and what about THERMAL printers??

[The_Traveler]

I got my Canon Pro 100 for 350.
That included a box of 13x19 paper and shipping AND a 300 rebate
so I got the printer for teh cost of the paper alone.

 

[JustJazzie]

@Gary A. - I will definitely look into the pro-1 before I make any decision! I do like black and white prints, so its definitely a consideration. I agree with your statement about a print completing the process. When I shot film (and thus fell in love with photography) the darkroom and printing process was my favorite part of it all.

@Buckster Thank you for chiming in with your experience. Its good to know I would need to keep up with brand name ink should we go that route!

@jsecordphoto and @The_Traveler I will be sure to keep an eye our for deals! Thanks for the tip!

 

[limr]

Did you just change the title of the thread? Threw me off!

The idea of my own printer is one I'd probably entertain eventually as well, though at the moment I have nothing even close to the budget needed to acquire one. In the meantime, I wait for the Adoramapix.com sales. 8x10 for $1 and 11x14 for $2, and free shipping over $40. Every few months, I'll print out a bunch of stuff.

 

[JustJazzie]

Did you just change the title of the thread? Threw me off!

The idea of my own printer is one I'd probably entertain eventually as well, though at the moment I have nothing even close to the budget needed to acquire one. In the meantime, I wait for the Adoramapix.com sales. 8x10 for $1 and 11x14 for $2, and free shipping over $40. Every few months, I'll print out a bunch of stuff.

Yeah, I did change the title. I was trying to make it easy to tell that I had a second question, and I didn't want to start another thread specifically on thermal printers.

I wont do business with Adorama anymore, so unfortunately- that isn't an option for me. That does sound like a good deal though!

 

[tirediron]

i have a hard time justifying the purchase of one.

$400 can buy a lot of outsourced photos. Plus not to mention ink and paper costs.

This^^^^^ For $2,75 my lab will send me an 8x10 printed on very high-quality stock, with custom tone corrections. That's CHEAPER than Wal-mart!

 

[The_Traveler]

 

[Derrel]

The thing about maintaining one's own printer is the ink supply, ink costs, and the ink hassle factor. When one "buys the cow" in order to get enough cheese to make a grilled cheese sandwich, the slightest problem has a way of being a $50 to $200 cash outlay in ink, even if the need is something as simple as being able to print out just one, or two, or three printed images. When printing is outsourced, it's a lab's responsibility to maintain its (leased) $80,000 to $120,000 Noritsu and Fuji printers...somebody ELSE eats the cost of pigment.

 

[tirediron]

The thing about maintaining one's own printer is the ink supply, ink costs, and the ink hassle factor. When one "buys the cow" in order to get enough cheese to make a grilled cheese sandwich, the slightest problem has a way of being a $50 to $200 cash outlay in ink, even if the need is something as simple as being able to print out just one, or two, or three printed images. When printing is outsourced, it's a lab's responsibility to maintain its (leased) $80,000 to $120,000 Noritsu and Fuji printers...somebody ELSE eats the cost of pigment.

Yep... I just got rid of a POS HP "photo-printer". It was a photo printer all right. It used all five inks just to print black text in draft quality and when it ran out of "photo" black? You COULD NOT PRINT. AT. ALL. Oh yeah, and besides the fact that the photo black was the smallest tank, there was no way to refill them. They had a built-in chip which would fault out the tank as soon as it got to "Empty". If I need test prints, I send 'em to Wal-mart or London Drugs (equivalent to Walgreen's), and everything else goes off to the lab.

 

[KmH]

Canon printers use thermal print heads.
Epson printers use piezoelectric print heads.
Then there is Dye Sublimation where the dye is melted off the ink film and onto the receiving paper.

You will also want to become familiar with the color fastness and saturation of aqueous pigment vs dye inks, solvent inks, UV cured inks, or the dye sublimation process.

Those all pertain to inkjet printing. Ink/dye types have different color fastness and different paper types require using the correct paper.

Then there is chromogenic printing (C-prints) which uses light sensitive silver halide photographic paper and chemical developing of the image.

 

[JustJazzie]

Canon printers use thermal print heads.
Epson printers use piezoelectric print heads.
Then there is Dye Sublimation where the dye is melted off the ink film and onto the receiving paper.

You will also want to become familiar with the color fastness and saturation of aqueous pigment vs dye inks, solvent inks, UV cured inks, or the dye sublimation process.

Those all pertain to inkjet printing. Ink/dye types have different color fastness and different paper types require using the correct paper.

Then there is chromogenic printing (C-prints) which uses light sensitive silver halide photographic paper and chemical developing of the image.

The one he was looking at is a dye sublimation printer. I am just not sold on its quality of prints/usefulness. *sigh*

 

[tirediron]

The one he was looking at is a dye sublimation printer. I am just not sold on its quality of prints/usefulness. *sigh*

Oh, and don't forget, you will need to get familiar with colour profiling for your printer...

 

[JustJazzie]

The one he was looking at is a dye sublimation printer. I am just not sold on its quality of prints/usefulness. *sigh*

Oh, and don't forget, you will need to get familiar with colour profiling for your printer...

Don't I have to do that anywyas to match is with a lab printer??

 

[The_Traveler]

There is a strange trend to try and keep JJ from getting a printer even if if she wants one, which seems to go against the spirit of a very recent announcement about not bad-mouthing equipment.
Surely she has heard all sides of the issue, the good and the bad.

 

[tirediron]

There is a strange trend to try and keep JJ from getting a printer even if if she wants one, ...

I think the intent of most of the posts was to get across the point that home printing is NOT a simple, inexpensive alternative to sending your digital files to a proper lab to have them printed on "real" printers by proper technicians. In this day and age, not having a home printer would be very limiting, but there's a world of difference between printing out the occasional children's book report, e-mail, etc and trying to produce decent quality photographic prints.

 

[KmH]

For a digital printing primer, info on color management as it applies to printing, how to prepare images for print, how to actually make the print, how to then determine if you made a good print (or not), and how to develop a good printing workflow, get and keep handy for reference:
The Digital Print: Preparing Images in Lightroom and Photoshop for Printing
The Digital Negative: Raw Image Processing in Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Photoshop (2nd Edition)