How to buy a printer
Next to a camera, the printer is the photographer's best friend, and buying the right printer can save you a lot of time, money, and headaches in the long run. In this article, I'm going to explain how to buy a printer and what features to look for.
There are different types of printers with the most common being inkjet, dye-sublimation, monochrome laser, and color laser printers; however, laser printers don't have the tonal range to print a good photograph so these aren't real options for a photographer. Instead, they are good for office documents.
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Inkjet Printers
Inkjet printers, also sometimes referred to as bubble jet printers, work by spraying little droplets of ink onto paper. They are the most common type of printer because they tend to be the most inexpensive and new models produce good quality pictures. The cost of the printer is somewhat misleading because a lot of electronics stores sell them at or below cost and then mark up the USB cable and ink a ton. This allows them to advertise the low printer price to get people in the door, while keeping "cable not included" in the fine print. A USB cable in such a store may be marked up 1000-1500% or more, which may be 10-30 times what a typical retailer will mark up their products. For this reason, I recommend that you don't buy the cable from the store you buy your printer from. Rather, shop around for the cable separately. You should be able to get a cable far cheaper this way. For example, instead of paying $30-$40 for the cable, you might find it for $2-$5. Most, if not all, inkjet printers use the same USB cable, so if you have an older inkjet printer, chances are that you have the cable already.
Because the printer company sold your printer to you at cost or below, they need to make it up somewhere else. That place is in the ink cartridge. They're going to do everything they can to get you to buy ink directly from them by telling you that you'll get an inferior picture using third party ink. In most cases, this isn't true, and a whole industry has cropped up to sell ink at far reduced prices because the printer manufacturers have jacked up their prices on ink to cover the costs of losing money on the printers themselves. It's a game the printing companies are destined to lose as long as you don't believe the garbage that they tell you.
Comparing Inkjet Printers
There are dozens, if not hundreds, of different printers to choose from, so it's important to take a look at the features offered and the price of the printer.
For photographic printers, the first thing you should look at is the print quality. This is typically measured by the dpi or dots per inch. The more dots per inch on a page, the finer the quality of the picture will be. Another factor to consider is the number of cartridges that it'll hold. This will allow your printer to have more colors to choose from, which will give you a better overall picture.
Most printers now-a-days boast about an LCD display. I feel this is a worthless feature because as a photographer, you'll undoubtedly have a computer hooked up to the printer and you're better off looking at the picture on your monitor instead of a 2-3 inch display.
I do feel that printers with flash memory ports are handy though so that you don't have to purchase a separate device to load pictures from your camera to your hard drive. A flash memory reader usually costs $15-$30, so keep this in mind when looking at the price of the printer.
Paper size is another big factor. Try and get a printer that'll print at least 8x10 or 11x14. There are many cheap printers that only print 4x6 or smaller. While this works great for a snapshot, it'll be disappointing for your fine art photography. Bigger prints should go through a printing lab or you could buy a large format printer (usually about $3k-$5k).
Print speed is another feature that I don't think is important unless you're printing hundreds of prints at a time. If this is the case, it's better to use a pro lab because their prints are better and cheaper in the long run. I use my printer to see how things are going to look on paper while I'm messing with the image's levels and color balancing, and to print 1-2 pictures at a time. Big orders, and client orders always end up at a professional printing lab simply because the prints from there are better, last longer, and don't smudge like inkjets if the picture gets wet.
3-in-1 and 4-in-1 printers are a great option to consider. When they first came out, these types of printers were made with inferior parts, but that's not the case anymore. A 3-in-1 printer combines a scanner, copier, and printer in one, while a 4-in-1 printer adds a fax machine to it as well. I've never needed the fax machine, but I do use the scanner semi-frequently, and I sometimes use the copier.
Brands are somewhat important. If all else is equal, buy a printer from a company where printers are a core focus of the company. Epson and HP are good examples of companies to buy printers from. Canon is a camera company that uses printers to sell more cameras, and Kodak is focused more on the pro-lab industry than on consumers. Brother printers are a waste of money. I've never bought an inkjet of theirs, but they design their laser printers so that the drum component is a separate part that burns out every 2-3 toner changes. Incidentally, the drum costs more than a new printer. With that type of track record, I don't trust any of their products.
Dye-sublimation printers
Dye-sublimation printers use heat to make a print. The quality of these prints tends to be really good, and the prints last longer than with inkjet. However, both the printer and the cost per print are really high. A dye-sub printer that will print 8x10 sheets will cost $2,000-$5,000 or more, and the cost per sheet can be several dollars each.
Dye-sub printers are for those that can't afford their own mini-lab, but require more quality than an inkjet will provide. In my experience, it's been more cost effective for the small to medium sized photographer to send their prints to a pro-lab, which will usually charge the same or less than it costs to print on a dye-sub. The reason somebody would use a dye-sub is so that they can have prints ready very quickly for a customer - in an hour instead of in a few days.
Mini-lab & Pro-lab printers
These are the printers used by one-hour photo labs, professional printing labs, large studios, and high-production printing companies. These printers are usually made by Fuji, Noritsu, or Kodak and tend to cost over $100,000 new; however, they make up the price of the printer in volume because the price per sheet is low. Typically, a skilled lab technician is required to use and maintain the printer because it uses the same chemicals people have been using to make prints since the advent of cameras. A lab will need a silver recovery unit and abide by OSHA standards to avoid paying a very high fine. These printers will typically print up to 12" wide sheets that are fed by a roll of paper so panoramic images are possible such as a 12"x36" print. They produce the best quality, most durable prints available on the market, and are also very fast. They can produce hundreds of prints in an hour.
Large Format Printers
Most of the large format printers are advanced versions of inkjet printers that allow 6-8 (or more) ink cartridges. Typically, they range in size from 24" to 48" wide (though there are larger versions available), and print on specialized paper. These printers are generally priced from $2,000 to $5,000 (and up), and price per print is fairly high. This helps explain why large prints tend to be priced much higher than 8x10 or smaller prints.
Unless you're in the photo printing business, I recommend purchasing an inkjet printer to use while you're perfecting your image, for printing thumbnails or a contact sheet, or for printing 1-2 pictures at a time. It's more cost-effective to print 1-2 pictures at home than to drive to the photo lab, but for larger orders, it's better to make the trip. If you're a small photography studio and want to provide prints quickly to your customers, the cheapest way initially is to use a dye-sub printer, but a mini-lab is the best option long term if you can get a loan for the printer and spread the cost of it over several years. However, for most people, it's better to focus on your core business of shooting pictures and let the pro lab worry about making the actual prints.
About the Author
Brian Broderick (http://www.brianbroderick.com) is a semi-pro nature photographer and the creator of The Lens Flare. His hobbies include hiking, skiing, and computer graphics, and is currently a web programmer.
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