Printer recommendations

I'm working with the upcoming Arctic Winter Games. We wish to buy a printer that will be capable of 50 prints up to 13x19 prints a day using CS3.

I'm somewhat leery of Epson as I still can't get CS3 to print properly on my 2200. Most of the reviews I've read on the net are out of date and would appreciate any current advice.

We would like to be thrifty; but not cheap!

I would think Canon's iPF5000/5100 would be a good choice for you. The Canons have better print speed than Epson, so it should save you some time when cranking out 50 prints. With 13X19 printers at 50 13X19 prints per day, you are going to need to bring a crate of ink carts. The significantly larger volume of the 17" printers should save time on swapping inks and money since the price per mL is about 40-60% less than a 13" printer.

Otherwise, the Canon and HP 13" printers are both faster than the 2400 or 1800 with equivalent print quality and ink permanence. The price per mL is about the same on all of these printers.

Here is another vote for Canon. I have been using an i9900 for several years with very good success. The new Pixma Pro 9000 is its replacement with archival dye ink. Thus it has none of the issue pigment printers have with clogging etc. The colors will really pop.

I use the Epson R2400. I haven't had any issues with CS3 as far as printing goes; have no idea if that's a CS3 issue or a 2200 issue. I've been very pleased with it so far. Great colors and saturation. I've never used it in High Speed mode so I can't speak to it's speed. 50 13x19's/day! That's a lot of ink! Whatever your choice comes down to, check out ink prices at Atlex.com, they have the best ink prices I've found so far.

We use a R2400 in our studio for small cut sheet jobs. It works beautifully printing with CS3, letting photoshop manage the color. Don't try that without a calibrated monitor or you are in for the surprise of your life. For 50 13X19 prints a day, you really need to be in the professional printer range. The ink cost will kill you. Look hard at the Epson 4800. You get 220 ml ink cartridges rather than tablespoon ink cartridges. With the small desktop printers like the 2400 you'll be changing light inks 5 or 6 times a day.

I hate to ask dumb questions, but what is going on with CS2 and your 2200? The reason I ask is that replacing the printer may mean the same problems, but with a new printer. There are a whole bunch of little things that are easy to overlook when setting up a new version of PS that it might just be one minor issue. Also, are you sure that it is CS2 and not the previous version - can you go back to the prior software you used and print correctly with that? If the print is still an issue, it may be a printer problem rather than software.

The following you may already know, but just in case someone else may not, here is what I am using, which seems to work for me:

Go to file -> print with preview

Below the preview, using Color Management rather than output
Below that, print document
Below that, under color handling "Let Photoshop Determine Colors"
Below that, printer Profile is for the appropriate paper
Below that, rendering intent, I switch I have relative colormetric and black point compensation checked, for no real reason I can explain.

Under Page setup, "MAIN"
Check the correct media type for your paper
Under mode, I have the custom box checked
Under "advanced" popup box, I have under printer color management, I have "Off (no color adjustment)" checked. Verifiy the media type is correct.

Under Utility, run a nozzle check and possibly a head cleaning.

In Windows, under control panel, under printers and faxes, check to make sure that the page setup settings match.


For those printer gurus out there, feel free to criticize any of my setup suggestions here, especially the relative colormetric and black point settings!!!

Dan,

No problem with CS2, it is CS3 that seems to be the problem. There seems to be a problem with the 2200 and CS3. Some users have no problem getting centred prints but a great many are. I've read work arounds in Luminous Landscape, the Adobe forums and similar and have yet to find a work around for that works for me.

Some posts I have read see people working in CS3 and then printing through CS2 or QImage. Works fine with Lightroom and other products.

It seems to be the usual software vendor battle, Adobe blames Epson, Epson states it is Adobe.

I've had a Canon PIXMA Pro 9000 for a couple of months, and I'd say it would be a good choice - fast, quiet (if that matters), and the prints have been outstanding. It's been fairly simple to get good color with a calibrated monitor and the Canon profiles (using Q-Image and Photoshop Elements), but I haven't had the chance to try anything third party. I don't think there are many canned profiles for third party papers yet (if ever).

I've gone through a couple of ink carts so far (two cartridges, not two sets) and probably printed about 25 13x19s, 20 8x10s, and a handfull of 4x6s. So you would definitely be swapping ink quite a bit doing 50 13x19s a day. That may be as big a cost as the printer ($399 on sale in my case).

One last note - if you plan on doing any black and white, you'll probably want to use the dedicated black and white mode; But that mode is VERY slow compared to standard color printing - taking up to 10x the time.

I can vouch for Canon. I have an older i9900 and it's doing a great job. Check out the newer Canon 13x19" offerings and you can't go wrong.

Bob

I just set up a new computer and have CS3 on it but the old one printed fine. When I switched to a new computer and had to download the printer driver from Epson I got different boxes than I had before. I have only tried a couple of prints but both have been off in color with a slight magenta cast. Seems it should be easier than this. I've had no problems in the past.
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