Finally, my saved up money is no more. I hated it, but I like having a printer at home. I am just too lazy to go anywhere just to print my assignments, or in this case, photos.

I bought the HP printer for around 180 USD, minus the two dollars they decided to discount it for me. I actually wanted to buy the HP 415, but a mistake from them, the last 415 printer was sold yesterday and the only available printer was the 419. The only difference is that you get an extra 135ml black ink bottle. Well, I guess it is fine, even though I did need to spend extra five dollars for the printer. 

I had a canon printer like, around seven, eight or was it nine?….well something years ago. It was not as expensive as this, it was around 50 USD. But I hated that thing. It easily breaks—I meant, having problems. Paper jams, print head that will stop working properly unless I dunk the head part into warm water—messing my hands with those colors, while wasting the ink, or it basically just refuses to do what I told it to without restarting the damn thing and my PC. The ink cartridges were super expensive too, it cost like twenty dollars for one, and forty for a pair? That is a scam. 

Aaaanyway, the HP printer does well in printing, and scanning I suppose. Printing and scanning sometimes have odd limitations, and errors, but that is only from the software side (for example, the scan software often scan the wrong area instead of the area I selected, or sometimes the mobile apps won’t let me change the paper size or always resets its quality setting to draft). The printer works perfectly fine, and it was not slow. I’ve printed around twenty 4R sized photographs, also few photographs on A4 plain papers, but the ink level doesn’t seem to drop at all. I guess I’ll be printing a lot of photos! 

Yesterday, my photo papers reached my home. It’s not the best quality papers, but it was definitely cheap. Waterproof glossy photo papers, sized A6 (or as they market it, 4R), twenty sheets for around thirty US cents. I bought ten packs of it, meaning 200 sheets of it. Including the shipping cost, it was around four USD. 200 sheets of 4R photo papers, for four USD! 

Anyway, the photo print was not outstanding in any way, I can see the ink droplets if I put it close to my face, but seeing it ten centimeters away from your face or more, you can’t even notice the ink droplets. I guess that is good enough for me. But, of course, I also thought about the ink lightfastness. I am afraid my photos won’t be very long lasting, so I bought a backup plan—a clear acrylic lacquer spray to coat it later. I don’t plan to hang it on the wall, isn’t it fine if I don’t coat it with the spray? As long as it’s in a dry and dark place, right? Isn’t the ones ruining photographs are UV and moisture? Right? Right? And even some research showed HP ink lightfastness to be great. Like 75 years or so with the HP photo papers. So mine should at least last half of that right? I mean, I never think I will live longer than that anyway. Haha.

To end this post, I guess I’ll make note what I should do next. Okay. First, I need to buy a cheap A6 or 4R photo album, to keep the photos clean and nice. Second, I will have to take more photographs of what I think is interesting, or something that worthless to me. Like my friends, or family. Third, I wanted to do some experiment on black and white photographs. I did it a little before, and it looked so dramatic and cool. Fourth, if I have the money and the chance, I would like to send my photos to my friends and teachers here or abroad. I miss them so much. They are less toxic and less insert-exreme-religious-thingy-terms-here, and I feel so at peace. I guess that’s Japan, surpressing self ego for a better public harmony. Whoops, those are irrelevant to the topic. Fifth, I guess I can print photos for someone else, as long as they can help me cover the costs. 

Eeesh, too long. I guess I‘ll end it here. For certain, printing your own photos are too much fun you know! Taking the photos and see how it printed out. Gosh.

‘kay then, see ya!

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Pepo