So what's the difference between plotted and printed artwork? • Hacker News Board

Re: So what's the difference between plotted and printed artwork?

#81

Post by snoman » Thu, Aug 14, 2025, 2:35 PM UTC

jamiek88 wrote: post #77

snoman wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure you know this but it took me entirely too long to really understand and feel the satisfaction of taking and printing my own photos. It’s very accessible these days to have a finished piece of art that’s all yours - even with little artistic ability.

Are there decent at home photos printers nowadays? I was always underwhelmed with the old inkjet soggy paper prints.

Yup! Both epson and canon have some great printers for high quality printing at home. First Man Photography on YouTube has videos on the topic that I enjoyed.

The surprise for me was that paper quality makes much of the difference.

Re: So what's the difference between plotted and printed artwork?

#82

Post by cubefox » Thu, Aug 14, 2025, 5:09 PM UTC

egypturnash wrote: post #63

cubefox wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To print on non-white paper? But I think then the ordinary cyan, magenta and yellow inks can't be used. Normally those are translucent in order to create red, green and blue via subtractive color mixing. E.g. overlaying yellow and magenta dots creates a red dot. But if the paper can't be assumed to be white, CMY need to be opaque, otherwise yellow on black paper would just look black. Then you can no longer create re…

opaque white + translucent CMY would work, assuming you can get a white formulation that doesn’t gum up the print head.

Yes, though that would mean they need to stack three drops for red, green and blue, rather than two as in CMYK. Which might create some quality issues. At least CMYK printers avoid the triple stacking for black which CMY printers would have to do. With CMYRGBKW there would be no dot stacking (subtractive color mixing) required at all, resulting in less required ink. Though needing eight base inks rather than the five in CMYKW might be a larger disadvantage.

Re: So what's the difference between plotted and printed artwork?

#83

Post by NelsonMinar » Thu, Aug 14, 2025, 11:34 PM UTC

pimlottc wrote: post #49

NelsonMinar wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AxiDraw from Evil Mad Scientist was what a lot of us were buying a few years ago. He's now part of Bantam Tools and is making a thing called the NextDraw. Same design but better built and a lot more expensive. https://bantamtools.com/collections/bantam-tools-nextdraw There's a world of cheaper unbranded Chinese plotters that folks are using that seem to work well. Quality does matter, you want something very precise…

Looks like the Bantam Tools ones start at just under a thousand. How much were the AxiDraw units originally?

I paid $475 for an AxiDraw V3 (A4 size) in 2021. I'm not saying the new machines are bad value, they seem very nicely built. But it's definitely less of an impulse purchase at $1000.

Re: So what's the difference between plotted and printed artwork?

#84

Post by joshu » Fri, Aug 15, 2025, 8:14 AM UTC

xnx wrote: post #9

Classic plotter art as performance art video: https://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_schachter_how_i_turned_frus... After rewatching that, I did a one-shot remake in p5js: https://g.co/gemini/share/b983a93e3ae2 Is there actual plotter simulation software I could be using?

that’s me giving the talk btw

Re: So what's the difference between plotted and printed artwork?

#85

Post by leonmoonen » Fri, Aug 15, 2025, 3:42 PM UTC

jwong_ wrote: post #25

I have a really cheap one that seems to apply uneven pressure across the bed. Has anyone worked with any sort of spring loaded holder that could help that sort of problem?

A common trick (also often needed when using non-gel ballpoints) is to add some extra weight to the pen (for example, put a small glass jar/cup upside down over the pen, or use some large machine nuts).

Beware that this is harder on the servo lifting the pen, so you may want to order a few extra of those (also at TaoBao/AliExpress). I've switched from the cheap SG90 servos that are often used to the only slightly more expensive MG90S with all metal gears that seem to do better.