When I print I send my files to a very skilled guy in Napoli (I live in the area), he tells me that my photos need little to no retouch and recently he moved and for me it is getting more and more difficult to go and collect prints, on the other hand my sis is opening a space where she might need to swap photos every few months and I am trying to evaluate the costs of printing at home (the guy is very honest, doesn't charge a lot but I have to then leave to go collect and if it becomes more frequent it adds to the costs), I won't print anything bigger than A3+ or whatever it is called 13", to begin with which printer is good and reliable at the same time without breaking the bank?
I have an Epson Ecotank 8550 (ET-8550) that prints excellent photos for my use. The initial cost is high, but the large print tanks make printing very economical. You might want to look into and see if it fits your needs.
You can find all you may ever want to know about both photo printers and how to get the most out of them over Keith Cooper's Northlight Images site. He also has many videos available on his Youtube channel, just good info, delivered in an understated manner with no screaming nor artificial levels of excitement. Keith IS rather enamored by the quality of prints he can get off of his ET-8550, especially for the price, and has corresponding reviews and videos.
Several things that will come up: 1) Epson or Canon, 2) dye or pigment, 3) size, and 4) frequency of use. Both of the major players offer printers in the size you seek, utlilyzing dye or pigment ink sets. Dye printers are somewhat less expensive, and their prints are considered less 'permanent' than pigment ink sets, although still on the order of decades. I started with dye, but recently ended up with a pigment printer, as I could never get a great B&W print, nor acceptable print on matte photo paper, off of my dye printer.
Also know that every inkjet printer that I have ever encountered likes to be used on the regular, preferably weekly. I have had less printhead clogging problems with my Canon's, but they have still occured. Not printing for a couple months can lead to user frustration. My current Pro-1000 goes through various levels of cleaning cycles, increasing in time and ink wasteage, proportional to time between use. Leaving it on 24/7 helps but does not cure the issue.
Red River Paper's site has some info on ink useage for the printers that they have reviewed, although figuring $1-2 USD per square foot of print is a good number to start with. Costs for the ET-8550 may be below that.
You might want to ask your guy in Napoli what printer they use to output on and what they would suggest as well. It usually comes between canon and epson and what quality level you're looking for. You seem happy with the current output so you might want to match the ink set if possible.
Also your current provider might be able to assist in sharing and developing a workflow and assist with profiling the output and navigating the various window in the print dialog box. Success in printing is developing a good workflow, it's not difficult but there are a lot of buttons that need to be set right to get consistant results. And somehow they seem to change when you're not looking.
The Epson printers such as the SC-P600 want to be used at least weekly. In dry weather and/or a dry airconditioned environment I have found that in the hottest Aussie summer months I need to do at least a nozzle check twice a week or it clogs up and requires a head clean.
An advantage of the head cleaning on a P600 or P900 is that it includes both the matte and photo black inks, even if you've only been actively using one or the other. Older Epson printers required one of the black to be flushed out so the other could be used, wasting about 5mL of ink per change and change back. Unfortunately, the head cleans always use all of the inks (with a possible exception for the matte/photo blacks) even if only one colour is clogged. The ink usage is usually minor but a power clean can use up the equivalent of nearly two cartridges (!).
Inkjet printing can be expensive if you try to cover too many paper combinations. There's matte/semigloss/glossy, thicker/thinner, smooth/textured and a whole range of sizes. The inks are not exactly cheap, but if you use the "better" papers then the paper is more expensive than the ink.
The Epson printers might drift a bit in the last 20-25mm or so of a print. I suspect it is worse with bigger sheets. The printer manual suggests you have a bigger margin for the trailing edge of the sheets.
And we haven't even got to the issue of printer/paper profiling yet. Much of it comes down to how critical colour accuracy is.
Aside from that, however, you might be very surprised at the difference between the dynamic range that matte and glossy papers can produce. Some subjects are much better suited to one than the other.
