Do you have a personal printer for your deisgn business and if so, is it colour or black and white?
Of course. When in doubt, print it out.
I have a little Epson Artisan in my office for quick checks before things get to the production people.
It also does excellent color photo prints, the inks are pigment so stable, and if you use Epson photo paper, the color profiling is pretty darn good.
I don’t work for Epson.
BTW, we also have a leased color laser for office work and proposal printing. Leasing is a great option. Upgrades without the cost of purchase.
At home i have a laser printer, its not great quality but it gives me a baseline to go off of.
At work we have an Epson 15000 Photo, seems fairly color accurate. But then again final proofs were delivered and the Yellow was not the same as a the pantone, rgb or cmyk. So I have no idea what actually happened or which version of yellow is most correct.
Yellow seems to be fairly tricky though.
Just to run off print samples to ensure text is not too large/small and basic checks.
I find it easier to check a proof in paper than on screen.
Plus gives me some away time from the screen.
I have a black & white laser printer and a color laser printer. Neither get used as much as they used to, but I wouldn’t want to be without either.
Yup mine is mostly for rez checks on imagery or to check 3D letter size. We used to do a lot more photos with it but now submitted qualifications portfolios are all done online.
My home office has an older desktop monochrome laser for routine document printing and a Canon Pixma Pro 8-color inkjet that, these days, mostly gets used for our own photo prints, and the occasional batch of one-off items like themed party/shower invitations, game props, etc.
I also work under contract at a client’s facility where there is a pretty wide variety of equipment available.
Depending on the nature of your work, you could probably get away without a printer these days, but if you design for print at all, there are major advantages to seeing your work in print before calling it final.
Thanks so much guys!
Wasn’t sure whether it was still something that’s necessary given how much has moved to digital, will probably invest in a small colour laser - any recomendations on what worked for you or what to avoid - sounds like Epson is pretty solid?
the epson I have isn’t a laser printer. It’s inkjet
I’ve found lasers to not have the proper color fidelity. I mean, when I look at something printed I kinda sorta want the colors to at least be in the same family. Not often true with lasers.
We also need the photo quality, which lasers don’t do.
For low volume stuff, a $400 or less desktop inkjet would probably do you fine or, as much as I hate them, and all-in-one scanner/printer/copier (we have one of those at home, and it Faxes too!) The quality isn’t great on those but sometimes you don’t need great.
If you are ever considering higher volume though, like multiple users printing job proposals and things, seriously check into leasing. yeah, there’s a click-count but there is also an almost instant service contract and you get an upgraded machine every few years.
Thanks mate, will check out the leasing option am not a fan of having lots of stuff (especially if it’s not used very often!).
My color printer is an HP Color Laser Jet CP1518ni. It served me quite well for many years. Lately, I’ve been having registration problems with it, and I have not found anything to permanently fix it. Considering what I paid for it and the number of trouble-free years it’s served me, I’m not too upset about this. I could pretty easily justify recycling the current printer and buying a new one.
I’d agree with PrintDriver that inkjet prints look better than laser; but, in my experience, it’s a pain to keep the heads clean and clog-free unless you are doing a high volume. Maybe they’ve changed. It’s been years since I’ve owned one.
Bottom line, for my small office printing needs, I’m quite happy with an inexpensive color laser printer. If I’m going to do any large format / archival / photo printing, I’ll send it to a lab.
Interestingly, I would have said just the opposite, but it’s been years since I’ve had much to do with inkjet office printers. The last one I had (an Epson of some kind), I really hated — images were fuzzy, the type was fuzzy, the colors were a bit muddy, and the ink cartridges cost a fortune. However, I assume they’ve gotten better.
Right now, here at home, all I have is refurbished B&W HP laser printer that I ordered from a place in Tijuana, Mexico for $30 — seriously. It works just fine. I really do miss the 11x17-inch color laser printers I’ve had at work, but I can’t justify buying one for home — even a relatively inexpensive one. The practical part of using them for me was the ability to print things out, hang them on the wall, ignore them for a day or two, look at them again, hang them upside down and, in general, get a psychologically different perspective that I’d get from staring at the same things on a computer display all day.
As for color fidelity being more accurate with inkjets, as I said, it’s been years. Even so, for the purposes I just mentioned, color precision isn’t the top priority for me — laser printer colors have always looked more than good enough to me. Also, I’m not typically in a situation where I need to match colors precisely.
I now only keep the ever-so-small black HP laserJet ProM28w on my desk, I believe this is the smallest laser you can get. Its black ink only and it will copy also. I use it for checking text size mostly aside from the business files one has to print and file. I used to always have a tabloid sized inkjet and now I just work with this little thing and its great!
You can purchase any printer of epson company but I am using their ecotank series. They are quiet good for quality printing.