Printer for painting studio - recommendations / suggestions

[geezerhood]

My wife and I are starting to paint full time since she retired last spring and have a need for a printer that will do the following:

Create gallery worthy prints from high resolution digital images of pastels, watercolors, oils, encaustics and other flat artwork, on watercolor and other cotton rag papers with and without textures on the paper, as well as on canvas in the case of the oil paintings and maybe the encaustics. Most will be 16x20 or smaller but it would be nice to be able to go bigger if the cost isn't prohibitive.

Printing fairly large sheets used to transfer an idea sketch onto a larger canvas or panel that will then be painted on using the transferred sketch as a layout guide. They will be created from black and white scanned pencil or pen sketches, usually 8x10 or smaller. The image quality does not need to be that good for these and the paper needs to be thin and inexpensive as it will be thrown away after use. The back side of the paper will be rubbed with graphite or something similar to create a large carbon copy paper. Thin paper is needed so that tracing over the lines with a ballpoint pen will transfer a line onto the canvas or other painting support.  Outside dimensions of the artwork will be up to 8 feet on the longest side, maybe longer down the road.  Tiling is OK, but we are currently tiling with 8 1/2" x 14" sheets and it is a bit cumbersome, larger sheets will be very helpful.

Photographic printing in color on glossy stock and also black and white on satin or matte stock will take a 3rd position of importance over the art prints, but we would still like to be able to produce a gallery worthy photographic print from the printer of at least 16x20. I am assuming if the printer can handle high quality art type printing on rag papers, it should also handle photo printing quite well.

Budget is around $1000. I am leaning towards a used 44"+ printer knowing that eventually I will want to be printing bigger than 16x20 and can't afford a new 44"+, but realistically a 16" wide or mabye 20" wide if they make them,  should do the job for us. Larger prints can be farmed out. We probably won't be printing daily so a printer that doesn't clog up if not used daily would be a plus.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[disneytoy]

I don't think you can do a 44" printer for $1k.  Read more here and the pitfalls of running a large printer. Ink and media will cost more than your printer.

I got an Epson44" 9890 for $3200. I've spent right away about $2k on replacement ink. On media I've spent close to $4k on various rolls of 44" paper canvas. Expect to pay $300-400 a roll.

Good luck

[dgberg]

Epson's SC P-800 should be under 1K with rebates. Add the roll feed and you have a great 17" printer.
Outsource those larger prints until you can justify going to a 24" or 44" machine.

[geezerhood]

Disneytoy - I was thinking a used printer for the 44". Several under a grand have been seen locally. Not sure I want to risk a used machine though as a new print head can cost a fortune.

Dan - That SC P-800 looks like it would work quite well for me. I am guessing that once we get up to speed offering prints from our original art work, we won't often go over 16x20 even if the original was 48" wide.

------------------------

I suppose the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 is their model to compete with the P-800? What are the pros / cons of going Epson over Canon or the opposite? From my reading in the past I seem to recall that Canon printers were a bit more forgiving if not used as frequently RE clogged nozzles plus less expensive to fix if the head goes out. Is that correct and / or still the case?

The Epson says it will handle 1.7MM thick papers, including posterboard with a straight through path. I wasn't able to find if the Canon will do that. The Canon says 0.7mm max, less than half that of the Canon which makes me think the Epson is going to handle art papers and a wider range of canvas much better than the Canon. The $300 rebate on the Epson is attractive.

What I would like to do is test one with the papers / canvas I plan on using before I buy it if possible.

[enduser]

We did some reproduction work for artists and getting that right, in other words achieving a printworthy copy of the art is s kill in itself.  We found this article to be very useful  http://www.printmakerkauai.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Howtoprinttheperfectgiclee1.pdf

[BobShaw]

I don't think you can do a 44" printer for $1k.

+1.
Gallery worthy prints for under $1k?
If you did it is probably worn out with no ink. The ink would cost more than that.
You haven't even mentioned camera calibration and colour management and lighting if you are doing art reproduction.
I think the printing is the cheap part.
A P800 would be the best I think.
I am not overly familiar with the Canon but from what I hear it competes with the 3880 that the P800 replaced. In other words, non roll feed A2 printer $1-2K.

[BradSmith]

Dan - That SC P-800 looks like it would work quite well for me.

I suppose the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 is their model to compete with the P-800? What are the pros / cons of going Epson over Canon or the opposite? From my reading in the past I seem to recall that Canon printers were a bit more forgiving if not used as frequently RE clogged nozzles plus less expensive to fix if the head goes out. Is that correct and / or still the case?

Mark Segal, our resident printer (and paper) tester extraordinaire, did extensive reviews on both right here on Lula.

https://luminous-landscape.com/new-epson-surecolor-p800-printer-review/
https://luminous-landscape.com/canon-imageprograf-pro-1000-printer-review/

And there have been many follow on topics in Printing:Printers, Papers and Ink regarding both of these printers.

Brad

[geezerhood]

Thanks folks.

It looks like the Epson is the way to go over the Canon due to the broader paper options.

[149113]

Disneytoy - I was thinking a used printer for the 44". Several under a grand have been seen locally. Not sure I want to risk a used machine though as a new print head can cost a fortune.

