Choosing an Inkjet printer.

[YooDooRight]

Any tips? My budget's not great and i'm based in england so something available here. There's so many on the market it's hard to know what to go for. Colour calibration is fairly important though i'm using a Pantone Huey for my screen so that's the kind of league i'm in right now.

Anything in the $200-$300 range i should consider?

YDR

[YooDooRight]

Should also mention i generally design for book/magazine/cd sleeves and spreads so will use it for rough printing of these before they go to litho.

Don't need any digital photograph printing here.

YDR

[DesignerScott]

Not to hijack the thread, but I've been considering getting the HP 9800, because I really need a medium format print option for all of my "little" projects, since Kinko's screws up 30 sheets before getting it close enough.
I think the current price range for these are between $230 and $299.

[patkennedy78]

I think for your price range you can get a inkjet that does 11 x 17 prints. Canon, Epson, HP, should all have models. I have a small canon printer that does 8.5 x 11 boarderless prints, so that's very nice.

Check out paper and ink prices too. I've had good luck with abcink.com

Let us know what you pick.

[PrintDriver]

Any type of desktop inkjet in the $300 range is going to be tough to calibrate. You may have to have custom ICCs made to the paper you're printing on. I've got an old Epson that comes real close if using their inks and paper. The paper is espensive though. And sometimes you still just have to chart/replace colors.
Depends on how picky you are going to be.

["Technical" Terry]

If you want to have a custom ICC made for you, check out:

www.pantone.com/colorvalet

[pmkcreations]

My choice would be the Epson 1280.

I love Epson printers. They print a lot nicer than HP and you can usually find after market inks for much less since the cartridges don't have to have the head built into them.

I've seen ink for this for $6.95 per color cart.

I think Amazon.com has the best deal on the printer itself.

[PrintDriver]

That's funny. I was just reading a WIR report on aftermarket cartridges.
Check it out
http://www.wilhelm-research.com
3rd column, First article, titled: "WIR Testing Finds Aftermarket Inks Are Inferior to OEM", download the pdf.
Some of the fade information is amazing.

(If you have anything to do with long-term display prints you should definitely keep up on WIR articles. Great resource.)

[pmkcreations]

Thanks for the info.

But, for most printing situations whether it's laser proofs or printing emails, the cheap ink works well. I've been using 3rd party inks for a long time now and I don't have any problems with all of the printing I do. However, that printing does not involve high end light fast stuff. But I have used the inks to print flyers and BCs.
No complaints.

I do use a spray clear lacquer over the printed pieces to help secure the ink from moisture.

[PrintDriver]

Yoodoo mentions color is important. Hard to rely on 3rd party inks for that.

I was actually kind of amazed at the difference in lightfastness. Standardized acceleration tests for listed Epson inks on Epson paper are at the 23 year mark while putting compatible OfficeMax ink in there drops it to only 2 years. Listed HP photo ink on HP photo paper = 108 years but Rapid Refill ink on Staples photo paper in the same machine = 0.4 years (ie less than 6 months). Something for the photo printers to be aware of.

Sorry to hijack.

I do like the Epson for rough proofing to clients. I have a small $150 HP at home. I like the interface for adjusting color on both printers. But, neither will ever really calibrate for PMS colors. Sometimes you do have to swap if you want to truly represent the 'look' to the client. I've found most times that a nice print and attached PMS chips does the trick just as well, always followed by a proof check from the print vendor.