Printer Purchase for Fine Art Prints - Canon Pixma Series?

[kjones]

Hi all, I'm looking at holding a portrait exhibition of approximately 340 prints (around A3 size)....after realising the cost of this many prints with a professional printer I'm now looking at purchasing a printer and printing the series myself.

Wanting to spend under $1K....photographs around A3/A3+ size (I wouldn't print larger than A3+/use rolls in the future)- ideally on a matte to semi gloss paper (any paper recommendations also welcome). I've been looking at the Canon Pixma Pro-10S or the Pro-100S, not sure whether pigment or dye inks is best. I have also traditionally been an Epson printer user (anyone used the P600 for fine art prints?).

I would appreciate any advice on best printer to use, and also what types of paper you have had great results with on these, as I've always used printers in the past and have limited experience with professional printing. Many thanks!

[mearussi]

Printing 340 photos is a lot of work. If this is the only reason you want the printer why not just have them printed at Costco? They only charge $4 for a 12x18. And even though that totals $1,360 that will still be cheaper than buying a printer then buying the ink and paper plus all your labor.

[elliot_n]

[Edit to add. Sorry, I misread your post and thought you were in the UK, where digital c-types are significantly cheaper than inkjet prints.]

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If you're prepared to consider digital c-types, rather than inkjets, then you could get the whole job done for around £400.

UK lab Simlab charge just £1.38 for an A3 Fuji Crystal Archive Lustre C-type print (prices at the bottom of the page):

https://www.simlab.co.uk/best-professional-photo-printing-uk

(I've used them. Print quality is excellent.)

[Alan Goldhammer]

Pigment inks are more resistant to fading than dye inks.  If this is a one off exhibition perhaps that is not a big issue for you.  Most of us who print to sell use pigment inks.  If you purchase on the of the 13 inch printers whether it is the Canon 100 or Epson 600, your print run will likely require more than one inkset for the paper size you are printing on.  I don't know if Costco offers choice of papers you want but their price might be a better approach as was noted.  You should cost out the printing.  In the US, the Canon Pro 100 can be purchased for about $150 as there is a big rebate on until the end of September.  A complete ink set is $125.  Say you settle on Canon Semi-Gloss paper; 50 sheets of that are now $50 with instant savings (all prices are from B&H).  Doing the quick math for 340 prints your total cost for paper is $350 for 7 boxes of paper; $150 for the printer and maybe $250 for the extra ink (that's just a guess on my part; maybe you only need one set of extra inks instead of 2).  that's $750  I assume you also want to print with highest quality.  I'm not sure what the printing time is for those printers (I'm always doing other things when I print and usually I don't print more than 10-15 sheets at a time) but lets say it's 5 minutes just to make things easy.  You are going to have to feed each sheet manually.  That works out to 29 hours of printing for 340 sheets! 

With such a high volume of printing you want a printer that will be easy to feed sheets.  I used to have an Epson 3880 and it was sometimes fickle.  My Canon Pro 1000 takes sheets very easily in comparison.

These are the considerations that I would look at.

[kjones]

Thanks all for comments and suggestions so far. I'm in Australia so slightly disadvantaged geographically in terms of Costco etc. .

And yes after high quality prints, but think I could certainly get away with dye inks given the nature of the exhibition (portrait prints will be most likely be given to subjects as it's a community based exhibition - hoping to get some funding to cover print costs).

[kers]

The larger the printer the cheaper the ink... ( check it out)
So maybe a 24 inch printer would be cheaper- ( certainly if you use it more in future)
also they are built to professional standards; for printer shops.

[TeamG]

Hi all, I'm looking at holding a portrait exhibition of approximately 340 prints (around A3 size)....after realising the cost of this many prints with a professional printer I'm now looking at purchasing a printer and printing the series myself.

With this sort of volume consider how you're going to store your prints for drying - I like to let mine stabilise at least over night.  Do a seach on ebay for print drying racks which will hold 25 sheets of A3 at a time.  Much better than the kitchen table

Wanting to spend under $1K....photographs around A3/A3+ size (I wouldn't print larger than A3+/use rolls in the future)- ideally on a matte to semi gloss paper (any paper recommendations also welcome). I've been looking at the Canon Pixma Pro-10S or the Pro-100S, not sure whether pigment or dye inks is best. I have also traditionally been an Epson printer user (anyone used the P600 for fine art prints?).

If you're thinking about the P600 just go straight to the P800.  One, the P600 doesn't take standard size roll cores so your paper choice is extrememly limited.  The other, and more importantly, the P800 has about three times the ink capacity than the 600.  By the time you do a full replacement of the starter inks of the 600 (which you will easily with the above volume) you would have had more starter ink with the P800 and overall spent less

I would appreciate any advice on best printer to use, and also what types of paper you have had great results with on these, as I've always used printers in the past and have limited experience with professional printing. Many thanks!

