Advances in Digital Printing

InkJet is becoming one of the most reliable forms of printing in this age of labless digital developing. Some of the advances include Epson's Ultra Chrome K3 ink, which when used with the right paper combination, is said to have an archival life of 200 years. But, if you can't shell out $600 each time you need to refill all 8 pigments, than there's another option for you. Kodak has invented a 100 year archival ink to battle the 15 year inks of most consumer inkjets. To make the deal even sweeter, Kodak sells their inks for HALF the price. ($14.99 vs. $29.99.)

"In fact, all of your 4x6-inch prints will be a lot cheaper with the new inks averaging 10 cents per print. Meanwhile, letter-size black and whites will run about 3 cents per print. The inks themselves will be priced at $9.99 for a cartridge of black ink and $14.99 for a five-color cartridge. Kodak claims this is 50% cheaper than what you'd spend on say an HP, Epson, or Canon ink refill. So we checked out their prices and in all instances, the Kodak ink saves you a pretty decent amount of cash. Whether the quality is as good—that we'll have to see for ourselves, but analysts have said good things so far.

Oh, these printers are fast as hell, too. They'll shoot out your photos at the rate of 22 pages per minute." –Brian Lam of Gizmodo



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BUT WHO NEEDS INK?!

In an article published today on New Scientist Tech, Belle Dumé explores a new kind of photographic printing technology that is completely inkless, tonerless, waxless, etc - with no more cartridges to buy!

"Zink paper is made from a white plastic sheet covered with micro-thin layers containing three types of colour-forming dye crystals – yellow on top, magenta in the middle and cyan on the bottom. The paper is initially colourless, looks and feels like ordinary white photograph paper and is not light sensitive."

In the past, this technology has only been used for monochromatic printing such as receipts printed onto heat sensitive pape, but this new photographic paper can produce millions of colors. This definitely sounds like an intruiging development, but the ultimate question is, what is the archival longevity of a photo which is created through a process that involves heat?

CLICK HERE to read the entire article.