Which large printer

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gene Palmiter
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Gene Palmiter

I plan to win the lottery, and when I do I will buy the best of everything.
I am happy with the quality of my Epson 2200 and have been wondering what I
would buy when I win to print images from my Hassleblad H2D-39. The biggest
I know if from Epson is the 9800 with 8 colors of pigmented ink. Is anyone
making a larger printer that uses pigmented inks?
 
What, 44" wide isn't wide enough? ;-)

There are a number of "professional" wide body inkjet printers out there...

Art
 
Gene Palmiter said:
I plan to win the lottery, and when I do I will buy the best of everything.
I am happy with the quality of my Epson 2200 and have been wondering what I
would buy when I win to print images from my Hassleblad H2D-39. The biggest
I know if from Epson is the 9800 with 8 colors of pigmented ink. Is anyone
making a larger printer that uses pigmented inks?
Click to expand...

If you are planning on winning a decent amount, can I suggest a Canon
CLC5100, I think it would set you back about $60,000
 
Well...I was curious about who was making the best super sized pigmented
prints. While the Canon is a large machine....it doesn't make large
prints....its not pigmented....and its not archival. Any other nominees?
 
The Canon 9000 looks interesting at 12 pigmented inks and 60 inches wide.
That's enough for most things I can imagine. Making an image nice and sharp
enough for this size might be hard....and getting enough resolution might
even challenge the H2D-39. Working with such an image would challenge a
computer. Or would it? What is the state of the art? The Bleeding Edge?
 
I would love to be your friend when you win the lottery please and share in
your good fortune.

ken
 
Gene said:
The Canon 9000 looks interesting at 12 pigmented inks and 60 inches wide.
That's enough for most things I can imagine. Making an image nice and sharp
enough for this size might be hard....and getting enough resolution might
even challenge the H2D-39. Working with such an image would challenge a
computer. Or would it? What is the state of the art? The Bleeding Edge?
Click to expand...

You could try someone like Eurotech who supply solvent based printers -
only 6 colours, but up to 5.2m wide:
http://www.eurotechprinters.com/eagle_X5.html

That is probably the largest I have come across !

Rich
www.internetbusinessangels.com
 
Winners often mention how their friends multiply after they win....I expect
that I will be down-grading all my relationships. Friends become
acquaintances, acquaintances become nodding friends, and nodders become
strangers. The exception will be attractive young ladies. I figure it this
way. Every million takes a decade off me....so anything more than 3 million
and I can date 20 year-olds again. I will trade in my current 40-something
for 2 twenty somethings so it stays the same mathematically
 
Yep...that's a big one. Exactly what are solvent based inks? Are they
pigmented? Fade resistant? Archival?
 
Hi Gene
The Canon 9000 looks interesting at 12 pigmented inks and 60 inches wide.
That's enough for most things I can imagine. Making an image nice and
sharp enough for this size might be hard....and getting enough resolution
might even challenge the H2D-39. Working with such an image would
challenge a computer. Or would it? What is the state of the art? The
Bleeding Edge?
Click to expand...

Yes, that promises to be a very good printer, if initial user experiences
come back
positive. I'm guessing Canon's gonna spread the 12-pigm'd-inks thing
throughout the size
range, bringing out a 24" and even a 36" at some point. It'll be fun to
watch Epson and
HP scramble to keep up. Epson's vulnerability is the black ink change cost,
and HP
doesn't have pigm'd inks at 24" (yet ... birds are heard singing that it's
coming soon).

My current large printer is an HP DJ-130. I am able to
make nice 24" x 36" prints from D70 (6MP) images.
Images must be sharp, but that's a lens thing, assuming
photographer skill. I am able to make nicer images from D200
(10MP) images. Pixel-peeping the photos leads me to believe
my lenses have more resolution than the camera's able to eat.
I process the master of each image in Photoshop,
then create a Level 12 (pretty dang pixel perfect [PDPP]) JPG for
printing from QImage. I use Level 12 JPGs because they're the
smallest PDPP form of the image, making QImage and DJ-130
digestion as easy as possible. That's a good thing to do when
making large prints. Hardware and software wants to fail with
large amounts of data, so we'd like to optimize not doing that.

Thinking about a 60"-wide printer:

Making a 60" x 90" print means I'd be covering 6.25 times as
much area as a 24" x 36". It'd be nice to have 100MP to spread
around. But I sniff my 10MP, on a SHARP image, wouldn't look
all that bad from most practical viewing distances.

For a computer to handle such images, you're going to want
CPU power/speed and lotsa memory. Pretty close to top of
the line stuff. A coupla thousand could
cover it for a smart shopper / build-it-yourselfer. Most folks
would spend more. But it'd be doable.

