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Re: [APML] LightJets?



Hi Guys,
 
    Can't resist starting up a little discussion here... I have been in the photo print business for over 30 years... we have completely stopped using photographic media because the latest ink jets blow it away... all my life I was envious of the printing industry because they got to use PRINTER INKS which have much brighter and more saturated colors than what photographic media can produce, and, for example, in red detail, the ink jets seem to produce much more detail than the monotone washouts of photographic media. This becomes apparent in objects like the Rosette... there is no way a photographic print can have the brilliance and color of a print made with printer dyes.
     But how to do this? For years all that existed was piezo technology... slow, micro-banding... it wasn't cutting it. Then last year HP came out with the HP 5000 printers which we were lucky enough to see at Seybold, SF. Every piezo printer at Seybold was banding... HP had five or six of these
5000's there and they were just chugging out one perfect print after another... and fast! Utilizing thermal print heads that have up to 3000 nozzles firing X six colors = 18,000 nozzles firing... I have used this machine for a year now... I have never seen a single case of banding in the photo mode.
    So... to answer a question that was never asked... I would not put aside ink jet... IMHO it will, or already has, made photo prints obsolete.
 
     Sorry if this was a bit OT, but I think it relates to what we do (make prints from our beautiful images) ....I have always been interested in the best way to make custom prints... the new technology surpasses the old.
 
       Have a good one,
 
          Tony