Recommendation for a High Quality Photo Printer

[mallik]

I'm looking for a high quality professional photo printer. I bought an Epson R200, but I haven't opened it yet, and was thinking about whether I should keep it. The main reason being the cost of consumables. Printing a photo would probably be a lot more expensive than getting it printed at places like Staples, Snapfish etc.

So I was thinking, what kind of equipment do these places use? I imagine it's probably in the 5-figure range, but what kind of technology do they use? Is there something that's lower scale that is similar to what they use?

I'm also looking for something that can print on the CD/DVD, so that would be a bonus as well.

 

[Shogun]

I have the Epson R800. It uses 8 separate ink tanks. The prints I have done on Epson's glossy premium paper are excellent. It also prints directly onto CD/DVD media but I have not used this feature yet.

I'm not sure what the price per print is but I do like the convenience.

 

[Zepper]

Right now the only inkjet printers that can print on CD/DVD are the Epson Rx00 series. In late summer the new replacements for the Canon Pixma line will be out and it is likely that the disk printing feature that has been on the models delivered to Europe should finally show up here. I guess Canon was using the U-Rope-Ians as guinea pigs and that's fine by me... The cost of consumables is much lower than any other brand.
. As far as the commercial printers go - they use several different technologies but the savings per print is largely due to economies of scale.
.bh.

 

[mallik]

Thanks for the input. Are there any other types of printers (other than inkjet) for printing photos and printing on media? I don't like the costs associated with using these inkjet printers for printing, and I was wondering what other technologies are out there.

 

[daniel1113]

Originally posted by: mallik
Thanks for the input. Are there any other types of printers (other than inkjet) for printing photos and printing on media? I don't like the costs associated with using these inkjet printers for printing, and I was wondering what other technologies are out there.

As far as I know, all of the high end, non-inkjet photo printers out there are so expensive that it wouldn't even come close to offsetting the cost of ink you would use in an inkjet... we're talking tens of thousands of dollars here.

 

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: Shogun
I have the Epson R800. It uses 8 separate ink tanks. The prints I have done on Epson's glossy premium paper are excellent. It also prints directly onto CD/DVD media but I have not used this feature yet.

I'm not sure what the price per print is but I do like the convenience.

What kind of print speeds do you get with that? I have the R200, and it's dog slow. I've heard the r800 is faster. But if it's that much faster I'll have to go pick one up maybe

 

[Zepper]

The other color technologies are mainly dye sublimation (Tektronix/Xerox) and laser that uses powdered toners very simiar to the black - but I don't think you will see printers based on those printing on CDs any time soon... There was a thermal transfer method that has pretty much died out due to expense. The last holdout for that type is in the CD printing market. Casio sells some and there is a big name in the CD printing biz that I keep forgetting the name of. Their first printer was a dye-transfer type for doing color printing on paper - made some of the most photo-realistic prints at the time. But the consumables expense quickly drove them out of that market into the disk printing market. Oh, I just remembered, Primera.
.bh.