The future approaches at accelerating rates. Fasten your seatbelts,
and be sure to take sharp sharp sharp pix with pinpoint exposures
and minimal noise; bigness reveals flaws as easily as it does excellence.

-- stan
 
I built or improved all my current computers but I don't even know some of
the terms being used these days.

I have done some interesting panoramas with my Oly E-20 and Epson 2200.
Imagine using an H2d-39 and whatever printer to do one the size of a wall! I
see super graphics but I don't know if they are archival. It sure is an
exciting time for the computer and graphics world.

--
Thanks,
Gene Palmiter
(visit my photo gallery at http://palmiter.dotphoto.com)
freebridge design group

Stanley Krute said:
Hi Gene
The Canon 9000 looks interesting at 12 pigmented inks and 60 inches wide.
That's enough for most things I can imagine. Making an image nice and
sharp enough for this size might be hard....and getting enough resolution
might even challenge the H2D-39. Working with such an image would
challenge a computer. Or would it? What is the state of the art? The
Bleeding Edge?
Click to expand...

Yes, that promises to be a very good printer, if initial user experiences
come back
positive. I'm guessing Canon's gonna spread the 12-pigm'd-inks thing
throughout the size
range, bringing out a 24" and even a 36" at some point. It'll be fun to
watch Epson and
HP scramble to keep up. Epson's vulnerability is the black ink change
cost, and HP
doesn't have pigm'd inks at 24" (yet ... birds are heard singing that it's
coming soon).

My current large printer is an HP DJ-130. I am able to
make nice 24" x 36" prints from D70 (6MP) images.
Images must be sharp, but that's a lens thing, assuming
photographer skill. I am able to make nicer images from D200
(10MP) images. Pixel-peeping the photos leads me to believe
my lenses have more resolution than the camera's able to eat.
I process the master of each image in Photoshop,
then create a Level 12 (pretty dang pixel perfect [PDPP]) JPG for
printing from QImage. I use Level 12 JPGs because they're the
smallest PDPP form of the image, making QImage and DJ-130
digestion as easy as possible. That's a good thing to do when
making large prints. Hardware and software wants to fail with
large amounts of data, so we'd like to optimize not doing that.

Thinking about a 60"-wide printer:

Making a 60" x 90" print means I'd be covering 6.25 times as
much area as a 24" x 36". It'd be nice to have 100MP to spread
around. But I sniff my 10MP, on a SHARP image, wouldn't look
all that bad from most practical viewing distances.

For a computer to handle such images, you're going to want
CPU power/speed and lotsa memory. Pretty close to top of
the line stuff. A coupla thousand could
cover it for a smart shopper / build-it-yourselfer. Most folks
would spend more. But it'd be doable.

The future approaches at accelerating rates. Fasten your seatbelts,
and be sure to take sharp sharp sharp pix with pinpoint exposures
and minimal noise; bigness reveals flaws as easily as it does excellence.

-- stan
Click to expand...
 
HP scramble to keep up. Epson's vulnerability is the black ink change
cost,
Click to expand...


From my understanding of what I have read, Epson is using a piezo head that
has limits as to how big a sheet it can print....don't know why that is so.
It might just be a speed thing but to me quality is all that matters.
 
Solvent based inks, are not water based. They use a volatile solvent,
and are closer to thinned lacquers than what we usually refer to as
inks. They are designed to print on many different substrates, like
vinyl, plastics, even metals, often have good permanence. They are used
to print billboards and large permanent mall signs, etc. They usually
use a larger dot, and aren't typically used for fine art images.

Art
 
Gene Palmiter said:
Well...I was curious about who was making the best super sized pigmented
prints. While the Canon is a large machine....it doesn't make large
prints....its not pigmented....and its not archival. Any other nominees?
Click to expand...
I know it was a silly suggestion really, but I would expect a colour
laser copier to be better for archival purposes than an inkjet.
 
That may not be true. Color laser printers use a mixture of pigments,
dyes, and thermal plastics for their toners. These typically suit right
on the surface of the paper, and may be vulnerable to what they come in
contact with in storage. Some plasticizers will soften and transfer
laser toners right off the paper. Also, the variety of papers that will
work with a laser printer are limited to low tooth smoother papers.

Well formulated inkjet inks, usually with pigment colorants, penetrate
the paper at least to some extent, tend to be stable on the paper and
not likely to transfer once dry. They also can more easily be used with
art papers with texture.

Canon has recently introduced a series of pigment ink printers in wider
formats. Both Epson and HP have had them for years. Third party
pigment inks are available for a number of inkjet printers.

ALso, in general laser printer toners, since they are not considered
fine art quality yet, don't get tested for longevity as much because
they are considered mainly used in business settings.

Having said all that, I do produce toner based prints as fine art, and I
suspect that if properly displayed and stored, the toners are relatively
archival.
 
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