Pixiq

If you're using an ink jet printer at home to print your lovely photographs do your best to print something at least once a month.

I know what you're thinking: This is just one of those "exercises" that helps you be a better photographer, right?

Well...I'm sure I could easily argue that case.  I could go on and on about the importance of printing your work for yourself, as well as others, to enjoy.   I could mention how looking at a nicely printed photograph and having it framed (matted or not) on your wall will give you a sense of accomplishment that could help give you a boost in creative juice.

I could probably argue that a once monthly schedule of printing photographs on your ink jet printer at home will give you a goal to strive towards and sometimes we just need goals to help us moving in the right direction.

I could argue that printing once a month would force you to work on your workflow and throughput processes.  This would help you tighten up those areas of post processing that may need tightening up or force you to organize and tag your images for easier archiving.

I could probably argue that printing your photographs once a month would also probably give you a finer appreciation for the "art" part of photography and that this process can be meditative or whatever.

I could also argue that printing your photographs more frequently will get you in a solid workflow that will help to alleviate those printing gremlins that like to pop up from time to time.  Yes Virginia, there really are ink vampires!

I could argue all those things.  

But I'm not going to.  Not this time.

I'm telling you to print at least a couple of photographs on your ink jet printer at least once a month to save you time, money, and headaches.

Today, I was going to work on some of my post processing, archiving, and get a couple of prints done on my Epson Stylus R2880 Ink Jet Printer.  I was pretty excited to do all of this because I had purchased a few new frames a little while back and had been meaning to fill them with some of my newest artwork. I've just been pretty busy. You know how it goes.

So I'm ready to print my first test print and there goes my yellowish orange blinking ink light on my printer. It hit me. I hadn't used the printer in almost 3 months! That's pretty much a record for me. I knew exactly what was wrong. One, if not more, of my ink cartridges had become clogged from non-usage.  

So, now I'm having to run the print head cleaning and order a new ink cartridge (of course it was one of the few colors that I didn't have an extra of) and I'll have to wait until that comes in before I can finish my prints.  It's only a couple of days and thankfully I don't have a client waiting on these but it's a lesson I've re-learned.

Rob Sheppard, who wrote the wonderful book New Epson Complete Guide To Digital Printing, recommends printing something at the very least every week or two and turning off the power on your printer when not in use.  Turning off the printer parks the ink cartridges in a specified place that helps keep them from drying out.  Mine was off but 3 months is a very long time to sit idle.

I'm setting a calendar reminder to pop up at me every couple of weeks asking if I've printed  something lately.  I'm hoping this helps prevent this issue from happening again.