[Gloucs] Printer, scanner and All-in-one's

Tue Feb 15 16:40:41 UTC 2011

Our Epson 7600 has 7 colours - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black, Light Cyan, 
Light Magenta (light yellow isn't necessary as yellow is perceived as 
light anyway)... and the final colour is described as "Light Black"!  I 
suspect that that is what you've got too as your fifth cartridge.  It is 
essentially gray, but having black and gray gives a wider range of 
shades of black than just having a single black cartridge.

Most printers - even fine art printers like the Epson wide-format 
printers - are sRGB devices, so they map RGB values into the CMYK colour 
space (black is represented as K to differentiate it from B for Blue in 
RGB colour space).  Colour management is quite a complex subject (my 
wife does fine art printing for artists and galleries).  Unfortunately 
colour management in Linux is only now starting to catch up with Windows 
and Macs.

It amazes me how well consumer photo printers perform, although the cost 
of inks astounds me.  Most consumer-grade printers use 15 to 20 ml 
cartridges, which can cost about £25.  The professional quality inks we 
use come in 200 ml cartridges costing about £60 each.  Go do the maths!

Andrew

On 15/02/11 16:06, Ernie wrote:
> Hi All,
> and thanks for the replies that I had.
> Eventually I decided to get an HP All-in-One and went totally mad and 
> bought the HP Photosmart eStation C510! its a wireless device with a 
> USB connector as well.
>
> As you said Matthew, Ubuntu supports it well.  Set up was easy and I 
> was doing standard sort of printing and a couple of photo inno time at 
> all.  Then on to the scanner.  Perfect!
> However (well, no not really) I'm still playing with the undock-able, 
> screen.  They call it a 'Zeen' It's just too clever for its own good. 
> Seems to be a cross between an ipad/ipod sort of thingy.  Not that I 
> know anythin(!) about hand held (Phones-ugh!) devices.
> So I've got it to tell me whenever I can receive emails, tell me the 
> weather, browse on the Internet etc.  All seems to work well on my 
> wi-fi network at home.  Haven't yet taken it anywhere else that I know 
> has wifi, (Starbucks) as I don't yet know what the battery life is like.
>
> Of and I can see the ink levels and do normal administration of the 
> printer and scanner from it.
>
> What made me decide on it was that we had just decided to pop inti a 
> local Curry's PC World - just to have a look around, and we found that 
> there was a visiting chap from HP, who was very helpful.  He seemed to 
> understand what I was asking (Ubuntu /Linux etc) well, at least it 
> wasn't the blank stare you often get from the 'salesman' at those sort 
> of establishments.
>
>
> This printer, by the way has 5 separate ink cartridges, though only 3 
> colours, a black and another - which looks like a sort of dark gray.
> Oh and ther's an SD slot in the Zeen, which I haven't tried yet.  You 
> can print across the Internet.........  Oh wow!  can't wait to try it ;-)
> Ernie
>
>
> On 03/02/11 12:48, Matthew Phillips wrote:
>> HP printers are well supported on ubuntu by installing hplip
>> http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/screenshots.html
>>
>> sudo apt-get install hplip hplip-gui hplip-cups hplip-data
>>
>> I currently use a HP Photosmart C5180 all in one (wired network printer)
>> Scanner can be accessed via web interface or directly via front 
>> panel. Scans
>> can be saved to memory card which is then accessed using smb as it 
>> presents
>> itself as a network share.
>> Printing works just fine.
>> It also has a extra 6x4 paper tray for the decent printouts.
>>
>> It has 5 colour cartridges and a large black. I bought it from tesco 
>> over 2
>> years ago for about £50. I'm sure there are now better models out for
>> cheaper....
>>
>> Let us know what you decide on.
>>
>> Matt
>>
>>
>> On 3 February 2011 12:41, Ernie<ernie at linfoot.plus.com>  wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Everyone,
>>> Having been to only a few meetings in the past, I appreciate there 
>>> are a
>>> lot of people who
>>> are willing to help with their advice etc.
>>>
>>> Sadly I having been able to get to as many meetings as I had hoped, 
>>> due to
>>> a variety of
>>> seemingly feeble excuses!  Maybe this year...........
>>>
>>> Anyway, Can I have some advice from the group regarding Printers, 
>>> scanners
>>> and All-in-one
>>> devices that work well with Linux - particularly I would like to 
>>> hear from
>>> anyone who is
>>> running Ubuntu 10.4.
>>>
>>> My Canon S820 (its a photo printer with 6 separate ink tanks) is now
>>> showing an error
>>> message which indicates that its 'Waste Tank is almost full' and it 
>>> looks
>>> like its going to
>>> be as costly as a new one :-(
>>>
>>> Also my current scanner is an old parallel port printer which runs on
>>> Windows 98 (and that's
>>> almost the only reason for using that OS now.,
>>> So I thought it might be worth investigating the current state of the
>>> market with regards to
>>> Compatibility with Linux.
>>>
>>> Ideally I'd like a photo printer with separate (5?) ink colours Max A4
>>> size, and a scanner
>>> with a transparency system. I've got loads of really old family 
>>> negatives,
>>> of varying sized,
>>> not just 35mm!
>>>
>>> I'd love to hear from anyone with their experiences (and problems) of
>>> printing and scanning on this great Operating system.
>>>
>>> Just one word of warning, Although I've been involved with computer 
>>> since
>>> about 1991, and
>>> Linux for about 2 years I still regard myself as relatively 
>>> inexperienced
>>> with Linux, so any
>>> replies, Please, keep it simple
>>>
>>> Thanks for reading this far..
>>> All the best
>>> Ernie Knagg
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> gloucs at mailman.lug.org.uk
>>> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gloucs
>>>
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Andrew Ford
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