Professionals - Fine Art Black & White Printer?

[wlewisiii]

Been thinking carefully about starting to sell prints this summer to the tourists of our local landscapes. The problem is printing.

Some considerations:
My color vision is iffy. Not truly color blind but my red/green is enough of a mess that it can be a real issue. Hence I prefer working with black and white.

I'm looking at relatively small matted prints of landscapes - 5x7, 8x10, 11x14 - to start with.

Ink jet printers, even quite high end ones, are optimized for color printing. There are a couple of very high end printers from Epson and Canon that have dyes optimized for black and white however I'm not seeing especially good reviews of the ones I've found.

The two that seem to come out best so far are the Epson SureColor P600 Wide Format Inkjet Printer (13x19 or 13 wide roll) & the Canon PIXMA Pro-1 (13x19 max). Does anyone here use either of these printers? Pros? Cons? Costs?

Alternatives?

Thank you for your thoughts on the matter.

 

[wlewisiii]

Bump just in case anyone around here sees this for the first time.

From what I've been reading it seems to be the Epson - and actually the wider P800 - in the lead.

Anyone with any comments?

 

[Deleted member 20897]

I gave up on home printing long ago. Unless it is a dye sub printer, I let the professional labs handle it.

I've just had too much trouble with printer maintenance in the past.

 

[wlewisiii]

May I ask what lab you use so that I can do a cost comparison?

 

[Deleted member 20897]

I use a few.

BlackRiverImaging
BayPhoto
MPIX

 

[wlewisiii]

Thank you.

 

[RichDesmond]

Doesn't exactly address your question, but I have an Epson 4800 (17" printer) that does an amazing job with B&W prints.

 

[walter_j]

I have a canon Pro-100 and it does awful B&W. So much so I'm want to ditch it and am considering a Epson P800. I swear every time I turn on the canon I'm replacing ink cartridges at $25. The problem with dye ink systems is the paper can really affect the output. I've wasted so much paper trying ICC profiles to no avail. A pigment printer such as the Epson P800 doesn't have the same issues, but it might have more printhead clogging problems. The local photoprinter in town here doesn't do 4/3 aspect, so I'm in a bit of a quandary.

 

[Wisertime]

I have a canon Pro-100 and it does awful B&W. So much so I'm want to ditch it and am considering a Epson P800. I swear every time I turn on the canon I'm replacing ink cartridges at $25. The problem with dye ink systems is the paper can really affect the output. I've wasted so much paper trying ICC profiles to no avail. A pigment printer such as the Epson P800 doesn't have the same issues, but it might have more printhead clogging problems. The local photoprinter in town here doesn't do 4/3 aspect, so I'm in a bit of a quandary.

Are you checking the B/W only button before printing? It will use color inks otherwise and might cause the problem? It takes a good 24 hrs for the colors to settle too. I also recommend the Canon papers. Pro Matte premium, Pro luster, Pro platinum, depending on the type of print look you want.

I'll add my $.02 on the Canon Pro-100. I think it's pretty maintenance free and does astounding prints and I'm not even using a calibrator (just a free DL software for brightness). If you play it smart, you can save $ on ink. No printer is going to be cheap, though there are third party alternatives too, but I haven't gone that route just yet.

I sell color and B/W prints using the Pro-100 and I'm very satisfied with it. I prefer my own to most labs I've used. I've heard the Pro-1 is better for Black/white, but then you're talking about much more expense and possibly more maintenance as pigment printers need frequent use. I can go months without printing on the Pro-100 and no clogging. You can get a Pro-100 so cheap it pays for itself in no time $49-150 AR or on Craigslist. Then if you change your mind, you're not losing anything and can give it away or sell it.

 

[grcolts]

I mainly use my home printer for smaller print uses such as for making cards, or 8x10 prints for quick reviews, etc.
We have two printers, I have an older Canon Pixma and my wife recently purchased an Epson all-in-one printer. I have experimented with both and prints coming from them look fairly close with the Epson slightly exceeding the Canon with a more realistic look and feel. Surprisingly, the Epson does black and white very well printing on Moab papers. If I need a larger print I have it done at a lab.
GR

 

[Nick Payne]

I have an old Epson 3800 that has three black inks (black, light black, and light light black) for B&W printing, and produces excellent B&W prints using either the ABW mode in the Epson printer driver or Quadtone Rip. I got it 2nd hand dirt cheap because three of the print heads were clogged, but a week or so of alternately moving the print heads off their parking position onto paper towel soaked with a mixture of ammonia and print head cleaner, and saturating the parking tray for the heads with print head cleaner, and parking the heads in their normal position, cleared all the clogs, and I haven't had a problem since.