We have recently worked on how to get the best photo images printed using an edible printer set-up, for example, a standard desktop printer that prints using edible inks. (inks used for printing onto edible printing media).
Using our range of photo quality papers, Ice, and PhotoPlus brands, we picked a colourful image and started printing onto a matte coated paper, a cast coated gloss photo paper and a resin coated satin photo paper of both brands. What we found was that the images that were printed were very good on all papers on both brands, however, the colours were dark and fairly inaccurate to the actual screen image, or intended image.
The settings used were print quality: high-quality or photo-quality and the paper type selected was as per the paper type actually printed on. The prints were clear and very sharp on all coatings and dried fast, touch dry as the image cleared the printer. We expected this from early trials on edible inks printed onto photo papers. As already commented on, the only issue was the darkness of the image colours and the inaccuracy of the intended colours.
For most users, this would not be a major issue. By that we mean that if a printer was used as an everyday multi-use printer to perform all printing tasks, then the image prints were acceptable, actually they were not too shabby. However being the curious people that we can sometimes be, we asked ourselves could we improve upon this?
As a company that sells specialists printers, inks, and media we have to have the in-house ability to adjust the colours from different inks to different media (colour profiling). We decided to create 2 profiles using the edible inks on the Canon Ip7250 and another on the Epson WF-3010DW. Basically, we print colour swatches onto the actual media that want to use and then we read/measure the colour swatches. The equipment reading combined with the software then creates what is called a profile to correct the colours. This is a deliberately very simple explanation for a very complex subject.
WOW! – what a difference! The images just came to life as they were printed. Crisp, clear and beautiful colours with realistic contrast. Totally impressed!
Based on these results we will be selling the range of papers that we tested with the edible inks from our edible printing website www.edibleinks.uk, also we will be making available to our customers the colour profiles that we produce. The profiles will not go on the website as we will restrict these to our customers only. If other edible ink suppliers wish to market their products for use on photo papers, we will let them produce their own profiles.
We have always recommended that printers set-up as Edible Printers should be used regularly and as you would a normal printer. This is necessary to avoid print head blockages. Seeing the results from these tests now ensures that we will push this point even harder and direct edible ink printers to more applications.