which printer for ~ £250?

rampanthamster

rampanthamster

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i'm finally looking to start printing some of my shots, but am stuck as to which printer to buy. Is there a 'one' as it were, that i should be thinking of? Thanks! :)


edit:

i will probably be printing primarily black and white shots. Should that affect the decision i make?

and a3 isn't really necessary...not really sure if i want it at all to be honest. Would rather get a solid a4 one!
 
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Or a Canon Pixma Pro 9000
 
Secondhand epson pro 4000, should get one in budget on ebay if you hang around a bit.
Better build and lower running costs plus A2 ;)
 
rampanthamster said:
i'm finally looking to start printing some of my shots, but am stuck as to which printer to buy. Is there a 'one' as it were, that i should be thinking of? Thanks! :)
Click to expand...

I have a PRO9500MK1 for sale if you are interested...I can put it in the forsale section to keep things above board....I think there is a full set of inks to get you going too...£200...

I hope I have not broken any rules..
 
If you wait/look around, Canon often do cashback on their Pro 9000 MkII and Pro 9500 MkII.
They are both A3+, one dye, one pigment.
I used the cashback, and ended up costing me £250 for the Pixma Pro 9500 MkII, including a set of inks.
The inks are very expensive for this printer though.
The output at A3+ (19"x13") on Illford Lustre Duo is very very nice though (in my opinion).
Unfortunately there is no CIS for the 9500 (pigment ink)
 
Although to be fair, and I love my fine art A3+, finding frames in that size is a right royal pain...
 
the R1400 is tempting because it has the cis ink thing, which once fitted would make ink refills a hell of a lot cheaper...

tug - i'll bear that in mind, thanks!
 
forgot to mention in my op...i will probably be printing primarily black and white shots. Should that affect the decision i make?

and a3 isn't really necessary...not really sure if i want it at all to be honest. Would rather get a solid a4 one!
 
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http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-PIXMA...ERQU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1307721196&sr=8-2

Kerching, get yourself a Canon pixma Pro 9000 at the moment £357 with Canons present £100 cashback offer £257

You can get a CISS or refillables from Cityinkexpress, and the colours are bang on for match to origional inks.
Plus if the head buggers up you can take it out and either clean in it with Printhead hospital magic cleaning fluid or just clip a new one in. Which you can't do with any of the Epsons.

Some people say the interface is a little more confusing than Epsons but I think thats just a matter of some learning.
 
I've haven't had to clean my Pro9000 yet, but did have to do my MP780 and all I did was wash it in hot water and put the hair dryer (belonging to my wife ofcourse) on it. Saved a few notes of getting a new one.
 
ChrisH said:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-PIXMA-9000-Mark-Printer/dp/B0021AERQU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1307721196&sr=8-2

Plus if the head buggers up you can take it out and either clean in it with Printhead hospital magic cleaning fluid or just clip a new one in. Which you can't do with any of the Epsons.

Some people say the interface is a little more confusing than Epsons but I think thats just a matter of some learning.
Click to expand...

Print heads rarely b****r up certainly I've never had a problem with my R2400.

canons interface is really bad and the print profiles are not labelled in any logical way.
 
Ive had a Epson R1800 for many years and never had one proplem but I have always used there inks.
 
What on earth do you mean by the interface being really bad and the your issues with print profiles?
 
dejongj said:
What on earth do you mean by the interface being really bad and the your issues with print profiles?
Click to expand...

well an Epson interface is really simple to use and the profiles are well named. the canon interface is not simple to use and the profiles are not well named (or at Least were not before)
 
Ah of-course that explains it all, cheers...
 
Hmm,
canon profile name = Photo paper plus glossy
paper name = canon photo plus glossy

can see where this gets confusing.
As for the printing settings, there are a lot of them. However, what you do, is fiddle until you get your prints looking correct (right amount of ink density, correct amount of expansion over the border of the paper etc.) then save them as a single click profile. You could even call the profile A3-PhotoPlusGlossy-Borderless, all of the settings would then be recalled.

Then it is a case of using photoshop or whatever, and the print settings in that are the same for every printed I believe. I am sure that you are capable of learning how to use a piece of software. If you are serious about the quality of the prints, and are consistent with your prints (assuming you calibrate monitors etc.), then I don't think the software is a major downfall at this point in time.

