Digital BW, The Print

I think it's obvious that not many people would pay for this. What I am suggesting is that the kind of scale and volume these companies are primarily interested in, is not even remotely appropriate for the "fine art printing market". There are countless examples of companies servicing and evolving a niche market, highly specialized.
Our perspective about the costs of producing truly high end fine art has skewed a bit over time, we always needed good equipment. Before someone tells me they only paid $250 for their little Omega enlarger... aside from the countless other costs that add to that, let's just toss in the cost of an entire room, light tight, ventilated and plumbed. Many amateur enthusiasts accepted those costs, now we ponder spending more than an office desktop may throw product viability out the window. I'll quickly add before anyone jumps up that the affordability of photography now is a good and happy thing...
One interesting side note about QTR, surely it's existence and performance has resulted in more people staying with OEM inks for their B&W than switching to specialty inks as it increased user control and stepped up B&W quality. Even though it's a great tool for people needing a customizable mono in- multi ink out driver, I'd bet the highest percentage of QTR users are OEM ink users. Some of whom otherwise may have looked for other ink solutions. You'd think Epson would be sending Roy fruit baskets. My guess is that, like the Ergosoft situation, they might happily supply support for QTR on the condition of turning off partitioning for more than 3 blacks.
I don't know what the price would be for the mystery printer, I do know there are those that would pay it, it's also obvious the large multinationals we currently deal with have no interest in that small scale. I can't image they ever will, any solution in the future will probably come from somewhere else, in a better economy.
Tyler

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Blaine" <becavena@...> wrote:
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> If the fine art printing market is large enough perhaps a manufacturer could see an opportunity through licensing code (so QTR could support the new Epsons), selling "reusable" carts with different chips (at a much higher price), or some other approach that would allow them to get the return on their investment they normally get from ink while providing options to the fine art printer.
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> The down side is that this would significantly increase the cost of software solutions (like QTR) or significantly increase the cost of chips (or however else it's done).  And the manufacturer would need to have adequate confidence that misuse of their flexibility would be limited.
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> Or they could just increase, dramatically, the cost of their professional printers.
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> The question is how many people would pay for this -- is the market big enough to make it worth the effort by the manufacturer? Right now the manufacturers seem to be saying "no."
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> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "tboleyyh" <tyler@> wrote:
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> > Yes, that's exactly right. On the other hand, for niche shops producing museum and gallery work, or successful individual artists doing their own printing, many might accept the price, but it would probably require something larger and more robust then the smaller desktops.
> > The main point though, to me, is that the fine art photography community is now held hostage by the office machine marketplace. Sure Epson, Canon, and HP focus their efforts on us to some degree, but not primarily.
> > The tools available to us before inkjet and digital were developed by, and for, photographers over centuries, literally. So our needs including a variety of options were met by a marketplace focused primarily on us. The printer we imagine... I suspect it would have found it's way to the marketplace somehow, at some price, because someone in tune with the photography community and it's needs primarily saw it as an opportunity instead of a burden.
> > On the other hand, a 38xx, with a CIS and some of the great mono inkets we have now, pretty hot setup. But who knows how long solutions like that can remain available without at the least, software support.
> > Tyler
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> > 
> > --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Kip Babington <cbabing3@> wrote:
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> > > It's my understanding that you can't make such a printer for a price 
> > > that most people would be willing to pay.  The "model" that printer 
> > > makers seem to use (at least for consumer level versions) is that the 
> > > printer is sold at or below cost, and profit will be recouped by most 
> > > printer buyers also buying high-profit ink over time.  If a manufacturer 
> > > had to make enough profit on the printer alone to support R&D, 
> > > manufacturing and distributing the selling price would be a multiple of 
> > > the current selling price, and the lower the volume the higher the 
> > > multiple would have to be.  Do you think as many people would buy a C88 
> > > at $200 as now pay $100, just because the inks would be cheaper?  If 
> > > only half as many bought, the price might have to be $250 or $300.  (I'm 
> > > making these numbers up, but the principle holds.)
> > > 
> > > I don't like dealing with chipped cartridges or the hassles of third 
> > > party inks, either, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to afford two 
> > > dedicated B&W printers (I have C88s) if they were priced to include the 
> > > full profit Epson expects now on the printer plus probable ink sales.
> > > 
> > > john wrote:
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> > > > First company that makes a solid, well built inkjet printer with good 
> > > > heads and no retarded chips to control our lives is going to have a 
> > > > good business. You know, one that you can put any ink or paper in and 
> > > > it won't spit at you.
> > > >
> > > 
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