Raw & Post Processing, Printing > Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks
Do I want a 24 inch printer?
Eric Brody:
I'm an retired bum who loves photography and has been doing it in varying levels of intensity for over 50 years. Now, it's all I do, almost every day. I do some traveling in the US and internationally, but mostly stay at home in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. There is lots to photograph within a few hundred miles of my home.
I recently purchased a Sony A7RIII and have enjoyed it and its impressive resolution. I have used the Epson 38xx series of printers since 2007 and now use a 3880. It has been almost totally problem free. My largest prints currently are 13x20 in 22x28 frames. I occasionally, but quite infrequently actually sell an image but not so that I make any significant money. I'd like to try some larger prints, eg 24x36. Locally they cost in the US$150 range each.
My questions are for those who own a 24 inch printer for personal use.
Which printer did you choose and why? Epson-Canon?
What do you do with the large prints?
Do you frame them, is it not quite expensive?
Have you had to buy a new home to have place to display them ;D? I am fortunate to have a home with picture molding so my framed prints hang easily on wires from the molding without putting holes in the wall.
Have you come up with a way to display them effectively without framing?
Assuming I were to purchase an Epson P7000, and have read Keith Cooper's excellent review, (http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/epson-surecolor-p7000-printer-review/#conclusions) have you found it to be worthwhile? Do you often make prints on letter size paper and is it a hassle?
Any comments would be most welcome. I'm in the early thought processing place with this idea. I'd consider the equivalent Canon printer but like to use QTR for my black and white images and according to a recent reply from Roy Harrington himself, QTR will not be coming to Canon. Also I heard/read that the Canon's work only with roll paper.
Mark D Segal:
Eric,
I did a review of the Canon Pro-2000 on this website just in case that would be of any help to you. So did Keith Cooper - he focuses a lot more on the features and working of the machines than I do, while I focus a lot more on output. Between the two reviews you get a balanced and reasonably comprehensive picture. I don't own either the Canon or Epson 24 inch models as I have no room for them and no need for the carriage width, so I can't be any help on most of your specific questions. An additional comment I would make is that depending on the paper used in that printer, black shading appearance can be excellent, just using the Canon driver or Canon's printing utility Print Studio Pro that comes bundled with it. Finally, I should mention that I use an Epson SC-P5000 - same printhead and inkset as the SC-P7000, and find the gamut and print quality stunning, whether colour or B&W; so two great choices in terms of how they can print. Perhaps the important decision variables for you would be availability of service in case of need, and which printer's paper feed options best suit your requirements.
JeanMichel:
--- Quote from: Eric Brody on March 24, 2018, 12:14:06 pm ---I'm an retired bum who loves photography and has been doing it in varying levels of intensity for over 50 years. Now, it's all I do, almost every day. I do some traveling in the US and internationally, but mostly stay at home in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. There is lots to photograph within a few hundred miles of my home.
I recently purchased a Sony A7RIII and have enjoyed it and its impressive resolution. I have used the Epson 38xx series of printers since 2007 and now use a 3880. It has been almost totally problem free. My largest prints currently are 13x20 in 22x28 frames. I occasionally, but quite infrequently actually sell an image but not so that I make any significant money. I'd like to try some larger prints, eg 24x36. Locally they cost in the US$150 range each.
My questions are for those who own a 24 inch printer for personal use.
Which printer did you choose and why? Epson-Canon?
What do you do with the large prints?
Do you frame them, is it not quite expensive?
Have you had to buy a new home to have place to display them ;D? I am fortunate to have a home with picture molding so my framed prints hang easily on wires from the molding without putting holes in the wall.
Have you come up with a way to display them effectively without framing?
Assuming I were to purchase an Epson P7000, and have read Keith Cooper's excellent review, (http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/epson-surecolor-p7000-printer-review/#conclusions) have you found it to be worthwhile? Do you often make prints on letter size paper and is it a hassle?
Any comments would be most welcome. I'm in the early thought processing place with this idea. I'd consider the equivalent Canon printer but like to use QTR for my black and white images and according to a recent reply from Roy Harrington himself, QTR will not be coming to Canon. Also I heard/read that the Canon's work only with roll paper.
--- End quote ---
Hi,
I am perhaps in a similar situation. I still do some professional work –mostly documenting art exhibitions and designing art catalogues or books – but am trying to let most clients go. And, i am focussing much more on my own work.
I have both an Epson P800 and and Epson P6000 I use the P800 daily, the P6000 much less frequently.
I have a design studio and gallery in my home, all my equipment fits in just nicely in the design area, about 12 feet by 16 feet.
I purchased the P6000 to replace a defunct 7890. The price of the new printer was about the same as the quoted cost for repairing the old machine. Since I am familiar with Epson stuff, I never really looked at the Canon.
