On Jan 10, 2007, at 7:14 AM, Thibouille wrote: > For quite a time I'm considering printing myself my shots but being on > a budget I couldn't decide what to do. I'm not (for now at least) > printing much, really. > > 1/ I saw what a little Canon Selphy can do and honestly I fell on my > bottom. Pretty good IMO. Directly from K10D using Pictbridge... very > nice. Very affordable too. > > 2/ I'd like A3 but cost of those printers is ... well high ! Not even > talking about ink and paper costs. > > 3/ The low-end A3 printers are OK for coulour as I understand but not > that good for B&W. A shame I'd like to print B&W ... > > Given these 3 points I may be better to send those to my nearest Lab. > What would you do?
If you want to print larger sizes in B&W on a budget, I would recommend buying a used/refurbished Epson 1270/1280 series printer (available for around US $100 nowadays) and dedicating it to B&W use. MIS UT-2 inks and the QuadToneRIP software from Roy Harrington will produce B&W quality on par with the R2400 or other high-end printers. The reason I bought the R2400 was for consistency and repeatability when producing a large volume of prints that have to match when hanging in an exhibition. My 1270 with the above inks and software produces equal quality for B&W, just not as consistently. I also find that running the R2400 is a little cheaper than running the 1270/MIS/ QTR setup, but if you're printing a modest amount that savings is trivial. For color work in larger sizes, well, I don't see anything to compete with the higher end printers. For small sizes there are a number that do awfully well at a modest price. Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
