Which large format printer suits your needs, and your budget?
Encad 850 or Encad 880, ColorSpan DisplayMaker XII, Esprit or Mach 12; Roland HiFi or the new HP 5500ps? Epson 7600, Epson 9600 or the Epson 10600? Which large format printer is best, reasonably priced, and will produce the kind of large format prints that you need?
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How about billboards? Maybe the Vutek, Arizona or Salsa would be a good solution to your needs. Do you need to print on textiles, transparent (backlit) material, canvas, art paper, or normal photo paper?
Dye sublimation heat transfer? There is now even a printer that prints perfectly on ordinary newsprint, that's right, the cheapest paper in the world, and it comes in long long rolls because it's so thin. No inkjet surface treatment necessary (but you do need a RIP that accommodates the ICC profiles for newsprint).
If your boss just assigned you to figure out which large format printer your company should chose, but it's a tough choice because of all the hype and exaggerated speed statistics? You have come to the right place. Just ask for the independent consumer advocate information from FLAAR, a nonprofit institute. Our university sends some reports by Nicholas Hellmuth, in handy PDF download format.
Do you need to print on vinyl and cut the vinyl? (most people want to print photographs on photo paper or art on canvas, but for some specialty uses, such as printing on textiles or vinyl, you need a special printer). Do you need to transfer the image to ceramics or other material? (in this case you need a dye sublimation system; they exist and this is a growing market, but for the moment we are concentrating on the normal inkjet, photographic, and graphics printers, not dye sub transfer). At DRUPA printer trade show in Duesseldorf and at SGIA and ISA tradeshows we record information on heat transfer via paper to metal, cloth, ceramics, and other substances. Especially the tradeshow reports for 2001 and 2000 have pertinent information for today's printers in this new year of 2003.
What about laminating your finished prints? Did you know that you can print on economical bond paper and then laminate your print with a result that is visually more impressive than printing on super-expensive photo gloss paper?
Last updated : Feb. 12, 2003
Previous updates : Jan. 21, 2003,Oct. 20, 2001
