There's a big difference between the R220 level printers and the "bottom end pro" series printers like the R2400, R2880, R3800 model. The latter do the business properly, the former can produce good prints but are nowhere near as easy to get quality results out of IMO.
I'm not so familiar with the R1900 model although it looks like a follow-on model to the R1800. These printers are pigment ink printers with smallish ink carts, optimized for color work and glossy papers. They do not use the K3 based ink set and are thus not as useful for B&W printing work. The R2400 and R3800 use the same K3 inkset (shared also with the R4800, R7800, etc). These are great on all surfaces, but particularly matte and luster surfaces, they lack the R1800/1900 "gloss optimizer" in the inkset. However, they have a full set of grays and print B&W brilliantly. The R2880 is a follow-on to the R2400 and includes an updated Magenta and Light Magenta pair which supposedly improves on the color rendering, but does not have the gloss optimizer ink so it is more closely related to the R2400/R3800 series in terms of what you can expect from it. It's pretty easy to get better prints than any but a very upscale print service with the R2400/etc. It's just more time consuming because you have to learn how to print yourself ... printing is always takes work and proves an often tedious learning endeavor. However, it's as simple as "buy an R2400 and colorimeter, calibrate your monitor, install the drivers and paper profiles, use Lightroom and print" in the end. My cost per A3 print with the R2400 amounts to about US $1.40 in ink plus the cost of the sheet paper ($0.85 for Enhanced Matte, $3.60 for Velvet Fine Art). That's a lot cheaper than any print service I've found for an exhibition quality print. The capital cost of the printer (US $650) has been paid back in savings about four times over in the almost-three years I've been using it. And it's still going strong. Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
