Photo printers, Recommendations and the process

[Nicolasdec]

Hey MR.

For years I have used sites to get the prints from the digital photos I took. However now i would like to invest in a good photo printer. I would like to be able to print up to A3+ size. What are some good printers that will be able to do that? I want professional quality prints.

How can calibrate my monitor and printer? Any other things I need to know?

Thanks

 

[Nicolasdec]

Anyone?

 

[peskaa]

Calibration needs specialised tools. The cheapest way at the moment is the ColorMunki - this will calibrate both monitor and printer. After that, prices go ever upwards basically - you can easily spend a grand on calibration tools.

As for printers themselves? Canon offer the 9000 and 9500 Mark II printers - both are excellent quality, with 8 and 10 inks respectively. Their lower end 4000 & 5000 printers are really up to professional photo prints.

Epson are your other choice, with a range of printers at most price points. I personally have a 4880 in the office and it produces excellent prints, but it's rather expensive (£1800) though it does print A2 and roll.

As a very basic rule of thumb, the more inks there are, the better the printer.


Basically, you need to give us a budget. I could easily recommend you £3,000 in printers, but then you probably don't have that much to spend.

 

[Nicolasdec]

Calibration needs specialised tools. The cheapest way at the moment is the ColorMunki - this will calibrate both monitor and printer. After that, prices go ever upwards basically - you can easily spend a grand on calibration tools.

As for printers themselves? Canon offer the 9000 and 9500 Mark II printers - both are excellent quality, with 8 and 10 inks respectively. Their lower end 4000 & 5000 printers are really up to professional photo prints.

Epson are your other choice, with a range of printers at most price points. I personally have a 4880 in the office and it produces excellent prints, but it's rather expensive (£1800) though it does print A2 and roll.

As a very basic rule of thumb, the more inks there are, the better the printer.


Basically, you need to give us a budget. I could easily recommend you £3,000 in printers, but then you probably don't have that much to spend.

Thanks for the answer. I have a budget of £1500. I was taking a look at the canon 9500 and it looks good. Do you know any other printers in that budget that will do A2?

 

[davegregory]

The Epson 3880 is in your budget. I use one, and I love the prints I've made from it. According to Epson UK's site, it's £1,144.25. It does A2+ size prints. I don't have any experience with Canon printers. I know their pro models are newish to the market. I would imagine they're on a similar level as Epson in terms of quality and price. There's a good post here about the differences of the Canon 5100 and Epson 3880, if you're interested.

http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=38490&pid=318089&st=0&#entry318089

Hope that helps.

 

[peskaa]

I'd budget at least £400 for calibration, but that'd leave you with a 9500 Mark II and some change, or as mentioned, the 3880. The advantage to the Epson is the A2+ size, over Canon's A3+.

I'd personally buy the 9500 Mark II, calibration and a pile of inks and papers.

 

[snberk103]

You might want to look at the Epson 3800 (not the 3880). It appears that the 3880 was just recently released and replaces the 3800. If you can find a store with the old stock 3800 you will likely find it on discount. I haven't seen any in depth reviews on the difference between the two models, but they appear to be identical. I suspect the improvements in the 3880 are minimal. I have the 3800 (Epson was offering a sizeable rebate earlier this year) and have had no problems with it.

I especially like being able to connect it to my system via an ethernet cable. It means you are not limited (within the confines of a room or even a small house or office) with where you locate the printer. Much more convenient. Or, if you have a desktop and portable, connect the printer to the router and you don't need to worry about a host computer being awake for "printer sharing".

One thing I learned though, go to the Epson website, find and print the acronyms they use for their paper surfaces (as used in the printer driver).

Good Luck

 

[Artful Dodger]

I bought the Canon 9000 Mark II back in July/Sept. and have really enjoyed it thus far. The sizes that it can print are 14x22 as per the manual and I believe the 9500 does as well. This would be using the front feed and a back hatch opens for those wide, long papers can slide through. I have read on some sites that the Canon can handle paper rolls (not sure about the length) using the drivers provided by the paper manufacture but again I'm not 100% sure. Take the easy way and when you calibrate with whatever printer you decide on, print using 5x7 before printing large. I know it sounds like common sense but I almost printed a few at 13x19 and it would have been a waste of good ink and paper

Enjoy

 

[kentamcolin]

I just purchased an Epson 3880 and after only a few prints I'm quite in awe of the quality. For a little history; I was really torn between the Canon 9500 and the Epson, mostly because I have an Epson R2400 that has been nothing but trouble since the day I took it out for the box. I ran some test prints in the store on the Canon and was hugely impressed; it's a great printer!! However I really wanted the ability to print 17" wide (which I only occasionally do). In the end I decided to give Epson another try. What swayed me? Price! The Canon was $750 but also had a $200 rebate, reducing the price to $550. It also comes with one set of 13 ml. ink cartridges. The Epson was $1295 but comes with one set of 80 ml. cartridges. A complete set of Canon carts cost $130, so to leave the store with the same amount of ink for each printer, I would need 5 more sets of 13 ml Canon cartridges, or another $650! Now the price difference was only $75, but the store also had a promotion going on for Epson large format printers, offering a $75 pack of 17" wide paper free. With the cost of the printers now being effectively the same, I went for the Epson. I'll probably spring for the optional 3 year warranty which can be added within the current warranty period, and am really looking forward to using this printer. I'm sure I would have been equally happy with the Canon, and based on what I've seen could highly recommend either.

 

[pilotkid]

I'd say the Canon PRO9000 or if you do black and white prints I hear the PRO9500 is even better. Do a Google search and read some reviews, there almost all good. As soon as I save up some money I think I'll be getting the 9500!