Posted by Kurt Budliger on November 13, 2010 at 12:18 PM
Looking to get some advice as I contemplate my new printer choices. I've been using epson products for a while and am looking to purchase a new inkjet. Currently considering the epson 4900 (*oops meant 4800, 4900 isn't out yet) 17" printer or perhaps the larger canon prograf 6300 24" model. The price of the epson is a little of $1,200 with rebates and free shipping from bh. The canon is currently about $1,900 with rebates.
I would prefer the larger format for it's increased options but am totally unfamiliar with canon's printer line up. The way I see it the epson pros are: lower price, larger capacity ink cartridges, familiarity while the cons are limited print size options and high ink consumption when switching from matte to photo black. The pros for the canon are increased size, dual black inks with no loss when switching while its cons are the increased price and my unfamiliarity.
What don't know is are there any known issues with either of these two printers and their compatibility with the mac os or adobe products. I remember reading of several profile issues when the new version of ps came out, and I'm all too aware of older epson printers not being compatible with snow leopard.
Any thought and experiences would be greatly appreciated.
Kurt, I used the previous versions of both (Epson 4800 and Canon iPF6100) extensively and they are both excellent printers. Print quality is superb on both so the decision should come down to how large you want to print and how important sheet paper support is to you. The Canon can load a single sheet at a time while the Epson will let you load a stack which is very convenient if you don't have a separate desktop printer (e.g. if you need to print multiple flyers or multi-page documents).
Guy
Posted by Kurt Budliger on November 14, 2010 at 10:34 AM
Thanks Guy. Yeah, I totally forgot about the sheet paper support aspect, definitely a consideration.
Any issues with profiling or operating system compatibility?
I've used both on OSX (Snow Leopard) without a problem. I get my custom profiles from Michael Gordon and they work beautifully.
Canon provides a regular print driver and a 16-bit Photoshop printer plug-in. I have not had much luck with the plug-in (page is never properly centered for some reason) but the regular driver works well.
Guy
Posted by Kurt Budliger on November 14, 2010 at 6:48 PM
Good to know, thanks Guy.
Posted by Ken Holyfield on November 14, 2010 at 7:43 PM
Kurt, I've been running a Canon IPF printer in my commercial shop for approx. 3 1/2 years. We get excellent results with this printer. One advantage of Canon over Epson is a faster print speed. The second advantage, as mentioned above, is not having to change black inks for matte vs. photo papers. We use a third party rip and get superior results over the stock Canon software. Epson uses a variable print dot size where Canon uses a constant print drop size. Bigger is better!
Discussion
5 repliesI would prefer the larger format for it's increased options but am totally unfamiliar with canon's printer line up. The way I see it the epson pros are: lower price, larger capacity ink cartridges, familiarity while the cons are limited print size options and high ink consumption when switching from matte to photo black. The pros for the canon are increased size, dual black inks with no loss when switching while its cons are the increased price and my unfamiliarity.
What don't know is are there any known issues with either of these two printers and their compatibility with the mac os or adobe products. I remember reading of several profile issues when the new version of ps came out, and I'm all too aware of older epson printers not being compatible with snow leopard.
Any thought and experiences would be greatly appreciated.
Kurt
Guy
Any issues with profiling or operating system compatibility?
Canon provides a regular print driver and a 16-bit Photoshop printer plug-in. I have not had much luck with the plug-in (page is never properly centered for some reason) but the regular driver works well.
Guy