Back On Track

On Christmas Eve my main computer got infected with something nasty.
I was able to get the spare online later that night, and made do with slowness and no PhotoShop until a week ago. Got my demons exorcized (thanks to my friend and tech 'Buz', and have spent the time since then fixing my wireless network issues and upgrading what I could.
Now, we're back to the way things were over a year ago (before the last major disaster), but even better. Progress!
The main problem remaining is that many of my Christmas gifts were supposed to be prints of my photos, including ones taken AFTER the disaster. Without PhotoShop, I was seriously behind schedule.

Then the band took two weeks off and then some, so money has been tighter than _ _ _ _, which meant I couldn't afford to get anything printed.


Today my wallet had some new friends inside, so I bought Sylvia the scanner she wanted (to embarrass her friends from West Campus HS) and as luck would have it, the same unit has a printer built-in.
I just finished getting it up and running, and after a couple of minor glitches that were soon fixed the prints have been landing in the tray, passing inspection, and getting put into frames!

These three are for Sylvia's new office:
When I say "new" office, I mean that the frames were bought over 3 months ago (just before my life went all crazy) and I'm glad they finally got done.
Over the next few days I hope to clear the backlog of other jobs that need doing, and being able to make quality prints at home saves me an incredible amount of time and effort.

I've never had a printer before.
Over the years the horror stories from other photographers kept me away.
Color management was always the biggest issue, with guys spending months trying to get the correct profiles created and installed, only to have software updates ruin everything again.
And we're talking about printers in the 4-figures range.
No thanks!

Dipping my toes in the pond for the first time, I was pleasantly surprised when the very first print exactly matched the way the file looks on my monitor, without having to do jack-squat.
(Okay, instead of "pleasantly surprised" let's make it shocked!)
The place where I used to get them done had a definite shift to the red end of the spectrum (I guess for warmer and more pleasing(?) skin tones) and there was no way to avoid it.
Not anymore.
Dead honest representation here, so far.
The real test will be black and whites, which used to suffer from a touch of pink.

Here's the bestest part: Our new Epson printer/scanner cost less than logic would admit is possible.
Not $200.
Nor even $90.
How does $30 sound to you?

Suited me just fine!
Add $10 for glossy photo paper and color me impressed.

Of course, photo ink costs more by weight than gold OR cocaine so eventually the Piper will get paid.
Hopefully I'll be all caught-up by the time I need more ink.