Suggestions for finding printer for printing fine art photos

[seventones]

Hello All,

Hope everyone is doing great !

I recently moved to USA, am a Photographer(achieved LRPS in 2013 from RPS London UK) planning to buy a printer for checking and improving my quality of work in photography and retouching. So planning to buy printer for myself.

When am sending images for LRPS distinction I have used local service provider who has printed the images using EPSON Stylus printer, from that day on wards I fell in love with the quality of EPSON printer, and the quality of the images that it can print, but after going through some videos on Youtube seems EPSON customer service very poor etc.

My major area of interest in Photography is Black And White. I shall be printing both color and Black white, majorly I would like to use Matte paper( or papers from EPSON) and papers from "Hahnemuhle".

So please guide me in selecting a printer for me .
At the moment am looking for desktop printer like 13"x19" size would be fine for me.

Thanks
Seventones.

 

[William Seaward]

Hi @seventones. I'm a photographer also and do basically the same with my printers, checking my work. While Epson printers are nice, the part I don't like about them is their print heads are not user changeable, and when you send them in for servicing Epson can't guarantee that it will be set to factory specs.

Personally, I like the Canon Pro printers. The Pro 100 is a dye based printer and if you use the glossy papers, the images have that extra "pop". Of course, dye based inks don't have the fade resistance like the pigment based inks. On a good note, if you're a refiller, these cartridges are very simple to refill and there are some quality 3rd party inks available which make the Pro 100 very economical to run.

If fade resistance is important, the Pro 10 is a very good choice as its a pigment based printer and if you're a perfectionist, the Pro 1 or Pro 1000 are excellent choices for B&W work. All of these printers also have Chroma Optimizer.