printer! yea.

[p. taylor]

Hello gents. I am looking to pick up a new printer this week and thought I’d ask if any of y’all have any thoughts. I am going to mostly be printing my portfolios and promotional pieces and some wall art. not high quantity, but super high quality is needed. the portfolios will be on matte paper

I have narrowed it down to a canon pixma pro 9500 or the epson 3880.
both are within my budget, so we can take the cost difference out of the equation. just looking at print quality and the dmax on matte paper or personal experiences with either one

anyone have any thoughts on these? or any other recommendations?

Thanks!

peter

[John Bennett]

My 2c, (not worth alot) as I really only print for myself once in a blue moon and for family/close friends.

Anything else I outsource.

I have a Canon i9900. Its ok, but one of my largest gripes are Canon’s profiles (and lack of them).  If I wanted to do more printing myself I’d probably want (have) to get a good profiler (Eyeone’s Colour Monkey etc to the tune of $500)…

Back in the fall I gave serious consideration to doing more printing and looked really hard at the Epson 3880. Profiling is better,from everything I could find more economical on inks, and found a couple references that theres documentation that will even break down your ink cost per unit, which makes it easier to price your work.

In the end though I decided to stay with outsourcing. It took me some time to find a shop I was happy with…( and one that discounts for photographer’s that are reselling, as long as you have enough cred’s.)
For example. I recently did a 24 x 36 canvas gallery wrap.
Had I used Mpix (very popular) their base price is $220.00
I paid quite a bit less than that, which ultimately let me price it lower and still maintain the margin I want.

If you crunch the numbers really hard and factor everything in.
Printer, calibration device ( top of line if your intent is to sell), inks, paper, maintenance ( ink heads) matting (if you go that far), time, effort, shipping,…..everything.

Its a very close call.

You might  pay a little more to outsource, but you save the time, effort and trouble. Which is a “soft” cost.

[Author]

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