Printers for small prints

[Ed Richards]

I have a good printer for big prints - HP 130 - but I am curious about a good printer for itty bitty black and white prints, say 8x10 and smaller. Something that will print on a smooth paper to really show the detail, and something that is neutral out of the box so I do not have to get another rip. (And no, I do not want to make contact prints.)

[Ted Harris]

Ed,

I have been testing the HP B9180 for about a month now for a full review in View Camera magazine. If you search the archives you will see my earlier post on the mchine a few weeks ago. It is outstanding. I'm not yet ready to write the article but I am absolutely convinced that this is currently the best printer out there in the under $1000 range and at a price of 550 to 650 (depending on where you purchase it) it is waaaaay under $1000. Performs better than the Epson 2400 and costs less. Performs much better than the Epson 1800 andonly costs a bit more. Much more capable than the Epson R800. PM me if you have specific qustions or want me to send you a test print.

[Greg Lockrey]

I second Ted's thoughts on HP's and add that I happen to have a HP 8450 that prints B&W very very well. My only issue with it is that it eats computer memory while making photos and it's not all that fast. Probably would be faster on a more powerful (modern) machine.

[Scott Kathe]

Ed,

I'll trade you my small printer for your large printer

I have had good luck with cheap letter size Epson printers. I started with a C86 and am now using an R220. The key is to get MIS inks from inksupply.com, visit Paul Roark's website and Clayton Jones website for more info. The inks are different shades of grey with a black cartridge optimized for matte or glossy and you need to switch the black if you change paper finishes http://www.inksupply.com/bwpage.cfm. I was printing full ink with the C86 which prints best on glossy paper but I like matte better so I got the R220. The R220 also does a better job with BO (black only) printing. Clayton's website is http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

I am not an expert but I have had good luck with this system and am planning on stepping up to the HP B9180 later this year. Today I saw that some vendor was selling the Epson C88 (like the C86) for $19.99 after rebates but I can't remember who. The C88 is still available but the R220 has been discontinued (Ritz Camera) still has them.

I think the prints look great but they don't look like a silver print. Good luck.

Scott

[Rory_5244]

Gee. I can't afford printer/ink/paper/custom profile costs. I upload a file to A&I or WCI, and they do a lightjet print. I never did a comparison of costs between home printing and uploading files for someone else to print. I asked for sample pictures from HP's 130 printer when it was released, and I was not happy with the example they supplied (of cheetahs). Maybe I live in the dark ages, but having someone else do my printing seems kinda okay. Am I wrong about this?

[Ed Richards]

Rory,

HP's samples are not fine art but are for the sign shops.:-) I was put off by them, but the printer has been great. As for third party printing costs, I guess it depends on how many prints you do and what kind of feedback you want. I treat digital a bit like the darkroom, in that I will do several prints to get the final image just right. That is hard to do with if you are sending the print out.

[Rory_5244]

Oh yes, I see your point, Ed. I guess home printer quality has improved now too. I bought a print from Michael Reichmann once (OKAY, I know) to see what the output of the Epson 2200 looked like but, er, it looked, um, not good. I guess there were too many variables involved in that too, as I didn't know how he prepped the file for printing. Thank you for the info., Ed: I have something new to think about.

[Ed Richards]

Rory,

I think the real transition has been that people are buying commercial printers for the home. The HP 130 was an incredible deal from HP - about $1100 for a 24" commercial grade printer, and only $250 for 3 years of onsite or replacement service. (I think just the service on the epson 24" costs more than the HP printer.) It also uses much less ink than the epsons, and HP paper is pretty nice and affordable. I had to add a rip to get really good black and white, so that pushed the cost to 2k. I can make an 8x10 for about $0.75 and an 18x24 for about $5. These are as good a print as you can get commercially - the only limitation being the input.:-)

Since it takes me several prints to get to a fine print, and and my Katrina series, for example, has about 200 images in it, I have probably made 1500 prints of various sizes over the past 18 months. Not that all 200 are great images, but that was the number that I had to push to the fine print stage to decide how good they are. Probably 40 are really good, and they get a couple more iterations to polish.

It is a lot of printing, but I am also pushing the learning curve - I had not done any black and white printing for 30 years (since college) when I picked this back up 2 years ago, so I was learning to print again and to do digital. I think about it as putting 10 years of messing around with printing into 18 months of hard work. But if you are getting serious at 55, then you do not want to mess around for 10 years.:-) So, all told, I probably spent, say, $7k for 1500 plus prints, which would have cost vastly more from a service, and I would not have the instant feedback to refine a print.

The downside - you have to mess with the printer and you have a significant capital outlay, so if you are not doing very many prints, it is much cheaper in time and money to use a commercial lab. If you can get to a final print just working on the screen, you do not need the feedback. (I suspect this is easier with color.)

[Jim Jones]

The HP Photosmart 7850 produces black and white prints with either the tricolor or black and white ink sets that look as good as any I can make in the darkroom.

[Bill_1856]

Well, I never thought of 8x10 as iddy biddy, but my HP 7960 (out of production, but a few still available cheap) produces superb archival B&W up to 1200 dpi. No special rip necessary.