PRINTER HELP approx. $1000 spending

[chris dont worry about]

I am looking for a brand new printer.

 

This printer should be capable of printing good quality photographic

images... Also capable of printing to the edge of the paper... and

should be fairly good at printing images in black and white

(the printer will be used extensively for printing B&W) - therefore

im sure grey inks / etc. will be useful.

Printing images of A3 size is a bonus. (but would be good)

 

 

Recently my photography teacher told me that there's no such thing

as a printer that prints R,G,B inks.... that EVERYTHING is printed

in CMYK.

I have always been led to believe that RGB inks EXIST. Am I right in

saying that RGB printers DO exist?

(i dont mean the capability to print RGB images... i mean printing

colours that are true to RGB profiles)

 

Anyway...

If RGB ink printers DO exist... can one be found for around $1000AU?

- 790.938 USD.... or $800US... close enough.

 

If NOT.

What is a good printer that can be found for around this price range?

 

 

 

I do not have much experience in the Printing area. I am still using

my old HP Deskjet 950C to print photographic prints... which is a

fair few years old.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

- Chris

[ellis_vener_photography]

Do you need to this right now or can you wait a few months?

 

Your photography teacher is correct; as far as I know there no available printers that use

RGB ink sets.

 

"i mean printing colours that are true to RGB profiles.' Creating an accurate profile

establishes the colorspace for the specific device (camera, scanner, monitor or printer/

paper/ink combination) being used. There is no generic RGB or CMYK profile that fits every

device. Which is why we have device independent workspaces like sRGB, Adobe RGB , Pro

Photo, etc.

[chris dont worry about]

I pretty much need it within the next few weeks at the latest.

I have seen a few printers offering Red and Green ink cartridges alongside the other inks.... but I havent seen these two in conjunction with a third BLUE ink (this would make things perfect).

[chris dont worry about]

Another thing is...

if I was after profile for...

example.

 

digital camera of * brand creates image for....

21" monitor of * brand to display....

which would then be output to printer of * brand.

 

how would you go about getting appropriate profiles / customisations?

[steven_clark]

Red, green, and blue inks can't be used on their own. Printed color is subtractive rather than additive and combining red green and blue inks would tend to become black extraordinarily quickly. Such inks are only used to improve the color gamaut of a subtractive CMY based inkset.

[pmind]

Chris,

There is always the Epson 2100/2200, a photographers favorite. And as someone on another post mentioned, the new HP 8750 9-ink printer looks quite interesting, but has not yet been released, it will have a light grey and dark grey cartridge in addition to the standard inks to help facilitate B&W (btw, the HP 8750 has a "photo blue" cartridge, so the addage about "no RGB printers" may soon be reaching its end!). Both will handle A3 (US 13"x19") and appear to be within your price range. Good Luck.

[mattb1]

I'd suggest sticking with an HP or a Canon. Epsons have serious problems with B&W, very time and money consuming to get usable results. I have seen Canon B&W's that are great, the I9900 would also be a good choice. IMHO the HPs would be a better choice, the HP dj30, dj90, and the new 8750 are some options. I have a dj130 and it does pretty well with B&W, but that is just my opinion. The 8750 though sounds like the best printer option available for 13x19 and smaller. I was surprised that it has a blue ink.

 

Actually, most new printers have 6 or more inks. More of a CclMmlYK printers, but don't sweat it. Look for the addition of grey inks, they should help B&W printing a lot. If you need very high color control then making or buying a printer/paper profile is pretty easy, but that doesn't have much to do with the cmyk vs. rgb issue as much as each printer and paper combination will behave slightly differently.

[kent_tolley2]

I'm new to printing and asked a similar question last month. I decided on the Epson 2200 and ImagePrint RIP. My expectations for B&W prints have been exceeded. Total price tag is $1200 for the package.

[marshall]

To my (limited) understanding, the nature of color in additive vs. subtractive models precludes there being a really good printer using only RGB inks. At any rate, it would be building color differently on paper than it is built on your monitor anyway. Maybe the closest conceptual thing today is systems that expose photo paper using RGB lasers, but that doesn't help you in your search for a home printer.

 

Fortunately, that doesn't mean you can't get good output at home. Epson, Canon, and HP all make models that are capable of high-quality output.

[almagnus]

Contrarily to what Matt says, an EPSON 2200 will give you great BW pictures using QTR (50$), with tint control. I do understand that if you're interest in glossy prints you will have some problems with the UC inkset. You should also specify the longevity of the print. There's tons of information about this issue elsewhere (yahoo). Good luck...

[imaginator]

There is an article here on photo.net (look around... can't recall exactly at the moment) about the HP printers for doing black and white. They have the gray ink and also can print black and whites without even having the color ink cartridges installed. No matter what printer I choose for color, I've decided to also get one of the HPs for doing black and white.

[imaginator]

You can find it <A HREF="http://www.photo.net/mjohnston/column35/">here</A>