The illford paper profiles, well they are named slightly differently. But they are still not a major issue, and there is no reason why a printer profile cannot be created to include them (in fact, I have one called Illford A3+ Lustre, sets all of my settings from one click)
 
PR1
PR2
PR3
PT1
PT2
GL2/SG3

not hugely informative are they.




coldpenguin said:
Hmm,
canon profile name = Photo paper plus glossy
paper name = canon photo plus glossy

can see where this gets confusing.
As for the printing settings, there are a lot of them. However, what you do, is fiddle until you get your prints looking correct (right amount of ink density, correct amount of expansion over the border of the paper etc.) then save them as a single click profile. You could even call the profile A3-PhotoPlusGlossy-Borderless, all of the settings would then be recalled.

Then it is a case of using photoshop or whatever, and the print settings in that are the same for every printed I believe. I am sure that you are capable of learning how to use a piece of software. If you are serious about the quality of the prints, and are consistent with your prints (assuming you calibrate monitors etc.), then I don't think the software is a major downfall at this point in time.

The illford paper profiles, well they are named slightly differently. But they are still not a major issue, and there is no reason why a printer profile cannot be created to include them (in fact, I have one called Illford A3+ Lustre, sets all of my settings from one click)
Click to expand...
 
I have to take you to task over this POAH

You constantly say that Canons interface is terrible and you above post shows a load of options PR1, PR2............................... etc

I never use those and have no need to. Here's what I get presented with, which incedentily are echoed in CS5 along with my Harman and self profiled papers.

Canon.jpg


So tell me please whats so difficult about this interface. In one of the tabs it lets you turn off printer profiling by the driver. So in effect it's almost identical to Epsons ( I have owned many Epsons )

Where in lies the difficulty in choosing the correct one.

If you don't want the driver to do anything to your output you simply choose to turn everything off.

I'm in the position of being able to profile all my papers using a Spyder system. I choose whatever profile is the closest in description to the paper to be used, IE Photo Glossy, then profile the paper calling it Lidl Glossy ( One I use loads of ) in the software. If I then choose Lidl in CS5 and set the printer output to Photo glossy I get perfect results.

As I said the other day in a post it seems you may work for Epson, you have assured me you havent but please elude to a full and frank conversation as to why you think the Canons interface is less worthy than the Epsons. Some pro's and cons in your opinion of both would be hugely welcome and extremely beneficial to all who read it.,

Not having a go mate just fail to understand why you keep saying the Canons interfcae is crap when you only seem to use Epsons.
 
Chris' screenshot shows quite nicely the 'save' button. Once you have set up the printer for a particular type of print/paper, you press save, choose a name, then from that point onwards you click the name and all of the settings recalled into the driver. No fiddling necessary.
 
ChrisH said:
I have to take you to task over this POAH

You constantly say that Canons interface is terrible and you above post shows a load of options PR1, PR2............................... etc

I never use those and have no need to. Here's what I get presented with, which incedentily are echoed in CS5 along with my Harman and self profiled papers.

So tell me please whats so difficult about this interface. In one of the tabs it lets you turn off printer profiling by the driver. So in effect it's almost identical to Epsons ( I have owned many Epsons )

Where in lies the difficulty in choosing the correct one.

If you don't want the driver to do anything to your output you simply choose to turn everything off.

I'm in the position of being able to profile all my papers using a Spyder system. I choose whatever profile is the closest in description to the paper to be used, IE Photo Glossy, then profile the paper calling it Lidl Glossy ( One I use loads of ) in the software. If I then choose Lidl in CS5 and set the printer output to Photo glossy I get perfect results.

As I said the other day in a post it seems you may work for Epson, you have assured me you havent but please elude to a full and frank conversation as to why you think the Canons interface is less worthy than the Epsons. Some pro's and cons in your opinion of both would be hugely welcome and extremely beneficial to all who read it.,

Not having a go mate just fail to understand why you keep saying the Canons interfcae is crap when you only seem to use Epsons.
Click to expand...

I dont only use epsons BTW ;)

you are choosing media types in that menu not profiles. media type selects how much ink gets laid down not the colour correction.

PR1 is a profile code it is normally attached to the printer type. 1 is the quality selection and PR is the paper code.

it can be worked out and you can get through the canon print interface but it's just not as nice and easy as the Epson one. all of the canon users I have created profiles for have had difficulty in finding the correct options. for someone using it for the first time it's not a nice set up.

the Epson box has one tab for choosing virtually everything you need. it is so much simpler to use.
 
Poah the PR code is on every bit of Canon official paper, and when you don't use canon paper the third parties refer to it as to which settings to use. Rather unambiguous to me, and when you get the paper out it has the code on it, as does the packaging.

I'd argue to opposite from you and think a code can't be mistaken and thus is very user friendly.
 
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