So...I have been a doing a lot of thinking in the past couple weeks...about printing and running series on some of pieces.

I have begun the debate on whether it is better/more cost effective:

A) to use a professional lab as I have done in the past with single prints.

B) Or is more worth my while to invest in a printer and make my own prints (especially because the majority of the printing I would do would be numbered prints.) And I would hopefully gain more control of the printing for said fine art prints.

The end result for these prints would eventually be to have one of each framed and have the stock to put on a show with the hope of selling a few.

With that in mind, if you say B)...any suggestions on a printer to go with? I know everyone will say Epson...and I have been looking at the 3880, which is apparently quite good and right now has $300 rebate going for it. But...what about Canon? or others?

Any advice is appreciated.

 

I know Dan was heavy into self printing but cautioned about the time investment in managing/setup of color profiles on both the screen and printer, etc..

May be worth a PM to him (or SS as I haven't seen him around much).

 

Lucky for me, I have a someone on my crew (who I was out shooting with this morning) who was a photography major and has said its really not that hard or big of a deal to set up a color profile and calibrate.

Its just another giant piece of gear to have in Detroit to figure out how to get back to LA...Also, trying to not spend a lot of money (to save for the twins) but at the same time, I'm trying to enhance and promote myself in other avenues career wise...

Its all a pain

I need to map out the cost of the printer/paper/inks vs what it would cost to run a series on, maybe, 12 photographs.

 

Honestly, I'd just go with a printing company. Cheaper in the long run and less equipment you need to have.

 

Im not so sure...re-read what my plans were.

Hypothetically, say I pic 12 images...and decide to run a series of 10 prints each...thats 120 prints on high end paper stock (most likely watercolor paper) and say the prints average 30-60bucks a pop...

 

I've seen a lot of discussion on the pros and cons as far as fine art printing goes on POTN, and it seems to go both ways. As far as getting it back to LA, save the box and ship it?

As for having all that in Detroit while youre in a hotel though, maybe you might be better off biting the bullet and having them printed for now, and if it takes off, then buy one when you get home?

 

Im not in a hotel anymore, havent been. They got me an apt. So I have plenty of room.

 

If I was in your position, I still might decide to have it printed for now, until you are back in LA. It's another thing you have to deal with until you are back home. How much longer will you be in Detroit? I am sure you will save money printing it yourself in the long run though.

 

I am in Detroit until mid-Dec. Then, I return in January for an undetermined amount of time at the moment before I leave again for the birth of my twins.

Oddly enough, the printer I am looking at possibly buying has a $300 rebate until the end of the month...but figuring out which printer to buy is a whole other matter if it comes down to that.

 

Well if you know you want to pull the trigger on your own printer, and the rebates make it more attractive, and you do not mind shipping or lugging it back home, then I guess you should go for it. What is the total price on the printers you are thinking of getting?

 

With the rebate its about $900....if you add a second set of ink and all the paper...youre looking at about $1400...but more ink could up the cost.

Professional printing for the same numbers is about $3100.

I'm entertaining a couple ideas...including not making numbered editions...which kinda sucks to me...but that might be the way to start out.

 

I'd say if you have a plan on what you want the outcome to be, don't shy away from it. All in all thats not too bad of a price to spend to have all the control yourself. I recently bought a color laser printer for business because it would have cost me about 4 times as much to have my brochures and letters printed at a printer. I have saved money and printed everything off and can move on to print more while still being under the printers price. Different content but same general idea. Either way you go, good luck.

 

Go with EPSON... its the best lifelike color I have experienced. Its not over bright & saturated like HP, or Canon. Plus the archival 100yr inks & Paper edia are unreal. Better than photo processing in my opinion. I have owned & upgraded 5 Wide Media (13x19 sheet fed or 13" wide b "X" roll paper) EPSON Printers over the last 12 years. I am currently running a EPSON 1400 w/Claria inks for my proofs & an EPSON 2200 for my final/archival prints. Look into them, you wont regret it.

My 2 cents.

 

Looks like your looking at the 3830... Right?

 

Don't write off the 2880... UBER PRINTER!!! just doesn't give ya the full 17 inches.

 

3880

Its seems to be bar none for the price/size/weight.

The next step up is the new to be released this month 4900....which is about 115lbs and uses the new HDR inks and inkjet heads, which are supposed to be even more awesome. But they are also 2500 bucks.

So....yeah, if I go with buying a printer, Ill go 3880.

 

I have the 4880 and the cost savings in ink over the 3880 are substantial. In fact, you get an extra 50% more ink right out of the box, so that's worth a few hundred bucks right there. If you print panos, you'll probably also appreciate the built-in roll adapter of the 4880.

The gamut of the 4880 is so wide that I have a hard time believing that the "HDR" inks of 4900 would be substantially better. Paper is the biggest limiting factor in gamut (or Dmax), not ink, which probably explains why it's also the biggest operating cost.

After much experimentation, I've found that Epson's canned profiles are excellent and unless you want to print on something very exotic, you won't need aftermarket profiles made. Don't even attempt to make your own print profiles. You need hugely expensive gear to make a profile that's better than the canned ones. The $500 packages are a joke. The good news is an aftermarket profile made by someone with the right equipment and who knows what they're doing is like $50.

The one thing you want for sure is a properly calibrated monitor and a dedicated viewing area with consistent lighting. If you can get your monitor to match the conditions of your viewing environment, everything else will fall into place.

The 4880 will be sold along side the 4900 for quite a while, so I don't know how much the price will drop, but I would expect it would drop a little.

 

There is a 500 rebate on the 4880 right now....but its a larger and heavier printer. Not sure if would want the roll or not.

Sure it would be nice...than you have the 4900 with the newer print nozzles and inks.

And both are about 1000 more than the 3880.

Thats cool to hear the canned profiles are pretty good.

 

I just looked it up and it's not $1000 more. B&H has the 4880 for $1729 and there's a $500 rebate to bring it down to $1229. The 3880 is $834 after rebate. The ink included with the 4880 is worth more than the price difference so it should be a no-brainer.
You're not going to want to ship a 100 pound printer, but I'm sure you can find a similar deal locally.

 

Good points...which ill take into heavy consideration.

Size is an issue also (not just for shipping) With babies on the way....I am losing my office. So, while my main computer will still be in there.. room for "my toys" wont.

How large is the 4880?

 

The 4880 is bigger in every dimension but they're both big. The biggest difference between the two is the roll adapter means you have to keep the 4880 away from the wall a good 8-10" farther than the 3880. If you have to share your desk with the printer, you'll probably want the 3880.

Also, most people are tempted to pick up a full set of ink as a backup, but don't do it. You'll find that there are 3 or 4 colours you go through a lot faster than everything else and there will be some you almost never replace. I go through the light black and light magenta at least twice as fast as anything else. The more vivid inks get used the least because they're only responsible for the extreme edges of the gamut, which very few images need. I guarantee you that the new orange and green inks in the 4900 would probably never get replaced unless you were printing test charts every day.

 

Cool. It's always something. I gotta think some more on this.

Thank you.

 

I got my first run of test prints back from bayphoto.com...

These were printed using my time old tradition of an uncalibrated monitor...and using their "professional" upload app.

The prints came back really nice. I very happy with the overall quality of the place, and they were great on the phone when I had questions.

The metal print is quite stunning.

So, now I have to get test prints made using their "economy" upload app (no color correction on their end.) to compare.

I kinda screwed up though. I should have done both apps at once with the uncalibrated, and then again calibrated....as it stands now....I'll be doing the economy with the calibrated. oh well.