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Digital Ceramic Printers FAQ:
Material Cost:
The important material cost metric is the cost of materials in a finished decoration used to put the picture on the porcelain. This cost is about 6 cents per square inch and includes water slide decal paper (what you send through the printer), ceramic toner and transfer media (cover coat) – the three materials in a finished decoration. If you use that cost you can calculate your material cost to decorate any item. In the case of a porcelain portrait the porcelain blank is by far the most expensive component. A 3 x 5 inch oval can be made for around $6. $1 of that is the printed picture and $5 the cost of the porcelain. The economics are quite attractive
Toner Set Questions:
Our standard CMYK toners fire to 860 C with a 30 minute soak time. Our Selenium Red Toners fire from 650 C with a 20 minute soak up to 785 C. We also have in-glaze toners that can fire to 1100 C. Each has its pros and cons and are designed to address specific requirements. CMYK Toner offers a broad color palette, and good flesh tones. Selenium Red also has a broad color palette with superior reds but unable to produce pink. The Prop 65 Toners are developed for tableware decoration in mind and must fire to around 830 Celsius, which is too hot for most glass.
These are just a few! We have more coming soon!
For additional information please email: Steve Rendon; srendon@enduring-images.com or Phil Morishige; pmorishige@enduring-images.com
Frequently Asked Questions
Q My portrait supplier tells me that Enduring Images makes it seem easier than it really is to make my own portraits. Is it really possible for me to make my own?
A It should not surprise you that all of the commercial memorial portrait suppliers will try to scare you away from making your own. After all, their profits and livelihoods depend on you paying them for portraits. Kodak Corporation did their very best to scare people away from buying digital cameras when they first came out as well. It is a pretty standard tactic when you find your own production technology becoming obsolete.
But back to your question. The real question is, do you know Photoshop? If you do, then it really is easy. By the way, it isn’t necessary to believe what we tell you about this any more than you should believe your current supplier. We are happy to give you customer references who will share their own experience with you. They are monument builders who decided to produce their own. Decide based on their experience. In the end, the printer is a dumb device. It just does what you tell it to do and those instructions come out of Photoshop.
However, if you decide you don’t want to make your own portraits, here are some questions for you.
Does your current supplier offer one week lead time, low cost, no rush fees, no graphics charges and the highest resolution reproduction of any ceramic printing system in the world? If so then they are a good choice. If not, then you might want to give us a try. We offer all of those things thanks to digital ceramic printing technology.
Q Can I use ceramic toners in the LASER printer that I already own?
A Only if it happens to be a 2 component LASER printer (which it probably is not) and only if it is one of the few two component LASER printers which can be converted to print ceramic toners. Let us know what you have and we’ll tell you if it can print ceramic toners.
Q What is the difference between your process and the one used by other porcelain portrait suppliers?
A Think of film photography vs. digital photography and you will have a fairly accurate idea of the difference. We use a state of the art digital ceramic printing process and many (most) of the traditional producers use a film process that is the same process that launched the porcelain portrait industry almost 15 years ago. In time, essentially everyone will “go digital”. But why wait for your supplier to catch up? If you make your own porcelain photos, you will give your customer better service (no more 3 to 6 week waits for your portraits), make more money (more on that below) and produce a portrait that is higher resolution than the one you are probably buying now – unless you buy them from us.
You don’t take your digital photographs to the local pharmacy to be “developed” anymore. You print them yourself. You don’t need to send your customers’ photos to someone else to be developed either. You can make a beautiful porcelain portrait yourself for a fraction of what you pay someone else – even us! But if you do want to continue to send them out, give us a try. You’ll love us if you try us!!
Q Will your portraits fade or will the ones we make using your system fade?
A No. In fact no major supplier of porcelain portraits makes a portrait that will fade. Everyone learned from the errors of the past. Like all reputable portrait suppliers, we print with ceramic pigments. Ceramic pigments are mined from the earth and are chemically inert to the effects of UV light. This is not true of off-the-shelf ink jet, LASER, off-set and sublimation printing systems which use inks made from synthetic dyes and inks that are derived from crude oil (organic chemicals) and are very vulnerable to UV fading as well as scratching and rapid abrasive wear. Ceramic pigments are a completely different class of materials called inorganic chemicals. Inorganic chemicals are immune to the effects of sunlight and are highly durable materials.
Q I understand the ceramic toners are very expensive. How much do they cost?
A The price is 1.9 Euros per gram. I doubt this tells you much. The important thing to consider is that the finished print out made from the ceramic printing system will cost around 6 cents per square inch. This cost includes the toner, decal paper and cover coat – the three components of a finished ceramic decoration. In fact the white piece of porcelain that you will fire the picture on costs 5 to 10 times as much as the ceramic toner. In all, you can make a porcelain portrait for around $5 to $6 in material cost. Pretty cheap compared to the selling price.
Q If it’s so good, why isn’t everybody doing it?
A The short answer is time. Consider how long it took you to buy your first digital camera. It’s likely that digital cameras had been around for a number of years before you bought your first one. Why did it take you so long? Part of the answer is that you were waiting to be convinced that digital cameras are as good as film cameras. But the other part is simply a phenomenon know as “emotional inertia”. This is the tendency for people to keep doing what they’ve always done for as long as they can.
The same things apply to making your own porcelain portraits. The quality of digital ceramic printing surpassed film ceramic “printing” several years ago. How do we know that? Because DuPont invented the film used in the traditional porcelain production process and they concluded that the product was obsolete a number of years ago. As a result, they discontinued its production in 2006. Upon that announcement by DuPont most producers ordered a multi year (4 to 5 years) inventory so most of them are now using up that inventory and will convert to digital when it is gone. In the meantime, why settle for less? You can do this and eventually you probably will. Why wait?
Q What is the cost of a system and what kind of training is needed?
A. For the typical monument shop the system cost is very low. We have systems that range from under $10,000.00 to over $25,000.00 depending on the nature of your production requirements. Call us and let us quote a system for you.
As for training, one day is all that is needed. We recommend that you come to our facility in Golden, Colorado so you see how we manage the entire process. This is the best way to have the most robust training experience. We have trained customers at their shop and on one occasion have performed computer training but this option is not recommended. In the end, it’s 80% Photoshop. The rest anyone one can do.
Q Can you provide me with some references?
A. If you are seriously considering producing your own portraits we are happy to give you references that cover all sizes or operations; from small family 4 person monument shops up to large multi location distributors. The financial opportunity and customer service benefits are compelling for the overwhelming majority of monument suppliers, regardless of size. Call us. We’ll show you how easy it really is to improve the value you enjoy from porcelain portraits and the benefit to your bottom line.
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