicted
Great video as usual. And yes, shocking that all printers are good. I recently retired my Epson 4880 and went with a P706. Can’t tell the difference in print quality to be honest. A good printer is a good printer 👌🏼. I do miss the large prints, but I just don’t sell many prints over A3 these days. Like you say, buy what suites you. Keep the videos coming, always enjoy your content 👍🏼👍🏼
Thanks - glad it was of interest.
Thanks Keith for the practical advice, you never fail to please
Thanks!
I traded in my Epson 4880 and a wet darkroom for a Canon Pro-1000. I couldn't be happier. No more color casts, gummed-up printer heads and fighting with the infeed slot. No more spotting prints or negatives, either.
Everything you said makes perfect sense.
Printers are great nowadays, just match one up with a good paper and learn how to fully use that paper and that ink before changing anything. It's amazing when you've got most of your workflow plugged in and know what to expect, or how to change it when needed.
Thanks - The 1000 is a good solid printer
Keith; Question about the large format pigment printers... (I learned most of the good/bad from your videos). Regarding the concept that the large printers really "want to be used regularly" or their could be maintenance issues down the road....would you think with a printer like the canon PRO-2600, that if a 24 x 36" print was made, say, once a week, that that would be frequent enough to keep it happy and free flowing? Or would you feel better if several of those prints were made in a week?
Thank you, Steve
A nozzle check on a sheet of A3 plain paper would suffice ;-)
[I have not tested if the 2600 will do this, but the older pro-2000 did]
👍🏾🙏🏾. 🏴🇸🇪🇹🇹
i don't know if you done this but how do you price prints?
Depends on the market and size of the print
See this category of videos in my index [I have addressed the issue several times]
www.northlight-images.co.uk/keith-cooper-photography-videos-index/#pb2
@@KeithCooper I will be becoming an photographer, I will mainly be in landscape and wildlife photography and expand to do astrography as well
Pricing is well down your to-do list then
Know your market first. Without that, pricing is no more than guesswork
See the videos I've produced covering all of this - via the link above
@@KeithCooper Will do, I watch them when I get a chance, I thought to ask you here incase you didn't do it yet but you did anyway
Useful video, and well presented, thanks. One comment, if I may...It's not just printing from a PC (or Mac) versus a phone or tablet. The application used can also make a huge difference to the resultant output, even when the same printer options are selected. For example, Windows Photo Viewer is an easy option, but it's poor compared to Photoshop. To some, that will be stating the obvious, but it was a surprise to me when I noticed the differences a few months ago. (Source was generally PNG, 16 bits per colour RGB, at around 250 dpi, if it's pertinent.)
Thanks - this is why I always mention the free Epson Print Layout and Canon PPL software as well.
Yes there are a multitude of ways of getting poor prints ;-)
Keith, I like your advice about keeping it simple! That’s what I do. I calibrate my monitor. I use the paper manufacturers ICC profile for the particular paper and my printer. I print from Lightroom Classic, and that’s pretty much it for the technical stuff. From there on out, I’m just using my on artistic experience and sensibilities to produce prints that I like. I’m mostly printing in monochrome, and feel that I very good control of the results that I’m getting.
Thanks - glad it's woking for you!
I am a photographer looking to make the jump to printing my own images. Selecting a printer has been a bit of a nightmare as I cannot afford the top end but how low can I go?
You answered that question clearly. Thanks for the help!
Glad to help!
I've got the Epson P900 and have been very happy with prints I've been getting (not perfect, so still tweaking them). The last time I was printing regularly, I was using Cibachrome, and I've fallen in love with prints all over again. The biggest problem I have with the printer is getting the ink when I need them. I use Red River paper exclusively.
Good choices
Sound advice as ever. Very happy with my Pro-200 and the results using the Canon software but printing from Lightroom is a different story. The only problem I have with profiles is remembering which one goes with which paper (I mostly use Ilford). Y
Thanks
I'm so happy to find you. After two years of complete frustration trying to print my paintings from Procreate I have found the secret. The Printer! I going to study your information.
Glad it's of interest!
I use 20+ year old Adobe Photoshop v5.5 on an old i5 laptop and print on an Canon ip6870 printer. I get amazing results.
Indeed - requirements differ widely ;-)
I still have a virtual Mac running some 1996 typography software, which gets fired up because it does one thing I want, so well...
I have had print failures over the years. A few (Epson Artisan 1430) had banding I could never solve - save by buying a new printer. My "office" is not lit very well so my final test is to take the print to a well lit part of the house or outside and inspect it (I have an inspection light now - but the final test is to move to better lighting). I must be getting some skills now as my failure rate has decreased. It has also helped to have two monitors: one for editing and printing, one for youtube. :^D
Yes - an editing monitor, can look very dull in 'normal' use...
Congratulations on your tutorials! I wanted some information, I print my photos with an Epson Sc P 900, and I print the black and white with the ABW printer driver with the RGB color mode, I had a doubt do I do it right, or is it better if I first print the photo I convert to grayscale method? Can it also be useful to create ICC profiles for black and white printing? Thank you!
ABW is best on the P900 for most media.
For myself the greyscale conversion should be done elsewhere - there is no control over the method/results if just done in ABW
icc profiles rarely work well for this - partly because the makers of profiling software have put no great effort into optimising icc profiles for B&W use
See here for much more [P700 & P900]:
www.northlight-images.co.uk/black-and-white-printing-with-the-p700/
Tanks!!
