Printing your own images

Hi everyone,

over the years I printed some pictures from the home printer, of course I got only super cheap printers so the quality was what it was.
Now that i'm over with baseball, I have more time to dedicate to photography - I also feel the desire to print "in real time" some of the photos I take.
For the format, i will not go over the A4 (with white border inside or maybe not), and if i'll need to go over format i'll let my store to print for me.

So, i got some "Hamletic doubts" about "print at home":

1) In the "long period", maximum printing A4 \ matte paper (Color + B & W), could the expense be comparable to what I would spend going to print in a shop?

2) What printers "average band" offer good value "quality \ price"?

3) In the long run the prints made at home tend to degrade?

4) Average durability of the cartridges?

5) Forget everything and print to the store? but losing the chance to try different print at home (maybe saturating \ desaturate the colors, trying other processing in real time)

I spotted a bit of Epson printers (used them since 15 years ago and I had no problems with the brand) but i don't think the amazon reviews let you understand the true quality of a product!

thanks everyone!

Andrea

I have Canon Pixma Pro's
The cost of large prints is about the same as the local shop.
Small prints will cost to much to print at home.
High quality paper make high quality prints, buy high grade paper.
Some of Canons paper claims to be archival quality. I have seen no degrading.
Printing at home you can control the quality of your print, once you have printed a picture and the image has that 3D jump off the paper at you feel you will not want to take your best pics to the local lab.
So;
No savings about the same price on large prints
You can control quality
It is immediate and convenient
Take small pics to the lab

Keep in mind that the learning curve for getting great prints at home can be kind of steep. You can count on spending significantly more in the beginning while you figure out the optimal workflow (Color Balance end-to-end, sharpening, paper preference, monochrome print preferences, etc).

Thank you both for you considerations, really appreciated.

I will think a bit about it, mainly because my preference is to save time for shooting and post-processing instead of printing, so... if it requires too much effort maybe it could be a bad investment :)

I have a Canon PIXMA PRO9000 Mark II that I keep around "just in case." Print quality is good, but it does tend to gobble up ink. For most small prints, I find the local Walgreens to be inexpensive and decent (if you tell them to turn off all "auto corrections" when processing the order). For larger prints, I like the flexibility and cost of online printing (AdoramaPix - with my favorite paper, Kodak Metallic). AdoramaPix regularly runs print deals that make them significantly cheaper than I can print at home, even with shipping.

I don't know which online printing services are good/inexpensive in Europe, but I'm sure they are out there.

I bought a refurbed Epson 3880 Stylus Pro from Adorama about 2 years ago. Love it! It produces outstanding results and is not difficult to use. Epson has a wide array of fine art paper. The cartridges are expensive but rather large and last a long time (80ml I think) A full set is over $400. Individually they are $50 or so.

The main thing is to use the correct ICC paper profile (which is free from the paper mfg web site) and calibrate your monitor. In general the image must look brighter and sharper on the monitor than you would ordinarily like otherwise the print will be too dark. It's a short learning curve and you will enjoy it:)

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Originally Posted by jamsus

Thank you both for you considerations, really appreciated.

I will think a bit about it, mainly because my preference is to save time for shooting and post-processing instead of printing, so... if it requires too much effort maybe it could be a bad investment :)

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In the US Canon is always running deals where you can buy a body and get a printer almost free or greatly discounted.
Because of this you see new printers sold aftermarket at great discounts on craiglist and such.

They get you on the ink. I wouldn't pay retail for a Canon printer, I would watch for a used (near new) one.

Uhm, i don't know if in Europe is the same thing.

Anyway thank you really everyone for the answer, really really helpful for me :)

But probably i will going to take a "good" printer to have an idea of the final layout on an A4 of the picture, but then i will bring them to my trusted shop! :D

Do almost all of my own printing at home with Pixma Pro and iPF 6300 for larger sizes. Cost of doing it myself is significantly less than outsourcing high quality prints with total control of the process, papers used, white and black points, adjustments to fit gamut range, and more so the entire look of the finished product is now under control and supervision. Discount prints are not done on the same quality of papers and definitely do not receive a high level of care and attention. My preferred papers alone cost more than their finished prints.
From a cost per print basis the large format printer is a LOT less expensive to run on a regular basis. Now that I also do some custom printing for others the savings on ink will pay for the difference in purchase price well within the lifetime of the printer. The smaller printer just does paper sizes smaller than the large format will handle and general office usage to avoid excessive ink costs.
If you decide to continue dealing with a local printer ask for their ICC profiles so that you can use the soft proofing feature in PS and LR to tweak your images based on the paper and printer it is being done in. If they give you a blank look, run fast and run far to get to another print shop that actually creates and uses their own profiles.