By Jon Canfield 

As a writer focusing on printing and color management topics, I’m lucky to be surrounded by the latest and greatest tools. But, there is a downside. It seems that I’m constantly learning how to take advantage of this new feature, or that change in printing. Along the way, I’ve learned quite a bit, and gone through plenty of paper and ink.

So, it was refreshing to step back the other day and do some work for myself. I have an image that I’ve been using as a test piece with different printers. It’s highly saturated, so it gives the pigment-ink printers a good challenge. While I can say that pigments have come a long way in an amazingly short period of time, there’s still a little something lacking in the prints I’ve been doing. With this in mind, I set up my older HP Designjet 130 for a test run using dye-based inks.

The first thing that surprised me is that although I haven’t used this printer in a year, the initial calibration test I printed came out perfectly – no nozzle clogs, no head issues, nothing! The 130 just purred away, happy to be plugged in again.

Now, considering all that the pigment printers can do (wide variety of media types, 8- to 12- color ink systems, etc.), you would think they would have a huge edge over a lowly 6-color dye-based system. You’d be wrong though.

Sure, the newer printers do have many advantages, and I’m not about to give up my pigment printers for anything. But, the image I printed on the Designjet 130 had a dimensionality that I haven’t yet been able to equal with pigments. From the rich blacks to the vibrant and saturated purples, this printer did a better job with this image than any other printer I have used.

The moral of my post? Even if you have a printer that’s a little long in the tooth, don’t assume it can’t produce excellent results. Sure, there’s always room for improvement – it’s called progress. But sometimes, an old friend is just what you need.