Best Current Printers

[nightfly]

It's time to replace my Epson 1280. I've been using it to do black only printing for years but I'm getting frustrated with the lines it produces on the prints unless you run the head cleaner 5 times and it's been a bit disappointing for even quick color prints.

However I have no idea what the current state of the art is in printers. I'd like something that goes to at least 13 x 19. It has to print rich, neutral to cold toned black and white with no hint of color and after seeing that Eggleston show I'd like to start trying to do some rich color prints as well. Color is less important.

Will anything out there today do one or both? I think the latest Epson is the 2400 and I've seen the HP 9180 mentioned and I'm sure Canon has some sort of competition as well.

What do you guys use?

 

[antistatic]

I think the 2880 is Epson latest and has replaced the 2400 in its lineup. I don't believe there is a substantial difference between the two, especially for B&W.

I bought myself the 2880 about 2 weeks ago. So far I am happy with it though I am still dialing it in. A3+ B&W looks fantastic 🙂

David

 

[mh2000]

personally I think the HP dye based printers are great for b&w... Epson pigment is great for fineart rag printing, but for prints that look like actual photographs HP dye on their Premium Plus looks more like traditional printing... and much richer and deeper dark tones and blacks. The HP dye is more archivally stable than Epson on rag papers too (check out Wilhelm research for this data). Epson cleaning cycles get to be a curse... never once had to do one with my HP 8750 (yes!).

 

[amateriat]

personally I think the HP dye based printers are great for b&w... Epson pigment is great for fineart rag printing, but for prints that look like actual photographs HP dye on their Premium Plus looks more like traditional printing... and much richer and deeper dark tones and blacks. The HP dye is more archivally stable than Epson on rag papers too (check out Wilhelm research for this data). Epson cleaning cycles get to be a curse... never once had to do one with my HP 8750 (yes!).

Funny how we keep coming back to this. 🙂

And, there's been a bit of argument here and there about archival stability, even with pigment inks, with various specialty papers. There doesn't seem to be much of a silver bullet at the moment, so I , too, am hanging on to my HP 8750, given its very, very good performance with glossy and semi-gloss/satin (HP) papers, in both black-and-white and color, with very solid archival/lightfast qualities.

"Suffering for one's art" is one thing. Suffering weird print anomalies in the name of sticking with pigment inks? To quote Homey, "I don't think so!"


- Barrett

 

[elshaneo]

I would say that the Epson R3800 is the best, I've been using this Printer the last six months at University, the output results are simply outstanding !!!

 

[nico]

I have an Hp9180 and I think it's very good for b/w especially using Ilford Gold Fibre Silk paper (amazing results to my eye but I'm quite a newbie): prints look very similar to darkroom prints.
I'm not an expert of inks but, as far I can see, Epson prints don't have the "bronzing" effect the Hp prints have (I'm experimenting spray fixer for drawings which seems to avoid the bronzing effect if used after the print is dried) but I think Hp prints don't have any cian or magenta overcast (hope it's the right term) Epson prints are more prone to; I think that's because with Hp you can print using just black matte, light grey and photo black (excluding colours cartridges).
About sharpness and definition I'd say they're both very good .
Another difference is about printheads: on the Hp are removable so, if one dryes you just replace it; on the Epson I think it would be a serious problem.
Don't know about Epson but, since january, I've printed about 100 photos (only b/w, size 20*30cm) and I only replaced the second light grey cartridge and the first black matte and black photo cartridges (average cost of €26 per cartridge in Italy).
Hope it may help,
ciao 🙂

 

[nightfly]

Thanks for the info.

Archival stability isn't the most important thing to me. If my prints last a few years without fading, that's great. I don't kid myself anyone is going to care about my prints in 50 or 100 years.

The bronzing thing that HP's have seems like it might be an issue.

How are these printers for color? I don't do a lot now, but I could see doing more.

Really though my biggest issue is the ink consumption and print head problems I have with my 1280. Using the black only printing technique and Eboni carbon ink, when I do get a good print out of it, it looks great with no color shifting, but the hassle and ink consumption is unacceptable.

 

[Nikon Bob]

I have an old HP 7960 that does very nice B&W and colour printing. It does not suffer any bronzing effect and I have never had a head clogging problem. I would look to HP if I needed a new larger printer because of this experience but that is just me personally. I am sure technology has come a long way in the meantime and so have other printer brands.

