Wide Format Good or Bad for Small Prints?

[edt]

In the past I used Imageprint Lite to print on an old 2200, 13" wide printer. Having the ability to easily do layout/nesting spoiled me. The last couple of yrs I sent everything out to a lab, used the 2200 to print emails (!)

I am ready to buy a 24" wide printer, I want the extraordinary quality I see coming off these printers. While I print some 20 x 30's etc, 2/3 of my print jobs consist of multiple smaller prints. One job might have 2ea 11x14's and 16ea 5x7's (of 5 different images) and 4x6's too....plus I print a fair amount of Note Cards.

Some have suggested that the wide printers are not easy/user friendly for printing sheets, for printing multiple small prints. It has even been suggested that if one has frequent need to print small he should buy a 3800/3880 AND a wide format printer, since the smaller printer more easily accomodates the multiple small prints.

Here is my question, should I:

     1--Get the 24" printer to do all the printing, large and small, it's not really much of a problem printing small on large printers, just keep the rotatrim handy
     2--Get the 24" printer and some nesting program (Qimage/Imageprint etc) to help layout the small prints on the roll paper (minimizing the need to print sheets) then you only have one printer to maintain, one set of inks to inventory
     3--get a 3880, and continue using an outside lab for the larger prints

thx for advice from those who have experience,

Ed

[Randy Carone]

If you will sometimes use the 24" width, buy the 24" printer. If you plan to buy the 24" printer, you should limit yourself to 13" x 19" as a minimum (possibly down to 11" x 17") sheet size. Letter size is more difficult to feed in the Epson 7900, for example. If you need to print multiple sheets, consider the Epson 4880, which has a front cassette feeder for unattended printing of multiple sheets up to 17" x 22", has vacuum to hold sheets flat and will  allow you to use 17" rolls. Back to the 24" size - if you can live with feeding individual sheets the Epson 7880/7900 printers offer the widest range of material availability as more producers offer media in 24" rolls.
Of course, for low volume individual sheets, it's hard to beat the 3800/3880.

[John Collins]

I've used the 9800 for 5 years. It prints 8.5X11 and 42" wide prints with equal ease. I use an ImagePrint RIP and have no complaints, size notwithstanding. If you want to print large prints, of course, you need a large printer. In my experence, a large printer will print small prints also.

[howseth]

Lately, I have been printing multiple "8 x 6.5" prints on my 24" Z-3100. I am using 17" rolls for this - and print 2 at a time across the width. - and cut the prints later - works fine - but there is that roll curl to deal with: the prints have to be flattened.

Howard

[DougMorgan]

Personally I find feeding single sheets easier and more foolproof with the 9880 vs the 4880.   There is no paper tray though so you have to load and unload each sheet.

I don't know about the 7900/9900 systems but the ink pressurization system on the 7880/9880 seems to be more reliable than the system on the 4880 (and I assume the 3880).   When I get clogging it's much more costly to clear on the 4880 compared to the 9880.

Canvas printing is possible with a 24 inch wide printer though you end up with about 20 inches for a maximum width once allowing for stretching.

There are several downsides to the larger epson printers though  --- check the minimum page size, minimum borders, and available borderless widths (4x6 is not an option for example).

I would also consider how often you print.   In my experience the more often the printer is used the less clogging and during a Canadian winter printing everyday is ideal.    Keeping the humidity higher seems to help but the amount of ink wasted in an epson printer is not trivial and should be considered as well.   Ink cartridges also expire and depending on how much you trust Epson's recommendations on ink life you might be tossing partially full cartridges before it can be pumped in to the waste tank.

Good luck....
Doug

   

[edt]

Good feedback, thanks for your comments. I'll have to find a way to spend some time looking at the screen on a 7900 so I can better understand how I would layout multiple images to print on roll paper--then I will know how satisfactory I might find the standard program or if I will want a better way to layout multiple prints/images on one job. Thanks again.

[kirmo]

Good feedback, thanks for your comments. I'll have to find a way to spend some time looking at the screen on a 7900 so I can better understand how I would layout multiple images to print on roll paper--then I will know how satisfactory I might find the standard program or if I will want a better way to layout multiple prints/images on one job. Thanks again.

