A time to print

Every print that I've sold since leaving a wet darkroom environment has been produced by a specialist printer. Some years ago by the inestimable Paul Grundy and for most of the last ten years by Loxley of Glasgow. I've never needed to print beyond admin stuff and whether by luck or skill, Loxley precisely match the images I see on my screen.

However I have become increasingly dissatisfied that I'm not fully au fait with what's going on under the hood. I'm fully aware of all the advantages of seeing the process through to the print and the potential improvements in the initial creative stages by greater familiarity with the output. I'm also aware of the downsides. Significant capital expenditure, high running costs and the added costs of mistakes or second attempts. Ink and paper are expensive and printers like to be used rather than sitting idle. Another piece of the jigsaw is the greater longevity of pigment inks compared with dye.Only pigment inks on fine art paper qualify for the longest life certifications.

Printers that use pigment inks are a whole level up in price from dye based, starting at £5/600 and to get sensible ink prices, we need to be looking at top end desktop models costing £1k+. However these ink cost advantages can disappear if you don't print regularly and preferably at higher volumes.

Given that my main aim was to learn skills rather than establish a print business, it made sense to be cautious with capital and running costs. I did need a printer that would give pleasing prints and ensure that any skills were transferable if the situation arose. At this point various snippets that I'd collected incidentally over time came into play and research began in earnest.

I'd first like to shout out loud the name Fotospeed in case you're not aware of them. They supply an outstanding range of papers which I've been noticing in exhibitions by photographers I admire for some time. Additionally however as a source of information, guidance and support they have been indispensable. Their written material combined with their excellent YouTube videos have made the process so straightforward. They provided some excellent advice leading to my choice of printer, the Canon ip8750. A number of photographers on Twitter have mentioned this model as their starter machine and the reviews from Photo speed helped confirm my choice.

Choice of printer

I considered a number of factors in addition to those mentioned above. I wanted a printer that would give me high quality prints that were pleasing to my eye even under close inspection.
I was looking for something substantially less expensive than the pigment printers.
I wanted at least A3 and preferably A3+ print size.
I decided that only printers where an X-large ink cartridge was available would be suitable. My aim was to keep costs in control while using exclusively original manufacturer inks.

These factors were combined with a slight existing predisposition towards Canon printers that goes back as far as their Bubblejet days. I’d also carefully noted Social Media discussions on printers and asked around for a few opinions. My final port of call for advice was Fotospeed and their outstanding YouTube videos. My choice was the Canon ip8750 A3+ printer and, having made so much use of the Fotospeed website for guidance and support, it seemed only proper to order from them. It arrived safely by Next Day delivery. I also ordered some of their NST Bright White 315 and Platinum Cotton 305 paper to get me going.

Unboxing and setup

No hidden nasties in this part and the printer was quickly on my worktop. My item was lacking any printed English quick setup instructions but the illustrations and a bit of common sense were more than sufficient. As is customary, it was necessary to remove all pieces of orange tape that secured moving parts in transit. Switching on and opening the top cover brought the ink cartridge tray into position and each cartridge was fitted into its colour coded slot.

There are six inks for this printer; Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black and Grey for photo printing. These are all dye based. Finally as second black but a pigment ink principally for text printing. Each one lit up reassuringly confirming the correct insertion. Closing the cover, as is usual, returned the tray to the starting position. There’s no display screen on this printer. I’ve had some super budget models with a display screen to guide you through all setup and maintenance steps but this one has only lights for power, wifi and activity.

The WiFi setup was achieved relatively simply after first connecting by USB. I was surprised when asked for an Admin password for the printer as I’d never encountered this before. A quick search revealed that the Admin password is the printer’s serial number. I was prompted to download the various Canon utilities and driver software. Not being sure what I did and didn’t need at this stage, I accepted all the options but would expect to gradually remove those which prove to be superfluous. I suspect most of these utiliteis will go.

I accepted an offer to align the print heads which didn’t seem to create any noise or activity. It did pronounce that it had completed however.

The final step was to produce a test print which seemed fine.

The final stage of this initial setup before moving on to ordering my custom ICC profiles was to load the generic ICC profile for my newly purchased Fotospeed NST Bright White 315 and immediately fire off a print. The sensible measured approach would of course be to wait for the custom profiles but where’s the fun in that?

Even without the refined custom profiles and for the first print out of a new machine that probably needs a few prints to find its feet, I was delighted.

The next blog post will concern itself with the production of custom ICC profiles ( and an explanation thereof). I’ll also get onto my initial paper choices and resizing for printing. However a final additional mention should be made of the support and guidance available from the Fotospeed website at

https://fotospeed.com/support/

I’ve made extensive use of their written and YouTube material and also their superb eBook - ‘The Art of Printing’. I’d have been wandering around like a headless chicken without them.

I should make the point clearly that I’m documenting learning here rather than demonstrating any level of expertise. I’m taking the steps that ‘seem’ most obvious and at this stage have a very incomplete view of what I don’t yet know. There’s a wealth of videos on YouTube from people who already know what they're doing if you are looking for expert guidance.