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Output Special Web Paper Print - part 2 of 1 2 3 4 5

by Mike McNamee Published 01/10/2002

All of the machines we tested were improved by bespoke profiling. In general we improved from between 12 -14 Delta E to 6-9 Delta E (the best we did was on a PG4000 at 4.9 delta E Lab). While this is quite a substantial improvement, most users we saw had achieved output that they were delighted with by adjusting the colour manually. The only weakness in the PG technology seems to be the yellows. This leads to the highest errors generally being present in the yellow-greens, yellows and oranges. This is a relative error though and is more a comment on the statistics than the visual perception. When the latest and most sophisticated colour differencing equations were used the statistics on the yellows dropped back into the pack. The blues from the PG's can be printed particularly intense when called upon. The overall colour error of the PG's is comparable to an Epson 2100 but not quite as good as the result we achieved with the Epson 950 (onto Permajet papers). However the metamerism index of the PG is spectacularly low being out of the range of human perception even when moving from Daylight to Candlelight (it was 0.3 Delta E Lab for the record).

This is one of the penalties you have to accept from pigmented inkjet output and is a contributory factor to the general preference shown by experienced observers when comparing PG output and inkjet output.

The New Printer Driver One of the slightly annoying features of the older PG's was the need to "Export" a file for printing from Photoshop, rather then having a dialogue box available. The printer drivers have been substantially revamped and are available as an upgrade. Existing users should take note - the improvements are well worth the effort of getting hold of the files and installing them. The new interface works like a conventional printer interface (e.g. an Epson Inkjet) and has additional controls for colour management and image adjustment. The software is backwards compatible with older machines.

Cost Benefit Analysis

At first glance the PG's seem expensive (£4995 for the 3500 and £9995 for the 4000II). However a cost benefit analysis soon reveals that they can quite quickly pay for themselves in a full time business. Wedding photographer Damian Lovegrove explains in the Fuji literature that his business prints 20 off 18"x12" prints per wedding at a unit cost of £3.00 per sheet saving them £120 per wedding and £4800 per year. Our calculations confirm that the print costs are £1.54 per A4 and £3.01 per A3. What this cost calculation does not show is the saving in time. Other wedding photographers have claimed to save a full "person year" as a result of installing the Pictrography and the resulting increase in workflow speed.

If you compare the PG to an inkjet output it is something like 25 times quicker and once loaded it can be safely left to run itself. All it needs to be fed with is distilled water!

Typical photo lease arrangements will give you outgoings of £45 per week for the 33 months for a PG3500 or around £90 per week for a PG4000II. Such figures might be scary to a week ends only semi-professional but as soon as you get beyond 40 weddings per year you are into the territory where you could afford one of these. Collaborate with a few colleagues (or buy it yourself and charge them!) and you should be able to develop enough income to set yourself up and get a return on your investment in under 3 years.

There is a certain mystique about web sites that leads many people to shun them. This is unfortunate as they can be a very good selling tool, especially for an industry like ours, which has a high visual content. The inner workings of a web site are so well hidden that many people will be surprised to learn that you can build a web site with nothing more than a few images and a working copy of "Notepad", the freebie typing program that comes with Windows. Indeed, when your Editor attended the Liverpool University one day course on web design we all had 4-page, working web sites by lunch time on day 1 and we never used any software other than the typing program!

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Contact Mike McNamee

1st Published 01/10/2002
last update 09/12/2022 14:57:20

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