New Paper, New Print

I've been trying out a sample pack of paper which I bought a while ago and have been ignoring up until today. It's made by Calumet and it's their Brilliant Museum range which was recommended to my by a 'real' photographer friend who uses it for his gallery shows and rates it very highly. There are four types, two gloss and two matte. The gloss ones are very un-shiny like most smooth gloss papers, both finishes have a very subtle texture which I rather like. I've used up my two sheets of the White Satin Matte and for the second one got the right effect. I had to install the custom profiles and print my usual PDFs exported out of Lightroom rather than from InDesigh as I usually do. It worked a treat and the detail was all there just as I wanted. It was a very interesting experiment. I find the calibration and ICC profile side of this business very confusing so was pleased that I managed to get what I want. The paper is 100% cotton rag of the highest quality and prints made on it in combination with my Vivera Inks, really should last forever. If I get any bites for my first print which is the poppy one below I may invest in a box....

Poppy Field $34.99

Yet another little book.

I've mentioned in a couple of posts here about my attempts to make little notebooks which will make me happy, help to use up lots and lots of stuff (book covers, card, paper, magazines, off cuts from both mine and Peter's work etc...) and hopefully make me a little money along the way. Well, I've had another go at something I've been meaning to try for ages, a nice little simple ring bound scrap journal.

I cut up one of my many comic annuals which have been cluttering up my life for ages (and not selling in Inter Alia) so I have decided to not be precious about them any more and just chop them up as I need to. The front cover has made the lovely front and back covers of the little journal, I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to cut it, but it was fine with a scalpel. Holes were punched with a regular office hole punch and I had great fun sifting through my papers and bits to find a nice selection of pages. The book measures A6 which is a good size and if my papers are A4, it's nice and straightforward to resize them without too much detailed measuring (never my strong point). All bound together with some book rings and I think it's great!

Now I need to work out a price and make some more.....

Here's the front cover showing the lovely papers side on

The back cover

A fan of all the lovely pages inside - how could anyone resist?

A close up of the lovely pages

What's the most expensive liquid in the world?

Vintage Dom Perignon? Tuscan truffle juice? Honey from a remote corner of the world. No, Hewlett Packard printing inks.....

I am a very happy owner of an HP Photosmart Pro B9180 Super A3 printer. It takes eight ink cartridges including three blacks. Petty impressive really and it makes beautiful prints. The machine cost me just under £500 which I thought was a great price. It came with a complete set of ink which I have just found out that to replace from the shop where I bought the printer (Caulmet in Manchester) will cost me £200. That means that the printer itself was only £300!

Inevitably, my first cartridge is running dry, when it told me with impressive accuracy that I had 21% of Matte Black ink left, I thought that it was time to find out where I could get the cheapest replacement. I looked at Calumet and there's was £27 which I thought was pretty steep, I looked at other sites I frequent and there was a bit of variety but it was a pain looking at one site after another. As I moaned to a friend, they said that they swear by DealTimeUK and had in fact just been researching their new digital camera there from the 2,400 listed so that they could find the best deals for exactly what they wanted.

Anyway, I digress.....the price range for the HP38 Matte Black I so desperately needed was from, well nothing to nothing as they didn't have one listed....

I then looked for Epson premium glossy paper which is my favourite when I choose to go glossy rather than my usual matt and got a much better result with prices ranging from £19-£25 which I thought was pretty impressive really. The shops were all sites I'd never heard of before and I plan to check them out over the weekend as I'm down to my last three sheets!

The hunt for the ink goes on, but it's nice to have a one stop shop for searching for all sorts of things without it taking over my life (not just geekery, there's also wine, flowers, clothes and various female requisites too) !