I’ve had a Canon Pro-100 for over three years now. Sometimes it sits for months, sometimes it is used a lot. I've never had a problem with the heads clogging. I have printed several hundred 13x19s, some for photo exhibits, some for posters for others, some for craft projects, even some for my class reunion. That said, I would argue against getting a printer unless you have a variety of uses for it. Yes, it does use ink, but if your monitor is reasonably accurate it gets 90% first run if you use the stock printer profiles and add +20 saturation.


Like ChrisPlatt, I have not had good luck with Epson printers - both home and commercial.

[K2 to K50]

Not likely to go into printing myself, but just curious - much mention here of this or that ink jet printer, but not of color laser printers. I know these were once very expensive - but prices have dropped significantly over the years. So.....????

[normhead]

Printing an image form a file capable of 120dpi at 300dpi will not produce any additional details beyond what 120dpi shows, although as you said, many prints done this way can be excellent prints.

It can however make hard to distinguish detail more visible and easier to see. So maybe yes maybe no. The question being not what is there, but if you can actually see all the detail present in a 120 DPI file on a print. SO yes, no additional detail, but you may be better able to see what's there.

[Papa_Joe]

I do not print my photos any more. I prefer my photos on real enlargement paper. We have a 1 hour printing service in the town where I work, with their own Fuji printer, much better and cheaper solution then printing them by myself. If there is urgent need to print something at once I will prefer to go to the drugstore, where they have kodak printers. I do not know which printing technic they use, but it's better then my canon and epson inkjets and the colours last longer.

That's the main reason why I use printing services. The colours of the ink printers are just not good enough, over one or two years, they all fade out our stick to the glass of the frame.

[GUB]

It can however make hard to distinguish detail more visible and easier to see. So maybe yes maybe no. The question being not what is there, but if you can actually see all the detail present in a 120 DPI file on a print. SO yes, no additional detail, but you may be better able to see what's there.

It is a funny thing but time and time again I pop in to 1:1 on screen to check out an image. But once it has printed I don't think I have ever put a magnifying glass to it. Simply not relevant. It becomes all about the overall effect you wish to have at viewing distance.
Thanks to this lockdown the mounted prints in our club have been postponed/cancelled. Some are pushing for them to be presented as dpi images. I outright refuse to compromise the image I felt fit for printing back to that level.

[biz-engineer]

It can however make hard to distinguish detail more visible and easier to see. So maybe yes maybe no. The question being not what is there, but if you can actually see all the detail present in a 120 DPI file on a print. SO yes, no additional detail, but you may be better able to see what's there.

All this depends enormously on the amount of detail content in the image printed. I have various images printed from the K200D + 18-250 and from the K5 and K3. Prints of images with low detail content taken with the K200D look as good as prints of images richer in detail took by the K3. If I remember correctly you wrote such kind of statement a couple of years ago , and I can confirm it practically is true. Also, media itself limits fine details (such as canvas vs glossy paper). The same image can be enlarged much more on canvas than it can be on glossy paper. It's good to know what we are dealing with.

[csa]

Whereas canvas print can't be cycled, one I'd have about 8 canvases I'd have no space to display more. With photos I just open a frame and place a new photo inside, put the previous photo back to storage folder.

I can recycle my canvas prints, I interchange them, I replace them with new ones, and the "old" ones are kept in a dust-free storage container. It's all what a person prefers. Right now I prefer canvas for my rural home.

I also have many framed prints, that I don't wish to display anymore, so storing them is another thing I do; frames and all.

[aslyfox]

I have to print my films in order to see the photos.

I have found a shop which will develop the negatives and scan those to a usb thumb drive for me

they send me the usb thumb drive and the negatives

I don't have to pay for prints

I can then work with the scans on the computer and crop or pp them if I want or use them as is

[Elroy Jetson]

I still print on an Epson R1900 using Aperture 3 on an old iMac, which is dedicated to photo stuff only. The R1900 doesn't seem to be properly supported by Win10 probably because the printer is, like the iMac, over 10 years old. I've printed on roll paper etc. but when either the printer or Mac dies, they're both gone. In the meantime, I'm prepping my darkroom (30 odd years late) so I can get back to my black and white roots. Got lots of film gear from 35mm to 4x5 and so far have developed my own film and scanned it myself. There are labs a half hour away, but I hate going downtown and prefer to just do it myself. When the old Epson is finished I'm not sure I'll bother with the expense of another photo printer.