Feeding single sheets to my Epson 9900 is very, very easy (7900 is the same).

I use Lightroom for 99% of my printing. With LR it is really easy to print small (tiny) prints on wide rolls.
Just choose like 300 diles, define how many per page and hit return. Then come back after a while and
photos are already cut on pages with selected number of photos per pages.

Very easy and handy to make bigger amounts of small photos.

Kirmo


ps. My Epson 4000 now totally retired, no need fo it.

[Jim Pascoe]

My Canon 6100 is used for all print sizes and mostly on roll paper.  I too use Lightroom for printing and have made lots of templates for various print sizes. For example nine 7X5 inch prints on 24x17 paper.  Although I have only dabbled with it, LR3 allows for a mixture of sizes, whereas LR2 only allows prints of the same size on any one template.  I do sometimes print on sheets too, which is easy for the odd print that I need immediately.  It takes a while initially to design all your templates, but once saved as presets they are easy to use.  I add to my bank of templates as and when the need arises.

Jim

[DougMorgan]

Check out QImage (www.ddisoftware.com)  for a simple and easy way to manage print layout and color profiles.    Much cheaper than imageprint and it handles most of the page layout automatically.

Doug

[Wayne Fox]

Good feedback, thanks for your comments. I'll have to find a way to spend some time looking at the screen on a 7900 so I can better understand how I would layout multiple images to print on roll paper--then I will know how satisfactory I might find the standard program or if I will want a better way to layout multiple prints/images on one job. Thanks again.

Lightroom.  Easy, fast, works great.  Rivals a RIP for nesting smaller prints on roll paper.  Try the demo free for 30 days.

Bonus is all the other terrific stuff it does.

[artobest]

I use the nesting function of the Postscript driver on my Z3200ps for printing batches of smaller images on roll paper. It seems to work pretty well, and the PS version of the Z3200 can often be had for little more than the non-PS version. But as another poster said, paper curl is an issue; I carefully flatten my smaller prints in a book press.

[edt]

All this is good info...very helpful. I want to be sure I don't overlook something that might be a huge disappointment that I have to live with for years...with these printers there are so many things to consider.

I've consistently heard good things about printing from LR...but I'll come out of the closet and admit I'm forever hooked on PhotoMechanic for editing/sorting and Capture One for conversion. So there goes LR! Also, I'm a Mac guy so there goes Quimage! But I'm encouraged by the above feedback. Apparently it is reasonable to use a large printer to print a lot of small prints, thank goodness. Guess I'll just have to learn about flattening/D-curling. And get a larger rotatrim. It's always something!

[Dan Wells]

All 24-inch printers are fundamentally roll paper machines (except for one odd HP a bunch of years ago, which was a 24 inch printer (on rolls or single sheets) with a 17 inch multisheet tray!) For that matter, 17 inch printers except the 3800/3880 are really roll machines as well. That said, I nest prints on my iPF6100, and have never been bothered by it... In some ways, a 24-inch printer is an easier machine to live with than a 17-incher - it's quite a bit wider, but, because it lacks a tray, it's not nearly as deep from front to back. A 17 inch printer (again, except the 3800/3880) has a huge paper tray on the front. The 24 inch machine also has its own stand, instead of dominating a table...


                           -Dan

[abiggs]

I really don't understand why HP, Canon and Epson don't design a wide format printer that can accommodate an optional cassette for cut sheets. Heck, they could sell the cassette for a ton of money, because I know a ton of people that would purchase a 24" printer for occasional large prints but would primarily use the printer for cut sheets. That is extra income for the manufacturer(s), because it is an upsell. Most of my friends are not interested in owning a 17" and a 24" printer, as they likely don't have the space for both.

Canon, HP and Epson, are you guys listening? :-)

[Ernst Dinkla]

I really don't understand why HP, Canon and Epson don't design a wide format printer that can accommodate an optional cassette for cut sheets. Heck, they could sell the cassette for a ton of money, because I know a ton of people that would purchase a 24" printer for occasional large prints but would primarily use the printer for cut sheets. That is extra income for the manufacturer(s), because it is an upsell. Most of my friends are not interested in owning a 17" and a 24" printer, as they likely don't have the space for both.

