ive always heard laser is the way to go, the Canons are good. I used inkjet for a bit, but it would just overheat so i had to print a sheet, wait 5 minutes then print the next and so on..

Lasers are pretty much better at everything.

But you seem to be needing a large format printer (and since you mention photopaper, I'm assuming for printing photos), you're going to need a printer of near glicee quality.

"HP Officejet 7000 Wide Format Printer" or whatever the newest model is the best bet. And cheapest. Roughly ~300 dollars.

However, HP DesignJet 110Plus Large-Format Color Inkjet Printer is the godsend amongst small creative businesses with low printing use (1000-3000 pages a month cycle). Roughly ~1000 dollars.

But neither large format printer does duplex printing automatically. Furthermore, glicee prints (or photo prints) are so wet they will soak through and ruin both sides of the print.

The recession has seemed to have made printers really cheap... especially office printers.

Since you need double-sided and high quality, I'd go with a color laser. It will give you superior results but not necessarily "art quality" prints. Since it uses a dry powder, you can cake it on a page as thick as you like and most of them do duplex printing automatically.

For a grand, you can easily get a 11x17 laser color printer that can handle up to 30,000 pages a month... and get this, laser color prints average less than 4 cents duplexed.

Also, while color laser cartridges cost like a 100 bucks a pop, they're good for literally thousands of prints.

Most inkjets can maybe handle 30-40 pages of full-bled color at the highest dpi setting.

You'll technically save more money due to higher uptime and cheaper overall ink costs.

Hi, thanks a lot for the suggestions. I'm not an expert on printers, so correct me if I'm wrong but don't laser printers only print on plain paper? I am creating a portfolio and need glossy-ish type paper if you know what I mean, like what you would find in most art books in a bookshop. I'm not sure if glossy is restricted to photographic paper. Is there glossy laser paper as well? I know I may sound like an idiot right now. I haven't had much experience printing in the past except on plain paper. Again, thanks for the help.

your more expensive lasers can handle different kinds of paper.

Photographic paper is different from magazine or high-grade book glassy. In fact, most inkjet printers can't actually print on glossy paper!

The paper you will be looking for is between .35 and 3.50 a sheet.

And the other banging thing about lasers is the ability to print on acetate (transparencies).

Interesting, perhaps "high-grade book glassy" is what I'm looking for, not photographic paper. I'll do some research on laser printers that offer the capability to print this type (between .35 and 3.50 I presume). Thanks.

Orochi - which colour laser printer that does 11x17 do you know for about a grand?

You ain't getting one new unless you find really good deals. But laser printers are like cars, they're totally usable if purchased used.

I beg to differ with everyone else on the laser printers. They, surely are workhorses, much more so than inkjets. But I have never found the color reproduction to be accurate enough on lasers. Inkjets, especially the epsons are much better at colors than most lasers.

For example, we have the HP Laserjet 5550dtn, and an older HP800ps inkjet plotter. The plotter always has much better results, even after nearly 6 years. And, yes ours is a mixed-mode office with a few fine artists, and they all hate the laser printer.

These days, the best bet is the 'Solid Ink Technology' by Xerox. They tend to be a little expensive, but the output is as close to professional offset as I've ever seen. It can print on almost everything, on all thicknesses and types of media. Id put my money on a solid ink printer.
That said, Xerox laser printers are also good...but the cartridges are quite expensive.

4 cartridges for our HP5550dtn cost $1200, btw. Once you add all these costs to that of a used laser printer, it pretty much gets to be quite expensive.

Lasers are absolute color reproduction.

Inkjets are perceptive color reproduction.

They make different dots, use different color densities and have different color saturations.

Meaning, with ink jet you can get color overlap because the paperfibers absorb the ink and can mix it within the paper. Inkjets however are rarely postscript compatible as the methodology of calculating inkjet dot dispersal isn't as formulaic as the representation methodology of laser printers.

In either event, a laser printer does exactly what you tell it to do. A inkjet printer takes instructions as a recommendation of what you want it to do. Most color control is taken over by inkjet printers.

Laser is only as superior and your graphic design skins and you ability to manage and perform colorization and correction accurately. True absolute color reproduction for print looks awful on screen.

Solid ink is a whole different ballgame. Solid ink printers are laser printers. The big difference is the toner is doped with a chemical (more than likely titanium dioxide) that makes the ink opaque. Traditional toner sits on the paper and refracts the color of the paper through the ink.

However, for his requirement, there is no cheap inkjet printer that can print on the paper variety he wants it to print on.

And in fact, the cost of an "art" grade inkjet printer is 3 to 4 thousand dollars minimum. You can probably get a pantone plotter for cheaper but in terms of printing medium and quality, it aint cheap.

Let's not forget that a good glicee print costs between 12 to 21 dollars a linear inch.





Also, I don't know where you got this 1200 dollar figure but a quick search online shows that laserjet 8500 series cartidges are selling for 160 a color.

that's $640 a fill printer refill. These cartridges are guaranteed for 17,000 pages.

that's 3.7 cents for a full page of high-res color.

inkjets cant beat that price ever.

laser is only as superior as your graphic design skills*

Correction, solid ink laser printers now exist but not the case a few years back.

what about a solid inkjet, like an epson photo 1400, with the addition of a CISS system and some custom color profiles? I'd say that would be pretty hard to beat for under $500

Need to duplex, do it manually.

Lasers in general, including solid ink like the Xerox phaser, seem really dull to me. Saturation seems decreased and contrast too, I'm not too sold on it.

A great CISS system is around $130 including 100ml of ink. I am looking at RIHAC (http://www.rihac.com.au) for my epson R220, but I may spring for a 13" wide printer like the 1400.

$/ml, CISS is about 1/8th the cost of conventional ink, and always availible and from top of the link ink manufacturers. May void your warranty but who actually attempts to service a printer? Shipping is sometimes as much as the printer itself.

My point is, professional photographers choose ink based systems, pigmented or dye, and that is who I trust on this. Check out photographer forums, no one is using color laser.

KO

Lasers have made huge strides recently, but I've still yet to see one that comes close to my Epson R1800. It's been good enough to print cheap brochures, but not good enough to use for promo work.

Maybe I just haven't seen what is possible.


The prints I've done recently were 11x17 at Staples, Kinkos and others (all look the same, more or less, and we've tried bringing different papers in), about $2.00 double sided per page. Value wise, it is a super deal and they print damn fast. Quality wise, I'll stick with my Epson inkjet.

For ink, buy online. Epson isn't cheap, but you can skip shipping online and they'll get it to you overnight.