Bob

 

[dmr]

I have an Hp9180 and I think it's very good for b/w especially using Ilford Gold Fibre Silk paper

I have the B9180 too and I've had it almost two years now, and I'm reasonably happy with it. I do mostly colo(u)r and I've only done a few B&W prints, but those I've done looked fine, with no obvious color cast or bronzing.

I use mostly off the shelf paper, mostly the Ilford Galerie series, as well as the Office Depot house-brand paper and both work well. I use HP brand 13x19 paper, however, because I don't buy that much of it and I want to be sure it's as compatible as it can be.

That's the good news. The bad news is:

It never seems to work properly with the various Inkpress papers. Some of this is profiling, but I never get anything but semi-sucky to totally vile results.

It has this daily cleaning cycle that can be annoying, particularly when it happens right when you're trying to go to sleep. It clicks and jukes around for a few minutes doing this.

The cartridges are uncommon. Even Staples, which "absolutely positively guarantees that they will have your cartridge in stock" doesn't stock them! They are also expensive, $30-ish a pop, and there are 8 of them! They are not easily refillable and I haven't found any decent third-party alternatives.

That's my take on it, anyway. 🙂

 

[BillBingham2]

One approach that I will be taking when it's time it look to continuous feed systems and what printers they support. For me, continuous feed seems a whole lot more logical for doing any volume of large printing.

B2 (;->

 

[nightfly]

As far as cartridges for the HP go, is this just local Staples that don't have them or do they not have them online either?

I find that I usually order any of this stuff online so being able to run into a local Staples, while convenient, isn't essential.

Paper wise, as long as I have options for a good matte or semi-gloss for B and W and glossy for color, I'm probably OK. Right now I use mostly Epson Enhanced Matte for black and white but something with a little more shine would be fine but I've never been a fan of RC papers. My favorite fiber paper before I stopped printing in the wet darkroom was Forte Elegance Neutral tone glossy.

Thanks again for all the opinions, they are super helpful.

 

[nico]

I agree with comments above about no bronzing on colour prints (just made two and noticed there were no bronzing at all) .
For b/w prints I mean they are affected by "bronzing" only when I look at them not standing in front but from aside and also depending on the light source position. Anyway, fixer spray is going to avoid this problem too.
About the cartridges to be uncommon I find a shop here (Italy, in a quite small town) which stores them quite regularly.
In the end I'd buy it again (it was also cheaper than the Epson 2400 when I bought it).
Ciao 🙂

 

[yanidel]

I own the HP9180 and I find the quality of print amazings ... yet it has been a complete nightmare to use with Lightroom + XP. Banding, colors, drivers ... how much money have I wasted in poor results due to terrible operating system and software. So last weekend, just before I was going to thrown the printer out of the window, I bought an IMAC. All problems solved within 5 minutes I installed the printer and finally can use the printer to its full potential !
It is the first time I buy apple but Microsoft just pushed me to them, I was so fed up.

 

[dmr]

As far as cartridges for the HP go, is this just local Staples that don't have them or do they not have them online either?

Apparently the 38 series is not on the official stocking list for Staples stores. Yes, they can get them for you, but you can't walk in and pick it up.

My big complaint is that Staples (at least in this market) made SUCH a big deal in their TV ads about the fact that they GUARANTEE that they will have your ink cartridge in stock.

Bovine Doodoo! 🙁

Come to think of it, I haven't seen that ad lately!

NBD, I usually just order the ones that are running low and throw them in when I order from B&H or Adorama.

I bought an IMAC. All problems solved within 5 minutes I installed the printer and finally can use the printer to its full potential !

It is the first time I buy apple but Microsoft just pushed me to them, I was so fed up.

My results were different. The HP driver installed first time, the Photoshop print automation thing did too. This is on my "Media PC", which is a very vanilla PC which I use for Photoshop and such. Windows XP.

I almost always print from the Photoshop automation add-on. There's a name for it, but I forget it right now.

Only real issues I've had are due to pilot error or Inkpress paper.

The only thing I noticed, system wise, is that when I start to print a "best" quality image, particularly 13x19, the CPU goes to 100% as it's preparing the image! I know when it's going to start printing when I see the CPU graph start to drop. 🙂

 

[nightfly]

Well, I've got a Mac so hopefully no printer driver issues. I also hope I can print over my Airport Extreme via USB. I just got my Epson 1280 working that way so I'd assume I could get anything working over Airport but you never know. I think the HP one has ethernet as well but I think I'm out of ethernet ports on my router so would have to go the USB printer sharing route or buy a hub. Sometime I think you need to print the first time by directly connecting the printer but then it will recognize it over the Airport network via usb/rendevous.