Current state of printers....and suggestions?

ChristopherCoy · Apr 7, 2021

I would like to purchase another printer, something better than the $49 special from Walmart that I currently own. I've never really owned a dedicated photo printer, so I'm not sure exactly what I'm looking for. I'd like to be able to print at least an 8x10, and perhaps an 11x14 every now and then, mostly black and white stuff, and I'd prefer to stay within a couple hundred dollars. I know for sure that I don't need anything over the $1000 mark, because these are just prints that I can rotate through frames around the house, when I can't get to the darkroom to make wet prints. My first inclination is to go with a Canon Pixma something or other, but there seems to be a large number of model numbers. The other big players seem to be Epson and HP.

What brand/model do you suggest or own? What do you like about it, and what do you dislike about it? And how much do your inks cost, and how economical do you find them to be?

Thanks!

ChristopherCoy · Apr 8, 2021

I guess it doesn't matter much. It seems that most places are out of the "good" printers anyway. I guess they're stuck on a ship docked outside some major shipping port. None of the big box stores have any stock, and anything listed on Amazon is at least 1/3 more expensive than buying it on a shelf. I guess I'll look again in 6 months.

Horatio · Apr 8, 2021

I went through this search last year and ended up not buying. After a couple months of research and pricing, I settled on the Pixma Pro 100, but my timing was off (as usual.) By the time I had made up my mind the rebate offer had expired! I missed a couple of cheap copies locally. By that point I was like "meh" because I had nothing worth printing! Check the local CL for used Pro-100s.

ChristopherCoy · Apr 8, 2021

There's on pro-100 listed that looks like it's in good condition but no one has responded to my email. It looks like the Pro-200 was it's replacement, but I can't find any stock locally in that one either. I've checked BestBuy, WalMart, Target, Staples, Office Depot, and a few independantly owned office supply places around here and no one has any stock. B&H and Adorama seem to be out of stock on the popular models as well.

I did find a few older Epson wide format printers on CL though, I'm hoping they respond too. One is a Stylus 1400 and the other is a R1900.

Horatio · Apr 8, 2021

Beware Epsons with clogged print heads.

4season · Apr 8, 2021

Have you considered converting a regular consumer grade 4-color printer into a quad tone b&w printer? Never tried it myself but it seems like a wonderful idea once you get the printer profile sorted out. Otherwise, look for a printer which has at least a photo gray ink cart.

If Canon ever decided to produce quad-tone ribbon kits for their Selphy printers, that'd be an immediate must-have in my book.

ChristopherCoy · Apr 8, 2021

4season said:
Have you considered converting a regular consumer grade 4-color printer into a quad tone b&w printer? Never tried it myself but it seems like a wonderful idea once you get the printer profile sorted out. Otherwise, look for a printer which has at least a photo gray ink cart.

If Canon ever decided to produce quad-tone ribbon kits for their Selphy printers, that'd be an immediate must-have in my book.

I'll need you to repeat your question please... and use the big crayons.

Bronson Dugnutt · Apr 8, 2021

I've had a Pixma Pro 100 for several years that I got during the manufacturer's rebate period. Up-front cost was probably <$99?

Maximum print width of 13", takes a bank of 8 dye-based ink carts, designated CLI-42 by Canon. A very capable printer, but you'll want to maximize your ink economy by printing in large batches. The self-cleaning process eats a lot of ink so it's worth printing a bunch whenever you turn the printer on. I've attempted some digital negatives on vellum & inkjet transparency but have gotten better results from cheaper printers on that front.

All ink carts are individually replaceable which is nice if planning on printing B&W. The cartridges are sold individually, full b&w sets, and full color sets. I print both color & monochrome relatively infrequently and find a different cartridge maybe need replacing every 2-3 months, YMMV of course.

The 'up-market' Pixma models, Pro 10 and Pro 1, have a 10 dye-based ink carts and 12 pigment-based ink carts respectively. All have a maximum width of 13".

4season · Apr 8, 2021

My unscientific impression of inkjet printers as a former IT support guy is that Canon is #1 for reliability, cheap HPs work fine for a time and eventually become a gooey un-repairable mess, ditto Epson. I don't know about Brother. Too bad about Epson because they do offer some appealing features, like big ink reservoirs.