Canon, HP and Epson, are you guys listening? :-)

Like someone already hinted at, there is the HP Designjet 130 24" that does both, sheets up to 17".
It would be nice to have that solution again in a more up to date pigment printer.
On the other hand I would rather have a dedicated 17" sheet printer that does dual sided printing from 20 sheets stacks and that even with 200 gr/m2 papers.

On small format versus wide: a small format model may have droplet sizes of 1.5 picoliter (1400, 1900, etc) and improved weaving/dithering (B9180 etc) compared to the wide formats of the same generation (3.5 picoliter droplet minimum). If the same specs would have been used for a wide format it would need a lot more time in processing and printing to get a square meter printed, if technically possible on the larger paper and printer size. On the other hand wide formats are more pro, more consistent, hardware and software wise.

Producing smaller prints on wider models should be cheaper on materials and ink if the cutting of smaller prints wasn't taking so much time. Expensive automatic cutters that waste more paper in handling are not really a solution to keep cost down.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla

Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/

[photomike]

I have used an Epson 7600 for years for prints from wallets to 24x36 and now I use the 9900 as well for the same thing.  What I do is layout the page 16x24, 20x24, etc with all the prints that I want and hit print.  I have a cutter that takes minutes to cut the pages.  I do all layouts in Photoshop.

Why this way?  I was using a sheet feeder but the paper waste was HUGE!!!  A stack of 8x10's would have as much waste around the print as prints. Using 24" rolls and cutting the larger sheets I laid out cut my waste WAY down.  If I send multiple orders through the 7600 at the same time I do not even have the white leading edge as waste (still trying to get this done on the 9900).

If you wanted to use sheets in a production environment with the bigger printers I would go with a smaller printer that could handle this as hand feeding 20, 30 or 50 sheets a day would be a killer.

[Dan Wells]

A feed tray on a big printer would make the already large machine even bigger. The large roll printers are designed to tuck into a corner on their own stands - they are very long and heavy; and their only saving grace from a positioning viewpoint is that they are quite narrow front to back. Add a protruding tray to that, and they become a table-sized piece of ugly furniture. The other technical reason not to include a tray is that almost all of them (the REALLY large Canon 8100 and 9100 are the exception, with their front to front path) are designed for a single feed path from the top rear of the printer. A tray up there would either have to temporarily replace the roll feeder (which would be a huge pain to load) or have some sort of automatic switch mechanism that would add significant complexity. A front tray would be an entirely separate paper path that would add a lot of complexity. Large printers are designed for a fairly simple paper path (in at top rear and out at lower front), which presumably makes handling wide and/or heavy paper easier. The DesignJet 130 that DID have a tray was a much lighter duty machine than any current big printer, wouldn't handle heavy art papers, and really didn't have a true, reliable roll feeder - it had a non-powered feeder that handled rolls as if they were long sheets, instead of the powered roll feeders used on every other big printer, It was effectively a scaled up 13 inch printer, while everything else is a heavy-duty inkjet plotter with extra ink channels added.


                                                -Dan

[abiggs]

Dan, I amsaying that the entire thing needs tone rethought, and I am not advocating a Frankenstein add on kind of thing. Rethink the mouse trap and start anew. It can be done.

[Gemmtech]

Dan, I'm assuming you are not an engineer, designer, architect, etc?  Frank Lloyd Wright was told by a dozen or more civil / structural engineers that Fallingwater couldn't be build and they gave a plethora of reasons why, well he built it!  I can't tell you how many times I've been told something couldn't be done and yet I found a design solution to accomplish it.  I'm sure there were many that said the Hoover Dam couldn't be built, but it was.  There's a solution to adding a tray feeder on a larger format printer, the question is how much of a market is there?  I would like to have one on a 7900 and I'm sure many more would as well, however these printers are a very small part of the market, it has NOTHING to do with the engineering of adding one, it can't be that difficult.

[abiggs]

....that's why I developed my Gura Gear Kiboko bag. Nobody thought you could have a lightweight camera bag that still had ample protection and functionality. Heck, I actually increased the functionality.