I have ordered a Minolta Multi-Scan film scanner. I do nature photography mostly with slides but some negatives and medium format. I currently have Corel Print & Photo house Version 2.0 and an HP660C printer. Once I have scanned a slide say for maximum resolution, First, to get the most out of my super scans, will I need better photo software and ditto on printer?

Thanks DLC

-- Daniel Curtis (dlcurtis@direcpc.com), June 24, 2000

Answers

Most people will say, "Try Adobe Photoshop and look at the Epson ink jet printers." As to how necessary they might be, you'll have to judge for yourself. There are other editing packages on the market that will give you similar tools to work with for considerably less money. Shop around by searching software sections at online retailers and then search for reviews on the programs that you feel you might be interested in trying out. www.zdnet.com has a lot of good reviews, they publish Computer Shopper and a bunch of other Ziff-Davis magazines. You might have a look at Jasc's Paint Shop Pro, a lot of people seem to regard it highly, especially when considering the price is about 1/6 the price of the full version of Photoshop. I'd recommend Corel Photopaint or Ulead PhotoImpact, but when I had them both installed on my PC a few years ago under Win 95 it was the least stable platform I've ever seen. Feel free to take that any way you like. I'd guess MicroSloth and the paint program folks may have been equally culpable.

Before you spend fantastic amounts($5-600) buying Photoshop, have a run at Photoshop LE, it's little brother... It can usually be had for under $100, or found in package deals with scanners, etc. I bought a graphics tablet from KB Gear called a Pablo, and it came with Photoshop LE and a couple of other software packages. It's sold as the Pablo Internet Edition. At $80 it's a very good deal. It has both Serial and USB cabling and works well with PS LE. The corded pen is not as nice as a cordless unit, but for about 1/3 the price of a Wacom or Intuos tablet with an 8"x6" active area it's a steal. Since it's pressure sensitive you can "airbrush" in tones like shadows and the like and it really beats a mouse for touchups. I used it most recently to airbrush out some slip straps that were showing in the neckline of a dress. These were Easter photos and no one has noticed a thing in the finished prints... maybe I should've printed a copy of the original and slipped it in for comparison's sake? :-)

By the way, I've had Epson inkjet printers since the first Epson Stylus Color model came out in late 1994(?). They're very impressive, but you're best off if you keep some ink moving through the print heads on a regular basis. Just run a test print or something that uses all the heads once a week, or so, or run a cleaning. I was so impressed with the photo output of the 4 color 760 that I bought it over a 6 color model. If I did it again though, I might buy an 870 or 1270 for the longevity of the prints, but then again, I just may look at third party archival inks and papers first. I'm not crazy about Epson's new cartridges which pretty much guarantee you must buy your ink ONLY from them!(at least until someone finds a way to refill them or manufacture their own cartridges with a similar ink monitoring memory chip)

Does this smack of a monopoly DOJ? Janet Reno are you listening? ;-)

Good Luck.

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@francomm.com), June 25, 2000.

I think Epson installed the chip on the cartridges for very valid reasons. First it cuts down on the warranty claims from people filling their printers with cheap ink and killing the print head. Why should they replace the printer if you ran junk through it? My understanding is that until now they did that in good faith. Its expensive to foot that bill and its not their responsibility. Also, the active ink levels are a complete blessing as you can remove and replace cartridges at will and not loose the real level indication. I often swap out my 85% empty cartridges with new one when I print 13x19, at least I can then use the cartridge later and keep my ink costs down by accurate metering.

-- Cris Daniels (danfla@gte.net), June 25, 2000.

Cris,

I can see your point, but Epson is pretty uptight about clogged printheads from what I've heard. At any rate that really isn't the issue, the issue is that printer manufacturers have figured out that it's better to sell their printers cheaply(well, sorta?) and charge dearly on the back end for ink. If you can find a way to completely ensure that all the ink for those printers must be bought from you, you now have a nice neat little monopoly! If there is enough profit in the Epson ink industry that good solid 3rd party ink cartridge suppliers can make a profit selling cartrdiges for about a 5th or less of what Epson charges, then Epson is obviously milking the market for all they can get. I'm not saying I blame them for trying to ensure a profit, but a little healthy competition isn't offensive to me either!

There are laws that specifically prohibit manufacturers from specifying that you must only buy consummables from them (Fair Trade Law) in order to keep your warrantee. Does that stop manufacturers from denying in-warrantee service if third party inks are used? If you call a manufacturer and explain that you have a clogged printhead I guarantee the first question the rep will ask is whether you're using third party ink. If you say YES, you can forget about getting any help at all. They won't even investigate the problem unless pressured to do so.

If poorly filtered ink was the biggest problem, a simple set of ultra fine filters installed just below the cartridge or better yet in cartridges would stop that. From what I've seen, Epson's most often plug because of air pockets getting caught in the ink system or head and the ink next to them drying out. It's often caused by refilling cartridges and not waiting for the air trapped in the cartridge to collect near the top of the cartridge or simply letting the cartridge run out and exhausting the ink in the reservoir. The most successful refilling methods use a vacuum to evacuate the cartridge and help refill it or a centrifical system to encourage the ink to displace the air near the ink egress.

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@francomm.com), June 26, 2000.

Well said, Gerald. The full RRP of most Epson cartridges is in excess of 10% of the cost of the printer itself. Yet cartridges for the original Stylus colour are cheaper, and contain at least four times the quantity of ink than for the newer models. I don't think car manufacturers would sell many cars if you could only buy the fuel from them at an inflated price.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), June 27, 2000.

I well understand your point however most people are sloppy refilling and screw things up. Most people are not meticulous or patient. Epson cannot control the quality of aftermarket inks, maybe they need to establish some sort of guidlines but at any rate most aftermarket inks are cheap. Granted epson inks are not expensive but HP and lexmark are the same way, heck you can't even properly refill HP ink since the printhead is part of the cartridge and built to die out after the ink is gone. At least Epson gave you the chance, until too many sloppy people screwed up at least. Also I wonder how many people call epson complaining about print quality with aftermarket inks, I'm sure they got sick of the nonsense. Just put yourself in Epson's shoes for one minute. As far as a monopoly, sure I wish ink was cheaper but the printers are so cheap they have to make the money somewhere and thats the bottom line. Every printer company does the same thing and Epson is THE standard in quality inkjets, go buy an HP if you like, just accept the lesser quality, Epson will still thrive since people are still willing to pay for the quality.

-- Cris Daniels (danfla@gte.net), June 27, 2000.