Printing a drawing

[gamary]

I just wanted to have other people's opinions on this topic.

A few days ago, I bought some A4 paper photo and tried printing some of my profiles on my HP PSC 1315 (just a medium-end colour inkjet printer-scanner, nothing fancy). The first attempts I had made at printing profiles were on standard 80/120 g paper and the results were pretty lousy.

In this case, with halfway-decent 180 g photo paper, the results are far better than I expected.

I suppose other profilers have also tried printing their drawings. Any suggestions, warnings, tips to share? I know some of the people here have high-quality printers.

One tip I would give is this: you can sometimes find very cheap high-quality photo paper (240-280 g). It's cheap because most printers can't handle it. In most printers, the paper does a U-turn. If the paper's too thick and heavy, it will jam. On mine, the limit seems to be 180-200 g paper.

BTW: I hope this is the right section for this thread. I figured nobody tries to print skins.

[Jesters-Ink]

3 factors once you get past the the drawing stage. . .

Best printer you can afford, with the best inks it takes, then a good quality paper.
Remember . . .last years model does not mean it is out of date, some printers get upgraded and remarketed, but the heart of the machine is the same and you can buy last years model at much reduced price.

[JMSmith]

hi GM,

i have printed mine before, with no problems, i use my Epson stylus c44, with the settings on best quality colour photo, and i use cheap photo paper with no problems, just one thing, make sure you have a program that makes the printer produce the clours on the screen.

[Jarink]

I have a cruddy Lexmark printer on my PC, so I don't print! I've gotten some decent, though mixed results using a couple of different color laser printers (HP, Dell and Xerox) at work using non-photo paper. Usually good enough to hang on the cubicle wall or in my son's room.

Does anyone have suggestions about printing at a professional print shop or someplace like a Staples store?

[Jesters-Ink]

If they have the same equipment as the UK stores, don't bother, I went to every printers in my local area and the results from each one were very close but all very poor.

[Otterkins2]

If you have a Lexmark printer, it's little wonder you don't print much. They are cheap to buy because they are so expensive to maintain. I owned one and I'll never own another. About all these are good for is the dust bin. Both Cannon and HP as well as Epson produce very good printers...even at the low end of the price range. I currently use a Cannon iP4500 (about $125 in CDN bucks) and it gives me very good results....especially if I use satin photo paper. The thing to remember here is that the higher the rag content of the paper you use, the more the ink will soak in giving you rather blurry results. Fine enough for documents, but not very good at the kind of resolutions we demand. Set the printer for "best quality" and you should get pretty acceptable results on photo grade paper.

[adlabs6]

I'll share some of my experiences with printers. I own today a simple Lexmark, that only prints text 99% of the time. If I want a print these days, I just go have one made.

A few years back, I owned an Epson photo printer. This gave absolutely stunning photo prints all the way to 8x10 full bleed. It drank ink, and worse the heads would clog after only a day or so of non-use, which meant repeated head cleanings (which used more ink) before each use.

In the mid 90's, I owned the Canon BJC-600 and BJC-620 printers. These were only 300 and 600 dpi or so, but for the day the results were fantastic. Ink economy was great on these things. No idea about Canon equipment today, but back when these printers were new to the market, I could not have been more pleased.

[gamary]

One printer I'm interested in is the Epson Stylus 1400. It will print borderless A3+ and is sold at 330-350 euros. The reviews I've read said it was one of the best photo printers of its category.

I'm also interested in the HP B9980+ (IIRC), which I believe Jester has. It's also very good but the price is higher (600~ euros).

I have the money to buy the Stylus 1400, but not the guts. My dearly beloved would probably give me hell if I bought it.

[Jesters-Ink]

Sell something, its well worth it, trust me, my wife loves me . . . nough said.

[BLOWHARD]

Uh, how about the high end?
For line drawings-

And for profiles-



I've got a Epson Stylus Photo 1280. It does pretty nice 12.95 inch wide prints. My Zero prints come out nicely at 25 inches long on 100% cotton rag paper.
But the new printers out now...OH BOY!