My process is very similar to what you are proposing with a mixture of natural mediums and digital tech. Any 44" you find for under $1K USD on some place like Craigslist is going to have issues. There are no real bargains when it comes to these 44" printers. Either the unit was beaten to death through use, the printhead(s) is shot, or the unit has some other mechanical issue that the owner has already researched and determined a new printer will be cheaper. The only time I consider one of these units is to harvest OEM inks at a great price. The printer unit is then scrapped.

[149113]

This is genius for photographing standard paintings. Long thread but you can see what the inventor is doing

http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=83550.0

[geezerhood]

149113 -

Thanks for that link. Very impressive stuff there. Way more than I would ever need but I would still like to have one!

I know a fellow who shoots million dollar paintings for a gallery to produce prints on canvas that they sell, with a 20 something megapixel camera using a non stitched single shot, and the customer is happy with the results. If they are happy with that, great, but I want significantly better digital images and prints for my paltry $500 to $2500 paintings. If it doesn't look very close to what observing the original shows including clearly visible brush strokes, highlights etc. as discussed in that link, then I am not going to offer it for sale. 

I did run into a used 44" (might have been wider) Epson a few years ago on Craig's List that was in perfect working condition that I planned on converting to black and white only for carbon printing, but never did buy it. But, yes all of the ones I have seen besides that one, had serious issues, which is why I am probably not going there for this project.

[Roscolo]

You missed your chance to purchase a Canon ipf8400. They were selling for $2500, and it came with $2,000 worth of ink in it. Pretty sure they are all sold out now. I would still go with a Canon or HP over Epson (I have owned and used all three). Remember, you need to be printing something every few days or it doesn't make sense to purchase a large format printer. None of these printers respond well to sitting idle.

[donbga]

My wife and I are starting to paint full time since she retired last spring and have a need for a printer that will do the following:

Create gallery worthy prints from high resolution digital images of pastels, watercolors, oils, encaustics and other flat artwork, on watercolor and other cotton rag papers with and without textures on the paper, as well as on canvas in the case of the oil paintings and maybe the encaustics. Most will be 16x20 or smaller but it would be nice to be able to go bigger if the cost isn't prohibitive.

Printing fairly large sheets used to transfer an idea sketch onto a larger canvas or panel that will then be painted on using the transferred sketch as a layout guide. They will be created from black and white scanned pencil or pen sketches, usually 8x10 or smaller. The image quality does not need to be that good for these and the paper needs to be thin and inexpensive as it will be thrown away after use. The back side of the paper will be rubbed with graphite or something similar to create a large carbon copy paper. Thin paper is needed so that tracing over the lines with a ballpoint pen will transfer a line onto the canvas or other painting support.  Outside dimensions of the artwork will be up to 8 feet on the longest side, maybe longer down the road.  Tiling is OK, but we are currently tiling with 8 1/2" x 14" sheets and it is a bit cumbersome, larger sheets will be very helpful.

Photographic printing in color on glossy stock and also black and white on satin or matte stock will take a 3rd position of importance over the art prints, but we would still like to be able to produce a gallery worthy photographic print from the printer of at least 16x20. I am assuming if the printer can handle high quality art type printing on rag papers, it should also handle photo printing quite well.

Budget is around $1000. I am leaning towards a used 44"+ printer knowing that eventually I will want to be printing bigger than 16x20 and can't afford a new 44"+, but realistically a 16" wide or mabye 20" wide if they make them,  should do the job for us. Larger prints can be farmed out. We probably won't be printing daily so a printer that doesn't clog up if not used daily would be a plus.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

I would strongly recommend farming out that work to a high end ink jet printing atelier , such as Dean Imaging for example, instead of buying and operating a large printer yourself.

http://www.deanimaging.com/

Just for the record I'm not affiliated with Dean Imaging. Any other comparable atelier will suffice and probably make the economics of your project much more palatable while still maintaining a high quality print for your clients.

[geezerhood]

One aspect I failed to mention is that often we will be wanting to print on demand for same day delivery, so farming the work out would not be an option.

After looking at the options and the cost I am going to put a new "big" printer on the back burner for now and purchase a used Canon Pixma Pro-10 as a stop gap that will allow me to print pretty decent art reproductions on rag papers. It will cover 90% of the sizes I need. I found one for $200 with plenty of ink in it that works perfectly.

I can't find any really negative stuff on the Pro-10 as far as art prints on non glossy papers other than reduced margins when printing on fine art papers. Is there something else I missed that would preclude me from buying this printer in a couple of days?

[howardm]

Apparently there is a 60 'non-use' hour timer that forces a cleaning.  After that, it goes to 120hr and more.  Bottom line is that the thing sounds like it drinks & wastes ink. 

[ralfe89]

The auto cleaning ensures a clog free print head. The longer the non-use the more ink is used during the cleaning cycle. Is it wasted? I think this is controversial.
With an Epson printer you don't have this "feature" but the missing print work can result in a clogged print head and you need to trigger a cleaning cycle which will use more ink as the the first auto cleaning cycles on a Canon printer. In contrast you use ink for black ink switching which is a definitive waste on an Epson.

If you don't want to spend much money now, go for the Canon Pro 10 and see if it matches your usage. You can refine your needs and costs for the bigger printer better. For 200$ with ink it is more then a good deal. I would dream for something like this here in Germany...