Black and White Postcard Printer Needed

[Richard Wasserman]

I need to get black and white postcards printed (photo on the front, text on the back)—any recommendations?

[IanG]

Do you want genuine photographic post cards or Litho prints.

Also are you in Germany ? or somewhere else.

Ian

[Kirk Gittings]

I've had good luck some years ago with Modern and more recently with VistaPrint.

[Henry Ambrose]

As Kirk wrote, Modern Postcard has been good.

[Steve Sherman]

ABC Picture or Postcard, I believe in Arkansas

[Richard Wasserman]

Thanks all, I'll check out your suggestions.

[Jim Jones]

Most 4x6" photo paper falls within the USPS specifications for postcards. Text can be printed on the back with many laser printers, and the photo then printed on the front.

[photobymike]

I use an Epson 4800 printer with Moab dual side rag inkjet paper. I print 6 up flip the sheet and print the post card on the back. It is limited production but is very effective with high quality.

[Frank Petronio]

If you want more than ~1000 of 6 cards, then conventional litho, doing either four-color or old-but-wonderful duotones is competitive with the online digital presses.... but it's out of sight if you need less than that.

For online digital, 50 to 500 of 1 cards, Moo.com is more expensive than VistaPrint but their quality has been good.

But for really short runs, under 100, an inkjet is better quality than anything short of a darkroom print. And probably cheaper.

It's hard to feed a 4x6 through your inkjet and get nice gripping and small margins, but every printer/driver/paper is different, let me know if you ever find a foolproof great one ;-)

Also, the "bulky" "photo-weight" 300-gsm inkjet papers feel a bit on the wimpy side to mail. But I have mailed even Harman FB-Gloss AI cut to card size and it holds up fine, so most of the double-sided uncoated papers should be OK. In this case, the smaller 3.5-4 x 5.5-6-inch (close to the minimum p-card size) is beneficial for not flopping around as much as a larger size card. If you use mailing labels maybe you can avoid needing to print on the reverse side, since it tends to be a PITA and can cause a lot of extra wastage. If you do decide to try to inkjet print both sides, be prepared to dick around and blow a few. Also the thicker papers have their own quirks with feeding, setting, curling....

[photobymike]

It's hard to feed a 4x6 through your inkjet and get nice gripping and small margins, but every printer/driver/paper is different, let me know if you ever find a foolproof great one ;-)

I do 6 up or 8 up depending on the size of paper used. I use double sided printing inkjet. just flip and print other side ..takes practice but once setup in Lightroom not a problem. I use a Epson 4800 because of vacuum paper feed holds paper while printing. but would work well on other printers i would think...