On the P6000, I print mostly on Canson Baryta Photograpique rolls, and occasionally on Epson canvas. I am very happy with the results.
Printing on cut sheets is not a problem but not as convenient as using my P800. 13 by 19 is the smallest sheet I use there, although I tried printing on letter size and it works but it seems silly to use the P6000 for that.
You write that you would like to print up to 24 by 36. While you can print put to 24 inches wide on the P6000, I keep my images to 20 inches wide, leaving 2 inch margins. To bring larger I would want a 44 inch printer. For canvas, I can print an image to 20 inches wide plus a 2 inch mirror edge, allowing for a 20 inch face and enough mirror edges for stretching on 3/4" stretcher bars.
I can comfortably cut mats and frame in-house for up to 18 by 24 frames, larger than that and I go to a trusted framer. I pretty much insist on ArtGlass, so that gets a bit costly.
For smaller canvas works I use the GoFrame kits. They make the stretching easy and even, but you definitely need to staple the canvas as the double sided tape provided is not likely to maintain the canvas in place for a long time. But it is a quick and easy way to have a 'finished' piece.
I have a home gallery and can display my work there, but, still, there is only so much wall space. I use wire hanging system from AS Hanging System. I have a separate room to store all my unsold stuff!
I always printed m own work – darkroom or digital – so I am not comfortable with letting someone else print my work, although that is a bit silly since all my catalogues and books are printed by various ,printers from different parts of the country, and many artists bring me their files to print! It may make more sense to stay with a smaller printer such as your 3800 or my P800, and get to know someone competent to print your larger images, it really ought not to matter where a particular machine and paper or canvas are as long as you can provide a proper file for it.
Lastly, I think that for photography the P6000 is all you need instead of the P7000. an I I noted, I have no clue about any Canon printer.
Hope that helps a bit
Jean-Michel
enduser:
I started with a 17" roll printer and quickly regretted it. A 24" machine can print smaller but a 17" will not print bigger. I know that sounds facile, and you could say that my argument doesn't stop at 24", why not 60"? Well space and cost are the tipping costs for me. 24 felt like the optimum.
stockjock:
I have been happily printing on a Canon iPF8400 for over 3 years. It has completely replaced the printing I used to do on the 3880. I wanted to lower my printing costs and have the option to use roll paper and occasionally print big. I had the space for a big printer and the incremental cost of the printer wasn't that important to me. Psychologically I am a penny wise pound foolish kind of guy so reducing the ink costs due to the large capacity cartridges more than offset that capital investment in my mind. I also wanted to retain control of the printing for the images that I did print large for either my home or the shows I have been in. With that background let me give you a few pros and cons. I haven't kept up with the specifics the differences between the current models from Canon and Epson so I can't help there.
1) Almost all of my printing is on 17x22" paper, either cut sheets or rolls. That is large enough to be very satisfying but small enough to be easily stored and archival storage boxes can be had for about $16-30. Anything larger than 17x22 becomes very challenging from a storage issue. 95% of my printing doesn't require a 24" or larger printer.
2) Roll paper is usually cheaper and obviously more flexible (panoramas and larger prints are easy) and having a built in cutter and vacuum is a significant advantage of the bigger printers.
3) All roll paper has a curl and some papers never fully uncurl no matter how long you keep the flat.
4) The biggest downside I've found with the Canon iPF8400 is that it requires you to manually feed cut sheets. Lately, I have been printing and binding my own photo books. Printing on roll paper doesn't work for a variety of reasons and manually feeding sheets would be much too time consuming. I've bought a Canon Pixma Pro-100 that I am dedicating to that task and I am going to experiment with refilling the inks in order to bring the printing cost way down. That works for this application since I don't care about longevity. So yes, making smaller prints is a hassle on my iPF8400 but perhaps the Epson printers are better?
5) You will find different opinions about which printer is less likely to clog and you should take the various user reports into account. I print every three days on the iPF8400 in order to minimize that problem. You might want to establish a similar routine.
6) I love having a 44" printer because it gives me the option to go really big but truthfully I have never "needed" to print bigger than 24" wide. I was able to justify the higher cost when I bought my printer because it came with enough additional ink to offset the price difference with the 24" printer. I don't know if that is true of either the Canon or Epson printers now.
7) I don't glaze the prints I display in my home. I've never seen any fading on my photos but if I did I would simply replace them. And I buy very cheap frames from Micheals. They look perfectly fine on my walls and even 24x36" prints look great unmounted and unglazed and the total cost to me is less than $30 for the frame, paper, and ink. Prints I have sent off for exhibitions have been professionally framed at 10x the price!
Wall space is always an issue but I have solved that by displaying a grid of photos on my larger walls. That might not be to your taste but I like it.
And if you don't want to frame the prints then the best way I have found to display them is to mount them to self-adhesive Gatorboard.
I hope that helps with some of your questions.
Paul
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