[Bob 256]

Sorry, but I don't agree. It depends on the brand of printer you are using. 300 is best for Canon printers. While for my large format Epson printer,(photo below) 360 is "the gold standard"..

.

Thanks for that. I just threw out the 300 dpi value because that's the resolution many labs use for scanned prints. I'm aware of the 360dpi value for Epson which can actually print as high as 1440dpi (I own one). "Gold standard" probably wasn't the best term to use - maybe something more like "a typical printer resolution is around 300 dpi". In any case, prints can have a pretty good spatial resolution, plenty enough to produce excellent images viewed from arms length and even closer.

[Eagle94VT]

A few times a year I send out for prints - usually 5x7 or 8x10's of the keepers. And usually a few bigger. I hate digging through my files to look at pictures! I gave up long ago on the home printer - like a few mentioned, the ink cost, the gunk on the printer heads from lack of regular use. Actually, I don't even have a color printer of any quality anymore - just a basic black and white laser printer for other stuff.

[Alex645]

Thanks for that. I just threw out the 300 dpi value because that's the resolution many labs use for scanned prints. I'm aware of the 360dpi value for Epson which can actually print as high as 1440dpi (I own one). "Gold standard" probably wasn't the best term to use - maybe something more like "a typical printer resolution is around 300 dpi".

There is a lot of confusion between ppi and dpi. Yes because of lpi in offset printing screens and plates, the common recommendation is 240 ppi for monochrome and 300 ppi for color images, but whether you are using an inkjet printer with 1440 or 2880 dpi output or even a dye sub printer, there are really two numbers; the practical resolution (usually in that 240-300 ppi range) and the ideal or max resolution which is dependent on the printer and the media used (metallic glossy or canvas, etc).

On my DNP DS80 dye sub printer, using a 600 ppi image for an 8x10" print will produce a higher res than a 300 ppi, but you'd really have to dot peep to even detect a difference; it's not an appreciable or significant improvement.

And with most inkjet printers that can output 2880 dpi, most media (i.e. inkjet paper) can't handle that amount of ink and thus 1440 dpi is the usual recommendation. I have run tests and agree with what the manufacturer recommends.

[biz-engineer]

I can recycle my canvas prints, I interchange them, I replace them with new ones, and the "old" ones are kept in a dust-free storage container.

Oh yes, that's a good point, I didn't see it that way, it just requires a bit more space than prints. The advantage of canvas (is without glass), is a lot lighter weight to hang on wall than prints of the same size, and also canvas is most free of reflections, much easier to place in a home environment.

---------- Post added 21-04-20 at 08:21 ----------

I'm aware of the 360dpi value for Epson which can actually print as high as 1440dpi

"dpi" and "ppi" are not the same . 1440 is the number of dot per inch (dpi), 360 is the number of pixels per inch (ppi). Canon Pro 2K/4K/8K print head pitch is 1200 dpi x 2400 dpi (2.88 million dots per inch square, or 120 000 RGB pixels per inch square), that is equivalent to an average density of 346 pixels per inch., not quite as high as the 2400 dpi figure.

[rogerstg]

Not likely to go into printing myself, but just curious - much mention here of this or that ink jet printer, but not of color laser printers. I know these were once very expensive - but prices have dropped significantly over the years. So.....????

I use my office HP Color LaserJet for convenience/event prints up to 5x7. It works well, but it's not for art. I use Nations Photo Labs for bigger, better stuff.

[savoche]

I have a printer

bought to save money

I have a printer (Epson A3+ / 13x19") but not to save money. The cheapest option is to use a lab. I have a printer to make prints - because I very rarely got around to send anything off to the lab. And when I need prints I need them now, not in two days. Yeah, that could mostly be solved by planning

Oh, and it's fun. I just received some nice-looking Hahnemühle paper. Should provide some nice (and expensive) prints.

As for CISS printers, I don't print enough for that to be a sensible way for me. Even less than the P600 is.