Digital printing confusion

[David Higgs]

deciding whether to bite the bullet and get a dedicated photo printer

I'm currently printing MF and LF via professional labs and big commercial labs (like Costo in US). I can create lovely and huge images but then have to convert to JPEG and reduce in size to send over the internet ( I live in a remote area), most places have a 10MB max file size and talk about interploating on the printer - I haven't had great success in getting film to look better (vs digital) in print form as I'm sure I'm getting interpolation and Jpeg artifacts which give it that jaggedy digital look on large enlargements.

I guess the question is am i going to see a benefit getting my own printer (epson 2880/3880 on the list), can I print full fat 150MB files in 16 bit?

I've actually got some pretty decent prints using a £30 epson S20 - a cheapo 'ordinary' printer - it seems to be able to handle the large files, but I don't know if its converting them to 8 bit or reducing file size

[J. Gilbert Plantinga]

The short, unequivocal answer is yes. And get the 3880 because the value of the ink it ships with is about the same as the difference in price over the 2880 (though you flush some ink in the initial charge when you set it up), and ink in larger carts is cheaper over the long run.