Have a look at the price of ink cartridges. The Epson 25mL and 50mL cartridges are nearly the same price, making the inks in the bigger cartridges nearly half the price per mL. That might entice you to buy a 17" printer, but only if you'll do enough prints.
Lastly, give a thought to the space needed for a printer, especially while in use with larger sheets or rolls of paper, and all the trays extended. And the space for storing the various papers and your prints. The printer will not like being moved about, so you need plenty of room to use it and to work around it.
Printing can be a deep rabbit hole.
I presently run 3 printers- epson 8550- mostly for test prints and give aways.
Canon pro 1000 and pro 4100 for my fine art work.
What type of papers do you want to print on?
How long do these prints need to last?
The epson 8550 is very economical after initial purchase. It is primarily a dye based printer-with one matt black ink. With limitations, I would recommend it to anyone beginning to play in this sandbox.
It looks really pretty good on gloss/semigloss type papers.
Not so good- IMHO- on matt papers. Not as good as the much more expensive pigment printers.
The 8550 images do fade over time with light exposure- at least in my experience.
I had a color printed image hanging in a business for a year. Matted, no glass. Bright office environment, no direct sunlight. When I swapped out prints- the older print was definitely faded when compared to the edges covered by the matt. It still looked fine, until you saw the covered edges. My pigment prints do not fade in the same environment.
If you want to learn how to print-- go for it.
If you want to get good prints- and you are thinking about ease of use and economy of prints-- again in my humble opinion, I would find someone else to print. Lots of great services on line.
Printing yourself has a real learning curve, it takes time, and is not THAT much cheaper than paying for prints.
gary
gchappel wrote:
Printing can be a deep rabbit hole.
I presently run 3 printers- epson 8550- mostly for test prints and give aways.
Canon pro 1000 and pro 4100 for my fine art work.
What type of papers do you want to print on?
How long do these prints need to last?
The epson 8550 is very economical after initial purchase. It is primarily a dye based printer-with one matt black ink. With limitations, I would recommend it to anyone beginning to play in this sandbox.
It looks really pretty good on gloss/semigloss type papers.
Not so good- IMHO- on matt papers. Not as good as the much more expensive pigment printers.
The 8550 images do fade over time with light exposure- at least in my experience.
I had a color printed image hanging in a business for a year. Matted, no glass. Bright office environment, no direct sunlight. When I swapped out prints- the older print was definitely faded when compared to the edges covered by the matt. It still looked fine, until you saw the covered edges. My pigment prints do not fade in the same environment.
If you want to learn how to print-- go for it.
If you want to get good prints- and you are thinking about ease of use and economy of prints-- again in my humble opinion, I would find someone else to print. Lots of great services on line.
Printing yourself has a real learning curve, it takes time, and is not THAT much cheaper than paying for prints.
gary ...Show more →
One of the problems with having other people do your prints is that it becomes time-consuming and expensive to the point of impracticality to try multiple versions of an image. Even with calibrated screens, it is often the case that I want to see different printed versions of the same image with different post-processing. That would be a frustrating experience with someone else doing the prints.
I am looking at the Canon Pro-310 pigment printer. It only goes to 13 inches, and the ink cost will be there, but it is practical-sized for most of what I want to do.
I don't sell prints, so my printing is for myself, family, and friends. Therefore, most of my printing is actually in smaller sizes: 4x6, 5x7, 8.5x11. A lot of it goes into albums. I do make some larger prints to hang in my home and these may change (be rotated out) over time.
Unless one is selling, what can one do with a large number of 13" or 17" prints, except store them and perhaps rotate them?
As someone who does sell prints to others, what size do you print for yourself--for your own personal use--and how do you display or use them?
I do love prints, and I have stacks of them, but most get paged through in the stacks or in albums rather than hung. I am thinking about just matting some and propping them up in various appropriate places; this would make it simple to rotate them.