I'm an Epson person myself, the P800 definitly better choice than the P600 as above.  For paper, personally, I would use a fine art mat rag for portraits.  Something like the Hahnemuele Photo Rag 308 is quite nice for portraits (smooth with a fine texture) or Canson Rag Photographic (smooth with very little texture).  You will be looking at $1,500 to over $2,000 in paper alone BTW (and I'm not including wastage).  Have a chat to the folk at Kayell or Image Science who are very knowledgable

[NAwlins_Contrarian]

I'm looking at holding a portrait exhibition of approximately 340 prints (around A3 size)

That sounds like a really huge exhibition. I realize this is off-topic, but where are you going to exhibit 340 prints of A3 size? And who wants to view an exhibition of 340 portraits?

[A]fter realising the cost of this many prints with a professional printer I'm now looking at purchasing a printer and printing the series myself. Wanting to spend under $1K.

For the Pro-100, Red River Paper's test found ink use of 1.2ml per ft^2 (see https://www.redrivercatalog.com/cost-of-inkjet-printing-canon-pro-100.html). So 340 prints of A3 size would need about 549ml of ink before any is used for self-cleanings. For the Pro-100, I'd assume at least 15% more for self-cleanings. Pro-100 cartridges are 13ml, so you'd need about 49 cartridges. On Amazon Australia the cartridges appear to run at least $20 AU each, so the ink would probably consume all of your budget before you spent anything on the printer or paper.

For the Pro-10, Red River Paper's test found ink plus chroma optimizer use of 1.9ml/ft^2 (see https://www.redrivercatalog.com/cost-of-inkjet-printing-canon-pro-10.html). So 340 prints of A3 size would need about 869ml of ink before any is used for self-cleanings. For the Pro-10, I'd assume at least 30% more for self-cleanings. Pro-10 cartridges are 14ml, so you'd need about 81 cartridges. On Amazon Australia the cartridges appear to run at least $21.50 AU each (see https://www.amazon.com.au/Canon-PGI-72-Ten-pack-Ink-Tanks/dp/B00AV8MUAY/), so the ink would very likely well exceed your budget before you spent anything on the printer or paper.

For something like your project, a printer like a Canon Pro-1000 (which comes with 880ml of ink and 80ml of chroma optimizer) might be more economical. But I still don't see it fitting your budget.

ideally on a matte to semi gloss paper (any paper recommendations also welcome)

Given your budget, if you get a Canon printer, I suspect Canon SG-201 Photo Paper Plus Semi-Gloss is probably the best bet for good quality (albeit RC-type) and reasonably-priced. But A3 or A3+ sheets will probably cost you $1 AU to $1.50 AU each, so that's another $340 AU to $510 AU, on top of the printer and ink.

I would appreciate any advice ....

I would consider scaling back from 340 portraits to maybe 34. If you really want or need 340, then I would look for a budget-friendly lab that prints with a web process (RA-4) and would print A3 or A3+ on a semigloss or luster-type paper. In the U.S. I think I could get the prints for about $5 or $6 each, especially in that quantity. The time and effort would be much less, and I suspect at the end of the day, the cost would also be less.

Good luck!

[mearussi]

If I were trying to do what you are doing and keep it from bankrupting me, I'd find a printer that could use cheap 3rd party inks and then look for paper bargains. After all no one expects these show prints to last 100 years, nor do they need to.

[elliot_n]

If you really want or need 340, then I would look for a budget-friendly lab that prints with a web process (RA-4) and would print A3 or A3+ on a semigloss or luster-type paper. In the U.S. I think I could get the prints for about $5 or $6 each, especially in that quantity. The time and effort would be much less, and I suspect at the end of the day, the cost would also be less.

Is that the cheapest you can get? As I mentioned further up the thread, here in the UK you can get an A3 Fuji Crystal Archive Lustre C-type print for $1.70.

[dgberg]

If you really want to make money, the easy way is to get them printed by someone else for $500 or so.
Keystone that price (triple to $1500) and you make a thousand as the middleman lining up someone else doing all the work.

[NAwlins_Contrarian]

Is that the cheapest you can get? As I mentioned further up the thread, here in the UK you can get an A3 Fuji Crystal Archive Lustre C-type print for $1.70.

The cheapest price I see in the U.S. for a print of about A3 size is from Adorama (Adoramapix), which has 11x17 inches for $5.59. I don't go out looking for the cheapest possible price, so this is among places I have used or would use. I did see your comment, and I figured it almost had to be a typographical error. Even if you mean £1.70, last I saw that would mean about $2.13 U.S., obviously much cheaper than anything of which I'm aware. I'm astonished you can get quality A3 prints for £1.70 much less $1.70.

If I were trying to do what you are doing and keep it from bankrupting me, I'd find a printer that could use cheap 3rd party inks and then look for paper bargains. After all no one expects these show prints to last 100 years, nor do they need to.

That would surely be one way to save a considerable amount of money. On the other hand, it would introduce the hassles and time of refilling and resetting, plus potentially finding or making ICC profiles for the cheap ink + cheap paper combination, to the already almost-Herculean task of making 340 A3-size prints; and IMOPO if the idea is to sell these prints, it borders on unethical to sell prints with any third-party ink (other than B&W with carbon ink), unless they're sold at extremely low prices.

[elliot_n]

£1.38 = $1.70. Yes, they're good quality prints, and amazingly cheap. It's a popular lab with wedding photographers.

[kjones]

Thank you so much for the advice everyone - really appreciate it.  Lots of things to think about!