Printers

[Beauty Through a Lens]

In the future (two or three years) I want to buy a high end industry printer so I can print majority of my photographs. I know nothing about printers or tech specs of them. So what do I need to look for in a printer? Aside from the price where do I start?

[marlunn]

To be honest - it a years time let alone two or three - who knows - tech moves on so fast that this is not a question to answer now as the answer will be out of date long before you are planning to buy

[lukaswerth]

In the future (two or three years) I want to buy a high end industry printer so I can print majority of my photographs. I know nothing about printers or tech specs of them. So what do I need to look for in a printer? Aside from the price where do I start?

I don't know what an "industry printer" might be, but the professional standard is more or less set by the Epson Stylus printers.

Lukas

[Shadowman]

Large format printers don't change for about three to five years. The printer manufacturers make new models within that time, but they don't freely distribute them outside of Asia. Never to early to start researching, visit the printer manufacturer's website, start learning about papers and inks. Contact a representative when you are ready to talk purchasing and in the mean time; invest in a good book on printing such as "Fine Art Printing for Photographers" by Uwe Steinmueller and Juergen Gulbins.

[Manfred M]

In the future (two or three years) I want to buy a high end industry printer so I can print majority of my photographs. I know nothing about printers or tech specs of them. So what do I need to look for in a printer? Aside from the price where do I start?

Just a bit of a warning; printmaking is a whole new skillset that you will need to learn. Just because you have an image that you like, doesn't mean it will print well and the result will never look exactly like what you are seeing on your computer screen. Paper finishes all need specific tweaking to optimize print output.

When you look at printers, there are really only three makes in the business (1) Epson, (2) Canon and (3) HP. Epson has the lion's share of the market and HP is virtually a non-player except in the ultra-large format wide carriage printers. Canon makes good printers, but I know when I was looking, their ink prices were higher than Epsons. Most pro printers use pigment based inks rather than the dye based ones used in consumer printers.

Commercial printers have a much longer life than consumer ones (the model I use is about 5 years old and is still being sold).

What is your budget?

What size of prints are you planning to make?

What is your anticipated daily / weekly / monthly output of prints?

Are you planning to print on paper or other printable materials? If so, what are you looking to use?

[Manfred M]

the professional standard is more or less set by the Epson Stylus printers.

Close, but the professional Epson line are the Stylus Pro printers.

[Beauty Through a Lens]

Just a bit of a warning; printmaking is a whole new skillset that you will need to learn. Just because you have an image that you like, doesn't mean it will print well and the result will never look exactly like what you are seeing on your computer screen. Paper finishes all need specific tweaking to optimize print output.

When you look at printers, there are really only three makes in the business (1) Epson, (2) Canon and (3) HP. Epson has the lion's share of the market and HP is virtually a non-player except in the ultra-large format wide carriage printers. Canon makes good printers, but I know when I was looking, their ink prices were higher than Epsons. Most pro printers use pigment based inks rather than the dye based ones used in consumer printers.

Commercial printers have a much longer life than consumer ones (the model I use is about 5 years old and is still being sold).

What is your budget?

What size of prints are you planning to make?

What is your anticipated daily / weekly / monthly output of prints?

Are you planning to print on paper or other printable materials? If so, what are you looking to use?

I have not set a price range since my income will have changed a lot by that time. Size doesn't really matter. Print sizes will vary between 4"x6" to 24"x36. Paper and canvas if possible anything else would be a bonus. It'd probably either weekly or bi-weekly with about 10-40 photographs each time.

[Manfred M]

I have not set a price range since my income will have changed a lot by that time. Size doesn't really matter. Print sizes will vary between 4"x6" to 24"x36. Paper and canvas if possible anything else would be a bonus. It'd probably either weekly or bi-weekly with about 10-40 photographs each time.

The reason for my question is that there is no "one size fits all" solution to printers. My Epson 3880, which is the bottom of the line Epson Pro printer can only handle prints up to 17" x 22", but can't handle anything less than an 8-1/2 x 11 format), so you have to look at where spend your hard earned money. In my case I either send my small prints out to a retail printer like Costco, or queue up the smaller formats on a sheet and use a paper cutter to cut them to size, which means I really run in multiples of 4 up on smaller sizes.

Larger printers that will handle prints up to 24" wide and starting prices are roughly 3 times the cost of my basic 17" printer, but can take roll paper, rather than sheet. If you want to go to a wider gamut printer (11 inks rather than the 9 my printer uses), double the price of the basic printer. You get the idea.

