Which printer NOT to buy?

[jfrancho]

FYI, WHCC does not charge shipping to the lower 48.

[Dave R.]

Originally Posted by brian.austin

You forgot one key cost: capital cost of the original purchase.

By the time you get an A3 printer + accessories to tune the output, you're easily up to $2,000. So you can look at it two ways:

1. Your first print costs $2,004.00 (printer + accessories + materials). Second print is cost of materials.
2. Your first print costs $2,004.00 but drops every time you print something. 2nd time = $1,004.00, 3rd = $670.67, etc..

Every pro studio I've seen that does production portrait/wedding stuff uses outside labs. It's considerably more cost effective. And yes, shipping one print is ridiculous. I use it only for special situations. Otherwise I batch my order to save on shipping, since 10 prints costs the same $4.95 in shipping (at Mpix, at least).

On this we agree. As I stated "Does the following justify purchase of your own printer? Probably not". I was simply making a point that at times, it can be less costly printing your own (if you already have the printer) that is. I actually ended up sending the single file to Photowork's in Seattle. The shipping is a nominal cost and the results I have received previously would be difficult to match printing at home. Thus using your above example makes the payback even longer.

[ToJohn]

Originally Posted by jfrancho

Oh yeah, ink jets suck -

When you order prints on Canvas or Rag Media from WHCC, what do they output from?



john

[jfrancho]

Yeah, yeah. I meant those little plastic toaster ovens that sit on you desk and spit out prints. They suck $$$ from wallet. Home printing sucks.

[Paul Shields]

Originally Posted by jfrancho

Yeah, yeah. I meant those little plastic toaster ovens that sit on you desk and spit out prints. They suck $$$ from wallet. Home printing sucks.

Nah, it's great . I bought my 4 year old a Canon Selphy (720 I think) for around £40 on evilbay. Also got a print cartidge/paper pack that does around 100 prints for £15 and the quality is amazing! It's a dyesub so you get that lovely finished feel to them straight out of the printer. I could probably save a few quid popping them into a developer, but then we wouldn't have the joyful experience of him seeing his latest out of focus shots of his left foot slowly emerging from the toaster. Well worth the extra .

[kevgermany]

Many top line photographers also print themselves - Alain Briot, Neil Snape and Joseph Holmes spring immediately to mind. Would they do it if it sucked? One could hardly call them dittos - whatever derogatory meaning that term may have acquired.

It's important to remember that there's personal choice involved and that what works for one guy may or amy not work for the next.

Good labs can offer more range and excellent results. But no lab's going to print for me on Sunday night when I need to deliver prints on Monday morning, as I've done in the past.

Home printing also easily matches the quality of lab work and allows one to rectify problems that weren't seen/obvious on screen. Printing at home allows me to experiment with papers for a specific print's look and feel - something that'd be extremely time consuming trotting off to the lab every day for a different test. Although some people may find it problematic, I and many others enjoy making prints at home. It's immediate, unlike a trip to the lab. On the cost side of things, I've a 2-3 hour round trip to get to a decent lab. Factor that in... Breakeven point changes a lot then, especially as most of the printing that I do is singles or small batches of less than 5.

[olcoach10]

Hi All, Any printer made by Hewlett-Packard should be totally avoided. Their service is non-excistent, printers gulp ink, replacements are expensive and have minimal amounts of ink. I'm also convinced that some problems are built in so you have to buy a replacement. NEVER buy an HP printer!

[lightandimages]

Originally Posted by kevgermany

Many top line photographers also print themselves - Alain Briot, Neil Snape and Joseph Holmes spring immediately to mind. Would they do it if it sucked? One could hardly call them dittos - whatever derogatory meaning that term may have acquired.

It's important to remember that there's personal choice involved and that what works for one guy may or amy not work for the next.

Good labs can offer more range and excellent results. But no lab's going to print for me on Sunday night when I need to deliver prints on Monday morning, as I've done in the past.

Home printing also easily matches the quality of lab work and allows one to rectify problems that weren't seen/obvious on screen. Printing at home allows me to experiment with papers for a specific print's look and feel - something that'd be extremely time consuming trotting off to the lab every day for a different test. Although some people may find it problematic, I and many others enjoy making prints at home. It's immediate, unlike a trip to the lab. On the cost side of things, I've a 2-3 hour round trip to get to a decent lab. Factor that in... Breakeven point changes a lot then, especially as most of the printing that I do is singles or small batches of less than 5.

George Lepp prints his own also and does a very fine job of it based on samples I've seen. His institute also runs a very well regarded seminar on printing fine art prints. Hardly what one would call a "ditto". I can not see someone printing off 200 wedding shots but I can see someone printing off a fine art wedding portrait 13x19 on rag paper with custom matting for a nice sum. That type of print, you want the max control over and not the tech with a hangover.

Like anything, self service printing is a tool among many available to us nowdays. In every job, you use the proper tool whether it be custom printing at the home office/studio or letting one of the many commercial labs handle it. Both work.

