Home Printers for B&W

[waynec]

I'm looking for a mid level priced printer for good B&W output; Say in the $150 to $300 price range. This is to produce 4x5 and 4x6 prints for "spec" sale. If I do go above these sizes it will be purely personal stuff only on occasion. I'm not adverse to getting a used printer and installing different carts so that's another route I could go. The output is to be sold to music performance attendee's at low prices. I'm not looking to make a living off this, just enough to cover some expenses rather then absorb the continuous drain of film costs, developing and ice tea while behind the computer.

 

[ampguy]

I like the brother laser duplex. Haven't used the epson ink jet since getting the laser.

The lo res of the laser looks like film grain and papers from the '60s.

 

[Ezzie]

The problem with most inkjets is that they do not have white pigments. Which means that they need to compose all those grey tones out of C/M/Y and any other colour pigment that is on tap. Getting a true greyscale print is difficult. But I hesitate a guess Chris Crawford knows how.

http://chriscrawfordphoto.com/technical/printing.php

 

[waynec]

The problem with most inkjets is that they do not have white pigments. Which means that they need to compose all those grey tones out of C/M/Y and any other colour pigment that is on tap. Getting a true greyscale print is difficult. But I hesitate a guess Chris Crawford knows how.

http://chriscrawfordphoto.com/technical/printing.php

Isn't the paper the white needed like in the printing arts.
.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Isn't the paper the white needed like in the printing arts.
.

Yes, it is. That means the paper you choose has a big influence on the color of the images you get. A neutral white paper is important for color photographs, but black and white can be printed on tinted papers to give a warmer tone to the highlights. There used to be a beautiful inkjet paper called Concorde Rag that had a cream color; it was gorgeous for black and white, but its been discontinued, unfortunately.

 

[Mablo]

I use a mid level (150EUR) Canon inkjet printer which has six individual ink cartridges, three of them blacks. My b&w prints have a slight magenta tint but color prints look quite good. I mainly print postcard size prints for giveaways and such.

 

[V-12]

With the price of ink and good quality paper as it is, you don't want something that can be 'made to work', you need something that simply 'works'. And you need something with more than one 'black' ink (some greys as well). So I suggest you look for a secondhand Epson R2880 that will do the job properly. Better still increase your budget to realistic levels and buy a Epson R3000 new, so you know it hasn't been abused by anybody else. Ink is more expensive than champagne, so don't spend on a cheap printer then end up pouring ink down its throat in vain efforts to get rid of colour casts. It saves money in the long run to buy the right thing in the first place.