My current printer is a Canon Pixma Pro 10: It's big and heavy, but to date the extent of maintenance that I've needed to do is regularly dust it off, and replace ink cartridges as needed. I figured I'd be doing low-to-moderate amounts of printing, so Pro 10 works pretty well for me. Full set of OEM inks run about $130. $/ml of ink is much cheaper with the higher-line Canon Image ProGraf printers, but I think ideally you're supposed to be replacing those carts about 2x a year and I figured I simply wouldn't be printing enough to realize any cost savings before the carts simply dried out. I think a full set of inks for the smallest Image ProGraf is $500? $700?

Horatio · Apr 8, 2021

Ink costs are exorbitant, even in "large" quantities. It's like $5000 a gallon.

ChristopherCoy · Apr 8, 2021

Horatio said:
Ink costs are exorbitant, even in "large" quantities. It's like $5000 a gallon.

Yeah, the more I'm looking at ink cartridges etc, the more I'm wondering if it wouldn't just be easier to find some local print lab. I would sacrifice the instant gratification but ongoing costs might be significantly lower.

Horatio · Apr 8, 2021

I'm finally able to make (small) monochrome prints with my Epson EcoTank. The inks are relatively cheap. It will suffice for now.

ChristopherCoy · Apr 8, 2021

Horatio said:
I'm finally able to make (small) monochrome prints with my Epson EcoTank. The inks are relatively cheap. It will suffice for now.

There's tons of those ecotank all in one office printers around. I just didn't know how they compared in print quality to the dedicated photo printers. Did you do this monochrome conversion thing with your printer? I can't seem to find much information on this converstion thing that was mentioned other than this QuadToneRIP thing. Not quite sure what it is yet, still reading.

Horatio · Apr 8, 2021

My prints don't compare to QuadTone, but it gets them onto paper. I'm printing from Photoshop, and the biggest issue I've had is getting rid of a purplish color cast. I finally tried checking the "match print colors" option in the PS print dialog and that seems to work. Of course it could turn to crap again the next time I try a different paper profile. I have not tried printing in color with the Epson, but some of the EcoTank versions are touted as photo quality. My old faithful HP 9800 made great color and monochrome prints, but the cartridges were just too small for any cost-effective volume. Alas, it died last summer when the paper feed stopped working. I guess it had been in storage too long.

Horatio · Apr 8, 2021

Here's my latest print from the EcoTank. It's a scan of the actual print.

removed account4 · Apr 8, 2021

look at canon pixma printers. they are nice
not sure how big or how expensive they are
we had a 1200 that lasted us 10ish years
couldn't complain..
no matter what you buy the ink ends up being the cost
you know like a camera and its film..

ChristopherCoy · Apr 8, 2021

jnantz said:
look at canon pixma printers. they are nice
not sure how big or how expensive they are
we had a 1200 that lasted us 10ish years
couldn't complain..
no matter what you buy the ink ends up being the cost
you know like a camera and its film..

They aren't in stock anywhere. Like not even on the Canon USA website. That's why I said they're probably stuck in a shipping container off the coast of LA somewhere.

Andrew O'Neill · Apr 8, 2021

I've been very happy with the Epson P400. I got a refurbished one for about $400Cdn. direct from Epson Canada. I use it for making digital negatives, because it has small ink drop of 1.5 picoliters.

4season · Apr 8, 2021

ChristopherCoy said:
I'll need you to repeat your question please... and use the big crayons.

Potentially, quad-tone inks could be a way of turning a $50 printer purchased from an office-supply store into a fine-art b&w powerhouse, but I can't find the link for the specific 4-ink set, maybe because the printer in question is obsolete by now, and all other kits that I find are for higher-end printers.

The challenge with your typical 4-color (CYMK) printer is that while it can do a pretty good job with photos of happy people under sunny blue skies surrounded by green foilage (and in fact a lot of demo images look just like that), they fail pretty miserably at reproducing the proverbial black cat in a coal mine - the printer runs out of color space, and the best-possible fit may either be too-dense shadows or weak, muddy ones. And in b&w images, very difficult to get dead-neutral tone as the printer mixes the C,Y and M inks in an attempt to reproduce various shades of gray. The addition of a photo gray ink is a big upgrade for b&w printing (duotone), and quad-tone is downright elite. When you see a really good book, calendar or poster reproduction of a b&w photo, chances are it's a duo- or quad-tone print.

Basically, the better the printer, the easier it is to reproduce what you see on the computer screen, from tonality in the deepest shadows to the fainest textures in the highlights, with no unwanted color casts or weird uneven sheen.

Current state of printers....and suggestions?

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