If you are looking at 40 prints a week; that is very low volume and even your most basic printer can knock out that quantity in a relatively short period (that's less than 6 prints a day; depending on the size, those are less than 30 minutes of work on even a very basic printer).

Those are the types of questions you are going to have to answer for yourself. As I've mentioned before, I know a number of pro photographers and they all have their own printer (guess why I ended up with the model I have; by chatting with them). They will farm out large print runs or large sizes to commercial printers and will use their own printer for rush jobs or small jobs.

You really have to figure out your needs before buying a printer. There is a lot of money tied up in the hardware, paper and inks.

[DanK]

I second what Manfred wrote. You wrote:

I want to buy a high end industry printer so I can print majority of my photographs.

That could mean a lot of things. At the low end, it might be 'I want to be able to produce prints of moderate durability that look as good as those I get from a pro lab.' You can do that, up to 13 x 19 inches (33 x 48 cm) with an inexpensive dedicated photo printer. I have made quite a number of prints on cheap Canon printers that came bundled with my cameras, a Pixma Pro 9000II and a Pro 100 (the latter is the replacement for the former, and it cost me exactly $0), that are hanging on quite a number of walls. They look every bit as good as the few that I have purchased from a top lab. The next step up would be wanting archival durability, that is, prints that will many decades. For that, you would need to step up to pigment-based inks, but you could still do just fine with a printer that is designed for relatively low-volume personal use. The high end would be printer designed for professionals--large format, high-volume, etc.

I do the opposite of what Manfred does: I print my own small photos (actually, cards--I never print photos other than cards smaller than 8 x 10 / A4), and the few things I want printed larger than the 13 x 19 I can handle at home I send out to a professional lab.

IMHO, the main issue to confront in starting down this path is dye vs. pigment. There is no doubt that prints made with pigment inks will last much longer. The drawback--people argue about this, do don't take my opinion as consensus--is that they are more prone to clogging if they are not used often. I print erratically--I may do several prints in a day and then not turn the printer on for 2 or 3 months. Worse, my printers are all in a room that is poorly heated and air conditioned when I am not in it. I have used three different Canon dye-based printers over the past 6 or 7 years, and none has ever had a problem with clogging. If I start selling prints rather than giving them away, I may switch to pigment and bear the risk.

[Manfred M]

The drawback--people argue about this, do don't take my opinion as consensus--is that they are more prone to clogging if they are not used often.

Dan - just to give you my personal experience (and my printing patterns are similar to yours, quite erratic). I don't think I made any prints between July 2014 and January or February of this year. The Epson 3880 is pigment based and I've had it for around 5 years; it sits in my basement office. The climate up my way is probably a bit harsher than yours (extremely dry winters + hot and humid summers).

I've never had a clogged nozzle on this printer. I had lower end Canon and Lexmark (back when they made them) printers and was constantly cleaning the nozzles. I suspect this is another case of getting what you pay for. Consumers expect these kinds of issues while people that rely on this "pro" grade printers simply wouldn't tolerate this type of problem.

[DanK]

Manfred,

That's encouraging. I suspect that designs have gotten better in this respect over time.

Dan

[Shadowman]

Dan - just to give you my personal experience (and my printing patterns are similar to yours, quite erratic). I don't think I made any prints between July 2014 and January or February of this year. The Epson 3880 is pigment based and I've had it for around 5 years; it sits in my basement office. The climate up my way is probably a bit harsher than yours (extremely dry winters + hot and humid summers).

I've never had a clogged nozzle on this printer. I had lower end Canon and Lexmark (back when they made them) printers and was constantly cleaning the nozzles. I suspect this is another case of getting what you pay for. Consumers expect these kinds of issues while people that rely on this "pro" grade printers simply wouldn't tolerate this type of problem.

Manfred,

The 3880 has had better reviews than the next step up 4900-7900 series. Numerous complaints have been posted online. I spoke to an Epson rep who promises that the issue is minimal; however many of the users/complainers are not using the device as much as a full time printer would.

[Polar01]

John I use the Epson 4900 and have had problems with clogging, most often the winter because of the low humidity of the winter weather. As Manfred and I are north of the lakes, our winters would have a lower humidity then found in WNY as those northwest wind pick up that extra moisture for the lakes and give it to you. I know that it is in the form of snow, but hey, we are happy to give. Now back to the problem of clogging, I find that running the nozzle print pattern once or twice a week in the winter solves the problem.