Convert your images to BW in some software like LR/Darktable/Rawtherapee or Photoshop/Gimp. See some videos about BW conversion.
ABW, though it's fantastic tool for printing images that are already BW, is a bad choice for conversion, as it only sets saturation to zero. It's a good and safe behavior for what this program is intended but nothing more.
Also - try to take ypur pictures with BW as a goal. Of course physically they are color but the content will work in BW better than converting the pictures taken with color in mind.
I have a whole section of my web site devoted to all aspects of 'digital B&W' such as conversion and workflow
www.northlight-images.co.uk/digital-black-and-white-photography/
Are the Claria inks in the Epson 8550 the same formula as in the Epson XP15000?
I don't actually know for sure - this is something I'd ask on the printing forum at DPReview.com or more likely www.printerknowledge.com
When they sell printer for $50 and its ink for $65, it all make sense who knew the game well.
Indeed...
Always thought of getting one of these Epson printers but haven't all because of I can't get a good quality matte paper. Will a good printer print beautiful picture on a cheap paper?🤔
Maybe - but where are you going to get the icc profile for the paper?
Cheap paper can be cheap in many different ways...
Been a subscriber for awhile. THANK YOU for the videos.
Thanks - that's much appreciated
What makes printing in black and white tricky compared to colour? In computer displays, they would be way simpler if they were black and white… why not with printing too? Might make for a very interesting video
It's because our eyes are incredibly sensitive to minor colour casts.
Printing black is one thing, but greys are a mix of colours balanced to be near neutral.
There are ways round it, but it comes down to the difficulty of printing lots of different greys
Thanks for the suggestion - added to the list
@@KeithCooper ahhh! This makes sense. You sent me your profiles for the 8550 and Epson papers a while ago and I found the colours were mostly the same, but black and white prints came out far more neutral with your profiles than Epson’s profiles which seemed to have a brown colour cast to them. I guess I just assumed that printing black and white would use just the grey and black inks. This makes me wonder… what would a black and white print look like with the colour inks disabled?
Grainy - there used to be a BO or black only mode in some drivers. Also a bit like trying to do B&W photos on a laser printer.
I'm still trying to get the people who create the profiling software to treat B&W as a serious option, and the printer makers to give more flexibility to their B&W print options [i.e. ABW for Epson]
@@KeithCooper just read up on that… seems interesting! A very good topic for a video I think. I’m surprised how good the B&W prints I can get from the 8550 are
great video keith,straight to the point as usual 👍
Thanks 👍
Got a Canon pro200 yes make good prints
Yes, a good printer
thank you So much for your talks 🙏🏻
Thanks
It's like blaming the camera for bad pictures.
Exactly ;-)
I’ve such a camera too 😮😉
Another good video Keith
Thanks!
Hello, please help me with the ink refilling my new printer Epson Ecotank L8050 printer (it's great by the way). Do I must after every ink refill to make ink reset, even iff I didn't fill the printer to the top, or I must do this only afte first ink refill?
As long as you appreciate that the printer has no way of actually knowing the levels, and keep an eye on them, it's fine. If you do fully fill a tank it's worthwhile setting it as 'full'
@@KeithCooper Aa, ok. Thanks for the advice. I will keep that in mind. Cheers!
@@KeithCooper Hello, I have one more question iff You can answer to me please... My prints are somewhat darker from printing in Photoshop. But only darker areas are affected. Lighter areas are fine. I have a pro Dell monitor calibrated with Xrite I1 Display Pro device. True, I have Canon Glossy Photo paper. I bought 100 sheets for old Canon printer so I must consume it all. But I have ICC preset from printer Epson Photo Glossy which should be simmilar 200g paper...
@@VedranKlemen wrong profile - would be my first thought. There is no such thing as 'should be similar' ;-)
Test though with a known test image - never images of your own - see my written review for detail.
A question I've never seen addressed is, if using a Canon printer with a Canon camera file, would it print more like the camera screen shows? I don't mean direct jpeg from camera, I mean after computer processing to maybe crop or correct horizon, simple stuff like that. I've always suspected that a competitors file from a non Canon camera would perhaps get handled differently and appear different to what one may be expecting.
If you use Canon's DPP software and printing software, it did offer some 'improvements'
However, I always found it so awkward to use that any benefits were completely lost ;-)
@@KeithCooper and no doubt now AI is going to be applied, in the background to a greater or lesser unknown extent, I expect the academic output of printers will become harder and harder to define, beyond, as you say, very good / excellent.
question, I bought a second hand laser Brother Printer. Can I print Photo with it? I tried and I failed so far
Depends on the sort, but most unlikely - they are optimised for document printing.
13:07 "look at your own photography". Reading something online, it said to use AdobeRGB camera setting to print shots (vs screen viewing). Well, huh, I did see it in the menu of my camera when I got it but I thought it sounded software related so left it in sRGB. So...is there software that can 'emulate' AdobeRGB from sRGB? I'm now shooting in AdobeRGB altho still not yet printing anything. Bit of a blow to find out I've taken all my shots on the wrong setting.
The colour space setting on cameras only applies to jpegs - if you shoot RAW, you get to choose what you want when processing
@@KeithCooper Oh blimey! Anotther thing I didn't know. Told you I'd not forgotten to look at your reply! Might go back to RGB as they looked bettr on the camera screen.