printing with continious ink systems

At some point I was going to have to cover this subject, so now seemed like as good a time as any,
To put it bluntly, what printer mfg's (all of them) charge for ink is simply Obscene.
Well that's my opinion, and since it's my blog thats what counts.
I printed black and white photos in my own lab for quite a few years, and controlling my cost consisted mostly of carefull selection, and use of photopaper. Chemicals were a modest part of the equation. And for me at least it was a very slow, and painstaking process, so supplies (which were not all that expensive went a long way.
Enter the digital age.....
Now it's an electronic printer, specialty ink, and specially coated paper (which for a while was costing more than genuine silver based photo paper)
My photography is a hobby, I have never charged for anything I do, so cost is important to me.
For the most part since I moved to digital about 6 years ago, I've had all my photos printed at sams club. there was no way I could touch their price, and the quality was acceptable. As my equitpment, and skillset have improved over the years, I've yearned for the ability to once again have the joy of being able to print my photos at home in my own electronic lab. of course good quality printers have not been cheap untill recently, and ink prices....
Of course I've had a printer all along, but it has never been a truly good photo quality printer.
I've been using a Canon pixma 3000 for all my everyday printing needs, and I refill the cartriges which is actually quite simple with this printer and once the cartridges have had the top popped do not even need to be removed to be refilled. just pull the little rubber stopper, top off the ink level replace the stopper, and you're back in business. You still need to be carefull about spending too much for the refill ink, I've found my best deals at Kmart which had kits that would refill all three colors at least 3 times for less than 20dollars. Recently at a dollar tree store I found cyan, magenta, and yellow refills for a dollar each. Keep in mind I don't print anything special with this printer. Cheap ink, cheap paper, for when I need a paper copy of something which as it turns out is often inspite of the "paperless" future we were promised some years back.
For photographs, I demand much more.
Carefull shopping, and testing has led me to a brand called Magiclee which my local photo store (Schillers) stocks a good selection of.
Ink is an entirely different matter, and Epson which is a clear leader in photo quality printing is also the most stingy with their ink. I could write an entire blog just on the ethics of ink pricing, and counterfeit products, but I won't. All of Epson's ink cartridges are "chipped" they have a little microchip mounted on them that records ink usage, and tell you when you are out of ink.
It doesn't actually measure the ink in the cartridge, It just keeps track of how much it thinks you've used of each color, and then tell you you're out. (even if there is ink left in the tank)
And don't even think about trying to refill the cartridge, because it still "knows" you're out.
Don't despair! you have options, You could do what I did the first time I discovered I couldn't refill my new epson printer cartridges.... I tossed it into the alley. and never looked back. Ahh but I was young and foolish the fact is that epson "chip resetters" are available on Ebay for about 5 bucks. or you can buy empty cartridges with "self resetting chips" and use the ink of your choice, you can also buy full cartridges of third party design for a fraction of the price of genuine epson cartridges, but I would caution against using them untill you do your own product testing. testing for things like waterproofness, resistance to fading, color tone. I should also add a caution about buying "genuine" epson cartridges on Ebay, since they command such a premium price, there are some counterfeit cartridges which look like, and are sold as genuine epson. If you choose to pay for genuine ink then that's what you should get. Anything else is dishonesty on the part of the seller.
If you're really serious about printing good quality photo's on a budget you should invest in a "CIS" which stands for Continious Ink System. There are at least 4, and probably more online companies which sell systems that use large (about 100ml) tanks which hold each color next to the printer, and feed the ink through ribbon cable of tubing to the print head where you install special cartridges to supply the ink to the print head. (these cartridges have self resetting chips, so you will never be told you are out of ink). I use a system from www.inkjetfly.com . I would recommend you do some of your own reasearch since this might not be the best system for you. When you change inksets you will also likely need a new printer profile which tailors the new inks to your printer. Inkjet fly has a number of profiles available for the printers they sell ink systems for, and I've found them to be quite good with my Epson R-300 which I bought used for 20.00 on craigslist. The fact is that many very good fully functional printers are tossed because people refuse to spend more for a new set of ink cartridges than they will spend for a new "better" printer. The CIS will cost around 100 dollars, but the ink will cost about 10% of what you would normally pay. You will also have a choice of ink types, Pigment, or Dye. I use Pigment even though my printer wasn't designed for it, and I am getting excellent results.
Each type has it's pro's and con's.
I reccomend you do some research of your own.
The "printing" forum at www.Dpreview.com is an excellent place to start, you don't need to ask a lot of question, just read the posts for a few day, and you'll get the idea.
OK, I've got to go to bed now, Big party tommorow night you know. (new years eve)
Levi