A3 Printer for Photography recommendations

[timbo343]

I've been looking at the Epson Stylus Photo R2000 as a replacement printer for our photography department. I looked at the R3000 but thought that would be over kill for what we need. I've also been looking at the Canon A3 printers but they don't seem as good. I've always been one for buy a cheap printer, it will cost more in running costs so i'm after peoples recommendations on A3 printers for photography.

 

What does everyone else use?

 

Thanks

[mdench]

We have the Epson Stylus Photo 1500W bought it 3 months back as a replacement for the previous Epson photo printer that worked like a trooper for 5 years. The 1500W is great for the small price and no complaints about it soo far

[truebluesteve]

Our Art/Photography departments have used Canon A3 colour inkjets in the past and not only were they expensive to buy and run (in terms of ink) they were also pretty unreliable. We would then get all the ear-ache because we couldn't fix them or get someone else to, so we decided to get an A3 HP CP5225n colour laser printer. It isn't cheap but its a lot more reliable and the cost per print is lower - although to maintain the quality they need we've had to instruct our managed print people to supply HP original toner only.

[timbo343]

Thanks for the replies, all the printer is used for is producing photos/work at high quality. We found laser printers dont give that photo finish on photo paper.

[DalekSec]

We have 3x R2000, they don't play up that often but when they do they are a right pain in the backside! Normally during exam periods as well.... We have had 2 die on us, plus side both in warranty guy in a van turned up gave us some new ones!

[gumbygaz]

Our dept has the R3000 and to be fair it is an outstanding bit of kit for us. Quality is top notch, but it is an expensive thing to run about £5 a page so the Photography teacher says. (He wasn't happy when somebody kept sending Sims registers to it!) He's had it a couple years now, and apart from the odd Apple Driver issues it's been perfect I've not had to touch it.

[localzuk]

We bought a few of the R3000's at my last school. They were good quality, relatively quick to print and easy to maintain.

[timbo343]

Ive just seen another one which ive not seen whilst looking around - the Canon Pixma Pro-100, Canon Pixma Pro-10 or Pixma Pro-1. After looking at the prices of the Pro-10 and Pro-1 i think we wont be able to afford these printers, so Pizma Pro-100 might be in the running with Epson R2000.

[truebluesteve]

Thanks for the replies, all the printer is used for is producing photos/work at high quality. We found laser printers dont give that photo finish on photo paper.

 

Well I used to think that, but the quality is superb. They use it for submitting A level work so I guess it's got to be pretty good. We have a policy of not buying nor supporting inkjets and we are thankfully rid of them all now with the exception of one little photo printer

[sonofsanta]

We decided against A3, but we've been running an Epson XP-750 for a while and it's been brilliant. Quality is fantastic, and it's never been mechanically unreliable (it occasionally turns its WiFi on, which means it stops listening to the wired connection, which means no-one can print to it till we trudge up and disable WiFi on it again). I mention this only so you know Epson printers can be reliable and high quality, as you'll hear plenty of opinions to the contrary (and I don't think I'd trust them except for their photo printers, to be fair).

 

We control access to it with a security group that only Photography students and teachers are members of, to prevent random rubbish being printed on it. Students are given a pack of photo paper each so they all have their own supply, and have to pay for more when they're through that supply; this keeps print volume in check. We only use genuine inks and genuine Epson photo paper, so we can use the exact colour profile in Photoshop, and the monitors in that room (and around Art in general) are all IPS and calibrated with a Datacolor Spyder, which is worth the ~£100 if you're going to start spending money on a high quality printer.

Edited June 8, 2015 by sonofsanta

[timbo343]

decisions decisions - Epson R2000 which gives excellent finishes or the canon Pixma Pro-100 which has doesn't clog due to the nature of the ink i guess the ink isnt a pigment ink.

 

In the end the printer is going to be used for Photography which i doubt the prints will ever need to be sold.

[Clevertouch_Rob]

My wife who's a print artist uses Canon Pixma Pro9500 Mk2's (swears by them and has 3!)

[timbo343]

My wife who's a print artist uses Canon Pixma Pro9500 Mk2's (swears by them and has 3!)

