Photo Printer

[Montana]

I use an Epson 3800, and fall in love with it every time a print comes out of it. Prolab quality, awesome black and white prints, fast and quiet. Sure labs may be a touch cheaper, but having full control and instant prints to sell is hard to beat. I use mine a lot for events like rodeo, ropings, motocross..etc. Shoot all day, print overnight, and sell prints the next day.

 

[table1349]

One thing to also consider with your choice is what you intend to charge and what the markets expectations are. If you are charging a couple of dollars for a 4X6 the expectation would be less than say $50 for an 8X10. The 4X6 I would expect to be of decent quality where the $50 8X10 I would expect to be of top quality on good paper with archival ink. In the Epson line the 2880 is the first printer that uses true archival inks. I have it for my printing an love it. However for large amount of printing I would look at the 3800 instead. It is more cost effective for large amount of printing.

 

[inTempus]

When I first plugged my R1900 in and ran a print off to test it, the output looked like ass. The colors were all wrong, it didn't properly fit the paper, etc. I knew this was likely as I hadn't yet configured Photoshop or the printer with the proper profiles.

Once configured, it is amazing.

Was that difficult to do?

Having never done a profile before and not understanding the whole process, it took me a couple of hours to figure out and about 15 prints. Once done, I completely understand it. Google, in this case, was my best friend.

 

[inTempus]

If you weren't out in the middle of nowhere , I'd recommend using a pro lab rather than printing yourself. The actual costs are pretty comparable and it's nice not to have to worry about the upkeep of a printer, not to mention running out of paper/ink when you need it. Of course, it's convenient to have the printer on hand.

I so agree with you. I bought 2 different of those printers, one mainstream and the other more pro, both never gave me the quality of a pro lab and it was always much more expensive.

I wouldn't say in my case it's "much more expensive", I would say it's about the same. I do mostly 8x10's and those aren't exactly cheap from labs. That, and I have as good (in my opinion better) results with my R1900. I have a print (the guy on the toilet) that I sent to 3 different labs and each one of them sucked. Way too dark, the colors were muted. It was the first picture I printed with my R1900 after I got it calibrated. WOW... it by far blows the lab prints out of the water. That sold me on the printer. I will do my own prints from now on. If I don't like the way it looks, *I* get to tweak settings and images until they look just the way I want.

That's important to me.

To a guy running off prints of his kid and not artistic shots for framing in your home studio, the lab is probably fine. For me, I have a very specific look I want out of my images I print and the only way I can get it is to do it myself.

 

[RodeoFotocom]

Here is a good lesson I learned - thought I'd share with yout folks. I was doing some surfing looking for some info on the printer I had (exact spects) so I could compare it to the one I wanted to buy.

I found a link to a blog that talked about the problem I was having with my printer that could not be fixed by normal head cleaning. The instructions were given and I followed them and fixed my printer! YAHOO! Just saved me self a ton of money!

I am going to do some experimenting with my printer to see if I can improve the prints thou (after reading this thread I feel inspired).

Thanks everyone for all your feedback on printers!!

 

[dustingold09]

hey RodeoFotocom just another day I am searching on the internet and I got a wonderful site about photo printer you should check this link.