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Technique HOME PRINTING
need to make a hefty payment for the
Epson printer up front, the Canon
allows you to pay as you go. That said, the
larger A3-format Epson EcoTank ET-7750
is only about £100 more expensive to buy
than its A4 sibling and, for creating larger
photo prints in high volumes, gives better
economies of scale.
The big issue
You only need about three megapixels to
create a top-quality A4 inkjet photo print,
so when it comes to creating your own
output, you might query the value of all
those extra megapixels in current cameras.
The bigger question is why should you
limit yourself to an A4 printer? Measuring
11.69x8.27in (297x210mm), an A4 print is
a perfectly respectable size for up-close
viewing or framing and popping on the
mantelpiece. Hang it on the wall, however,
and it’ll look completely lost.
The next step up in size is an A3 printer,
which outputs prints with double the
surface area of an A4, at 16.5x11.7in
(420x297mm). There are various models
to choose from, but a more popular size for
photo printers is the so-called A3+ or
‘Super A3’, at 19x13in (483x329mm). As
well as being noticeably larger than A3,
A3+ is also a better fi t for the 3:2 aspect
Moody mono
With the right kind of printer, you can expect
magnifi cent mono photo prints as well as great
colour reproduction. Again, you’re best off with
a large-format printer that will typically have
more ink cartridges, but some are better for
black & white photos than others.
The Canon Pro-10S, for example, includes
what most of us would consider a basic black &
white line-up for a pigment-based printer,
namely with matte black, photo black and grey
inks on tap. This enables faithful output on both
matte and glossy media, utilising either the
matte or photo black ink accordingly. The
Canon Pro-1 goes further still, with matte
black, photo black and no less than three
dark-, medium- and light-grey cartridges for
superb tonal fi delity.
Meanwhile, the Epson SC-P600 and
SC-P800 use dual black and dual grey inks,
named matte black, photo black, light black
and light light black. Mono photo quality is
extremely good, with the availability of highly
accurate results, similar to those by the Canon
Pro-1. However, there’s a drawback in both
Epson printers, for colour as well as mono
printing. The matte and photo black inks share
a single channel in the print head, rather than
having their own dedicated channels. As such,
every time you switch between glossy and
matte media, you need to purge the ink that’s
in the head and replenish it with the alternative
type. The process wastes precious ink and
takes a few minutes to complete.
ratio of DSLR cameras, although it’s still
not perfect. When it comes to choosing a
specialist photo printer rather than a
model that off ers a compromise between
eff ective photo and document printing,
you’re comparatively spoiled for choice if
you upsize from A4 to A3+. Not only are
there numerous ink line-ups on off er, but
there are also alternatives when it comes
to the actual formulation of ink, as we’ll
come to in a moment.
If you want to supersize your home
printing, there are a couple of notable A2
desktop photo printers on the market.
These are the Canon imagePrograf
Pro-1000 and Epson SureColor SC-P800.
They don’t come cheap, at around the
£1,000 mark, but enable a maximum
print size that’s double the size of A3, at
23.4x16.5 inches (594x420mm).
For going larger than regular A3+ and
A2 prints, there’s a win for Epson
compared with the equivalent Canon
models. Epson’s current SureColor
SC-P600 (A3+) and SC-P800 (A2) models
can be fi tted with a clip-on roll feeder,
giving you the option to use rolls of photo
paper rather than pre-cut sheets. Not only
does it put larger, panoramic printing on
the menu, but you can print at any desired
aspect ratio to suit the subject matter.Dye or pigment?
There’s a lot to be said for the use of
pigment-based inks in photographic
output. The pigments used in the
formulation of this type of ink have much
larger molecules than those in dye-based
inks. As such, they tend to be more
resistant to fading due to environmental
factors including temperature, humidity
and ultraviolet radiation, in particular.
The last of these features is a major
consideration for professional
photographers selling prints to clients,The Canon Pixma Pro-100S A3+ format printer
is unbeatable for print quality on glossy and
semi-gloss or lustre paperIf you mainly print
in b&w, a printer
with more black
and grey cartridges
will produce a great
tonal range© MATTHEW RICHARDS