 

I wonder if this is replaced by the Pro-10 as the Pro-100 suceeds the Pro9000 MK2

[Clevertouch_Rob]

I wonder if this is replaced by the Pro-10 as the Pro-100 suceeds the Pro9000 MK2

Not sure on that, but shes a heavy user of hers and they have definitely paid for themselves over the last two years.

[mrnoisy]

We use pixma pro's in our school, find them a bit slow, 4:30 for A3 photos, fine for home but not when you have 30 students all trying to print photos, in a recent exam we gave up and moved one of our muti functionals into the exam room, 15 seconds for A3 colour, quality wasn't as good. What's sort of print times do the Epson R series printers have ?

[timbo343]

We use pixma pro's in our school, find them a bit slow, 4:30 for A3 photos, fine for home but not when you have 30 students all trying to print photos, in a recent exam we gave up and moved one of our muti functionals into the exam room, 15 seconds for A3 colour, quality wasn't as good. What's sort of print times do the Epson R series printers have ?

 

Which model of the pixmas have you got? Ive noticed the R2000 was about 45 seconds but i dont want to go down the road of unclogging and wasting ink on the Epson printers. We used to have a Canon IX4000 for 4.5 years until the main board failed. That printer caused us no problems at all, where as the HP 8000 and 7000 have caused no end of problems.

 

I did a test today on the MFDs we have (toshiba) and found that the quality was really good to the point where the Head of Art couldnt believe it, obviously it was on glossy paper and photo setting via the driver software.

 

The HoA still wants an inkjet for final final prints and for matte documents.

Edited June 8, 2015 by timbo343

[mrnoisy]

Think it's a pro 9000 not the mk2.

[howartp]

We stated photography course at Easter and Art have printed everything to our (5 year old) MFDs.

 

She's moaned several times a week about the MFDs jamming, but not once about the quality.

 

Sharp are saying their machines aren't designed for full page coverage which is what's jamming them - Konica (coming July) assure me there's are designed for 400% coverage (ie 100% of each colour toner on a page) without jamming - so Art are going to stick to the MFDs; no pun intended.

[timbo343]

When i tested the konica MFDs on glossy paper, the end result was patchey. What i mean by this is if you held the print in the right angle you could clearly where the toner had been laid also the result look flat, which is why im so shocked and impressed (so is the art teacher) about the toshibas.

 

I understand that matte results arent going to be great as the toner is laid on top of the paper rather than soaking in, hence one of the reasons for an inkjet.

[timbo343]

Well i bit the bullet and bought the Art department a Pixma Pro 100S. Nice bit of kit thought they haven't used it yet. I guess the only downside is the drivers wont support Server 2012R2 so cant network it properly, instead its connected via USB to the teacher's machine and rules and monitoring done via local papercut reporting back to the server.

[Andrew_C]

Any new thoughts on this?

 

Mrs_C is an Art Tech in a school where they do A level photography. I'm getting a bit worn by the tirade of "Rude Words" when she gets home. They have two Epson Stylus Photo 1500Ws, and if they aren't used for a few days, she spends up to 3 hours cleaning nozzles. A few days is a long weekend, maybe no printing on Friday, gummed up on Monday.

 

I'm wondering if there isn't a better technology (all be it at higher cost per print) that would "just work". They currently do proofs or "work in progress" on a laser, but final pieces, and display stuff on the ink jets. Wouldn't be networked for control reasons, run from teacher's PC.

[localzuk]

Nozzles shouldn't be blocking that quick. Are they using proper ink, or cheapo compats?

[timbo343]

Any new thoughts on this?

 

Mrs_C is an Art Tech in a school where they do A level photography. I'm getting a bit worn by the tirade of "Rude Words" when she gets home. They have two Epson Stylus Photo 1500Ws, and if they aren't used for a few days, she spends up to 3 hours cleaning nozzles. A few days is a long weekend, maybe no printing on Friday, gummed up on Monday.

 

I'm wondering if there isn't a better technology (all be it at higher cost per print) that would "just work". They currently do proofs or "work in progress" on a laser, but final pieces, and display stuff on the ink jets. Wouldn't be networked for control reasons, run from teacher's PC.

 

I can highly recommend the Canon Pro 100S. They've had it for nearly a year and not had one call out to it.

[Andrew_C]

Are they using proper ink,

I believe so.

 

Now confirmed; Epson ink.

Edited April 21, 2016 by Andrew_C