Cheers: Allan

[Beauty Through a Lens]

The reason for my question is that there is no "one size fits all" solution to printers. My Epson 3880, which is the bottom of the line Epson Pro printer can only handle prints up to 17" x 22", but can't handle anything less than an 8-1/2 x 11 format), so you have to look at where spend your hard earned money. In my case I either send my small prints out to a retail printer like Costco, or queue up the smaller formats on a sheet and use a paper cutter to cut them to size, which means I really run in multiples of 4 up on smaller sizes.

Larger printers that will handle prints up to 24" wide and starting prices are roughly 3 times the cost of my basic 17" printer, but can take roll paper, rather than sheet. If you want to go to a wider gamut printer (11 inks rather than the 9 my printer uses), double the price of the basic printer. You get the idea.

If you are looking at 40 prints a week; that is very low volume and even your most basic printer can knock out that quantity in a relatively short period (that's less than 6 prints a day; depending on the size, those are less than 30 minutes of work on even a very basic printer).

Those are the types of questions you are going to have to answer for yourself. As I've mentioned before, I know a number of pro photographers and they all have their own printer (guess why I ended up with the model I have; by chatting with them). They will farm out large print runs or large sizes to commercial printers and will use their own printer for rush jobs or small jobs.

You really have to figure out your needs before buying a printer. There is a lot of money tied up in the hardware, paper and inks.

I guess my main concern is the quality of the photographs. I am currently getting my photographs printed at Costco (I do very little prints) and I am concerned that using a basic home printer will not be as good of quality. That is the most important thing to me.

[Manfred M]

I guess my main concern is the quality of the photographs. I am currently getting my photographs printed at Costco (I do very little prints) and I am concerned that using a basic home printer will not be as good of quality. That is the most important thing to me.

First of all, Costco does fairly decent work and I know a few pro photographers that use their services for their "run-of-the-mill" printing work. The other nice thing about Costco is that you can get the printer profiles for the various locations across the country, so it's easy to soft proof and prepare your work to be printed there:

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/icc/Pro...rofiles.htm#CA

My only real complaint about Costco is the very limited choice of paper finishes.

Your basic home printer is simply not good enough; at a minimum you need a photo printer that can be profiled (i.e. profiles are available for it from the paper manufacturers). This is mandatory for a colour managed workflow. Small home printers are also rather limited in the size and thickness that they can print, and of course the gamut is limited to the very small CMYK colour space. The higher end 9 or 11 ink models extend the CMYK colour space and output far richer colour prints.

[Shadowman]

I guess my main concern is the quality of the photographs. I am currently getting my photographs printed at Costco (I do very little prints) and I am concerned that using a basic home printer will not be as good of quality. That is the most important thing to me.

You can definitely create Costco quality images at home, their secret is the paper; you have to provide the them with the quality output.

[Beauty Through a Lens]

You can definitely create Costco quality images at home, their secret is the paper; you have to provide the them with the quality output.

But that's not to say that printer choice doesn't matter, correct?

[Manfred M]

But that's not to say that printer choice doesn't matter, correct?

Costco use expensive high end commercial printers. Photo printers from Epson and Canon will meet / beat Costco quality, especially if you work on premium papers.

Custom "labs" will beat Costco with these same Epson / Canon printers, but are much more expensive because they will hand-tune the print job. If you are good, you can match their quality quite easily.

[chauncey]

Aside from the price where do I start

That is an easy question...do a cost analysis to determine value of DIY printing. But...
heed the given advice.

Just a bit of a warning; printmaking is a whole new skillset that you will need to learn.

It was about four years ago that I watched a series on printmaking courtesy of Scott Kelby...
the thing that, to this day, sticks in my mind is "when in doubt, make another print". Apparently,
soft-proofing can get ya close, if close is good enough. Aside from that little problem, what does it
cost in materials, to keep making prints until ya get it right?

Great info given from the pros herein.

[DanK]

But that's not to say that printer choice doesn't matter, correct?

Almost.

In my opinion, the factor that has the largest impact on print quality is the printer's skill (that is, the human printer). It takes some work to learn how to do this well. The second biggest factor, which I think trails by quite a margin, is the paper. The third is the physical printer, provided that you are comparing dedicated photo printers.

Once you get to the level of Canon or Epson printers that are intended solely for photo printing, the differences--assuming good quality paper, correct profiles, and skilled printers--are often very subtle. The differences from the other two factors can be large.