[Not4wood]

Mannnn, are you guys making me remember why I started with my own darkroom. Of course its expensive, making the prints the way YOU want. Enlargers, remember looking for a better lens so you can make better prints? Timers, darkroom lights, trays, chemicals and trying to make room so you could dry your prints. Remember, to always wash long enough and then keep it washing as a just in case. Dont want those precious prints turning yellow. Buying one of the those stupid print dryers with that cloth that pulled tight so your prints wont curl. Remember those days do you??

Testing, correcting, changing things, cropping, contrast, burning and dodging. Your forgetting the most important part of Photography, making your own custom prints the way you want. We could have sent our Tri-X, Plus-X or even remember that slower film Pan-X for processing. They never made those prints the way we wanted. Maybe they got close. This is why its inherant that we print our own.

Because we are better then the average shooter and making our own prints Priceless, when someone wants to hang our prints on there wall........

BTW, there was a fast comment about trusting someone with a hangover to make our prints? I think that comment is probably the funniest of all. From what I've seen of the shots posted at the Camel, I would say 100 percent of us are better then anybody working and processing photos at Walmart/all the others as well too. Your going to trust your shots to someone with lesser of a skill?? Printing in bulk like a large contract session or a Wedding, Nope I wouldn't think of printing that on my small home system. Small parties or a Portrait Session, of course. I wont trust these to anybody else. If you can find a Lab that you trust for your larger numbered shots, then thats what there for. If you want anything custom, printing it yourself is still the best way to go.

[jfrancho]

I get prints the way I want from my lab. Sometimes I want textures, sometimes I want them mounted on foam core or mat board, sometimes I want them on canvas stretcher, sometimes I want a bound book, etc. I can get all of this in one order, and with no shipping charges it is at my door in two days. If something isn't right, I call the lab, and they reprint with no further cost to me. This has never happened, though. Prints are exactly as I view them on the screen. I've said this already, but if you want to get a printer that will give you immediate ROI, get a cheap laser printer. When I send an invoice to the printer, it spits out a copy with the same dollar figure on the bottom as I see on the screen.

[Paul Shields]

John, what you say is all true (apart from the laser printer comment ) but you're missing out on a facet that does give pleasure to people and (to me at least) is the most important part of photography. If I were doing dozens of prints a week then I'd seriously consider outsourcing it but from a satisfaction point of view making your own prints is hard to beat. I've a disused darkroom in the basement and despite (or because of) the effort involved I miss that environment and workflow. Now I can almost replicate it but - and this is the awesome part - make amazing quality prints without the smells or fumbling in the dark. Each to their own, but I think there's a significant minority who really enjoy the printing element.

[Not4wood]

Originally Posted by Paul Shields

but I think there's a significant minority who really enjoy the printing element.

Paul,

I think I will disagree with you on the above statement. I don't think were a Minority, in fact I think even a lot of the P&S people are going for the creation of there own prints. My friends wife for instance. She does print a lot of her own stuff and on occasion when she has a lot of shots like returning from a vacation she will outsource. But, now this is the kicker. She says "I like the way my pictures look without any editing at all". I was informing her of the choices of both payware and freeware of Photo Editing Software and she wasn't interested in even the free stuff. I then reminder her that I used to have my own darkroom, been in the business a long time and did Weddings and even ended up the Manager of a Small Portrait Studio. That no matter how good my shots were originally from the camera, they still needed a tweek here and there. LOL She wasn't interested at all, in fact she got huffy and an atitude "Well mine don't". We or actually my wife brought one of her vacation Albums after that incident and my friends wife started looking at the shots. You should have seen the look on her face, That was wait, Again, priceless.... Even her eyebrows went up, without her saying anything at all. Granted, I did edit the shots in Elements 5 before bringing them to Kinkos but I didn't tell her that.... LOL

[Paul Shields]

Mark, you summed up DIY printing nicely. There is plenty of room to accommodate all views on printing yourself/using labs etc. In the end we just choose what's best for us.

Anyway, I see we've veered way off target from the original post . Funny thing is I've not been disappointed by very many printers at all. More likely I've been blown away by the print quality. One of the few areas of photography where new technology equals getter quality .

[Not4wood]

Getting back on topic. The only thing I've really had heard about is the Epson Printers. They need to be used at least once a week, if not. They clog, and it will get expensive trying to clean the printer heads. Now, that is old news and I've heard that the newer printers have gotten passed this. I've heard this about HP as well, but I have never seen it. I had a Canon 6700D, with 6 ink cartridges and It was a great printer. Would be able to get ICC profiles for it, and it would take the higher quality papers as well. The only thing about this, is that it was only a 8.5x11 printer. It got blown out on me. So I had to get another printer. I ended up paying a friend a couple of bucks for an older HP Deskjet. Very fast, I haven't used it in a couple of weeks, and when I did print from it. I had no problem at all. It only takes two cartridges. A black, and a Tri-Color cartridge. Actually prints from this arent that bad, but I purchased an interim 6 ink cartridge HP Photo Printer that is actually better then I thought it would be. I got it from Staples On Sale for an extremely good price. I am now using two printers, both set up thru a USB 2.0 Hub. One for documents and the other for Photo Quality. It works, both are cheaper printers and I'm temporarily happy. I wanted the Epson R1400 printer, but I have no room for it in a very small apartment. So I will suffer with these. LOL