"Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...
| ste © wrote:
|
| > Hi Paul, I was wondering about this. 12 pages of A4 for £5? Is it on photo paper?
|
| Believe it or not yes, but not the highest quality paper obviously.
That's still pretty good!
| > If so, that sounds like you'd be losing money! Or is it a single page calendar or something?
|
| No, the papers are double sided, so that's 6 sheets for the calendar plus 1 cover sheet. After
| some searching and experimentation I found economically priced paper that gives good results.
| They're both HP papers.
|
| 1. HP premium heavyweight paper, matt - 135 g/m2 - cost £17.50 for 100 sheets.
|
| 2. HP brochure and flyer paper, glossy - 160g/m2 - cost £10 for 50 sheets.
|
| The quality is surprisingly good considering the price. I can't see any difference in image
| quality between the HP matt and the more expensive Epson heavyweight matt. The glossy paper, as
| the name indicates, is designed for brochures and flyers so it has that kind of feel to it,
| thinner than photo paper but thicker than glossy magazine paper. There's nothing wrong with the
| sharpness of the images, they're just as sharp as on more expensive paper.
Sounds great then!
| The critical factor is the ink. If I were using Epson cartridges this wouldn't be possible, but
| I've managed to source some cheap inks from www.kc-Inks.co.uk which look just as good as the Epson
| inks. Of course the difference will probably be the longevity of the inks, but since a calendar is
| only designed to last one year I doubt that will be a problem.
That's it, after a year, people put the calendars in the bin anyway, so that's no problem. If anyone
likes your photos that much, they can order an individual print from the Epson 2100! ;-)
| If it isn't already obvious, I'm not using my 2100 to print these calendars, that would be
| insanely expensive! I'm using my older 880 printer, which gives very respectable results, but not
| archive quality of course. An archive quality calendar would be *very expensive*!
That's what I was thinking, so good to know you're business sense is pretty good! ;-)
| If I weren't happy with the quality I wouldn't be selling these calendars, and if the customers
| weren't happy they wouldn't be buying them. I've already sold quite a few Gower and Beacons
| calendars locally and no-one's complained about the quality, quite the opposite in fact. If
| longevity is an issue, the matt paper will probably last much longer than the glossy. Although
| most people traditionally tend to prefer glossy, the matt looks just as good IMO, if not better
| because there's no reflection. I think that modern matt papers are seriously under-rated by those
| who automatically associate photos with glossy paper.
I do prefer the glossy paper personally, but did you see the archival matt paper in the Epson 2100
sample pack, using the matt black ink? That's very impressive!
| It takes me 45 minutes to print each calendar, plus a bit extra to package them. I'm using two
| brass paper fasteners to join the pages together, which look quite nice, plus an elastic band to
| hang them (I know, hardly professional but the cheapest and simplest solution I could think of - I
| can't justify the expense of proper spiral punch thingy yet). To change the pages you simply
| remove the paper fasteners, change the page order and put the fasteners back in. A bit more fiddly
| than flipping the page over, but hey, you only have to do it once a month. They're also packaged
| in polypropylene bags.
It sounds like great value for £5 each though! I've already got my main calendar for 2004, my
girlfriend bought me a panoramic one of landscapes from WH Smiths for £12.99 (steep!). But I could
do with one for the office, and one for my girlfriend's house as I spend my weekends there usually.
I'm not really interested in the expedition calendar as I've never been on one, so they don't have
as much meaning to me, but I think I'll order one each of the Brecon Beacons and the Gower
Peninsula, as those images look great! I'll put a cheque in the post Paul for £12 for the two,
including the postage and packing.
| > Anyway, good luck with it, and your two other calendars look excellent.
|
| Thanks.
No problem, and they should look great on the office wall and girlfriends wall! ;-)
In the Gower calendar, the January photo of Worms Head, with that lovely coloured sky; the sky was
just like that on the horizon in Liverpool earlier in the week! I've never seen it like that before,
and I just wish I wasn't working at the time and had my camera with me! Oh well, if you can't beat
it, buy the calendar instead! ;-)
| > Are they also 12 pages, or 1 page? Photo paper or normal paper?
|
| 7 pages, paper as above.
|
| Paul
Ste
