What home printer for my astro photos?

[blinky]

Im looking at getting a home printer to print out my images and stick 'em on the wall in my office.  I want to print in at least A3 size (would love to go bigger but need to keep costs reasonable!), are there any printers that takes rolls of paper so I could print wide mosaic images?  I see you now get ink tank printers which seem to me to make more sense, especially for printing astro images as Black will obviously be used a lot!

[Carbon Brush]

For good quality prints of any sort, I go to a High Street place like Max Spielman or online services - other brands are available.
They have the good quality printers available and they know to get the best from them.
I can't justify spending hundreds ££ on a good printer to print a small number annually.
 

[Ouroboros]

1 hour ago, blinky said:

Im looking at getting a home printer to print out my images and stick 'em on the wall in my office.  I want to print in at least A3 size (would love to go bigger but need to keep costs reasonable!), are there any printers that takes rolls of paper so I could print wide mosaic images?  I see you now get ink tank printers which seem to me to make more sense, especially for printing astro images as Black will obviously be used a lot!

I have a standard Epsom Ecotank printer ET-7700.  It’s perfectly adequate for prints for the office wall.  I even have five frames up in the living room. I print and swap them around quite regularly. I only print to A4 size, but similar ink tank printers are available for A3.  

Ink tank printers are more expensive, but frankly  worth it just to save the time, expense and hassle of buying and replacing cartridges.  I print quite a lot for our local U3A group and I’ve not used all the ink that came with the printer when I bought it several years ago. It’s fantastically economical.

I would recommend buying the printer manufacturer’s ink and photographic paper.  I get better colour rendition that way, and the prints don’t fade as much if at all as with  so-called compatible inks and paper.  The cost difference is marginal with ink tank ink anyway, unlike with ink cartridges. 

I struggled initially getting even reasonably accurate and acceptable colour prints.  OK, you can go to town by calibrating your screen and prints using various devices, but I reckon you can obtain perfectly adequate prints by paying attention to detail.

What works for me is to save images processed  in Pixinsight to 16 bit fits format, resized to 300dpi. I then open the image in Affinity Photo and print from there making sure I’ve selected the right paper and picture quality. Sometimes I adjust the brightness or contrast within Affinity Photo just to tweak the printed image.  I usually practice on A6 size photo paper just to get the printed image looking right.  
 

 

 

[wongataa]

Unless you are going to be printing a lot is is much more economical to use a printing service and just send them the files.

Inkjet printers need a lot of use otherwise the ink just dries up before it is used and the print heads clog up requiring a lot of ink to clear out.  They also take up space, especially a larger format one.  Then you have the learning curve with how to set it up and what papers require which settings.  You will also need to be using a fully colour managed setup to get the best out of one.

Really for home use most people would not use an inkjet printer enough to make it worthwhile.  There are many printing services out there with many more printing options than you can ever have at home.

[Mr H in Yorkshire]

I must agree with those advocating sending the image files to a printing business. I had over the years a few Epson printers, excellent printers but if used infrequently wasted most ink clearing clogged nozzles, cost as much in cleaner as it did in ink, all I use now is an HP (black toner) printer for correspondence and send all pictures to  Snapfish. They seem to be iOS and Android only.

[tomato]

+1 for using a printing service. I have used MyPicture for prints on aluminium and photo albums, but there are a lot to choose from.

[Bluemoonjim]

Epson Photo R2000 
Not produced anymore but frequently on ebay for good price
Superb print quality and take roll feed
 

[georose]

Canon Pixma pro 100. Prints color and black and white up to 13 x 19. Bought back in 2016 for $399.00 and then got an additional $250.00 rebate. Looks like they are over $900.00 now. Thus far haven't had problems with ink drying up even though I only use it on occassion.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

I work in IT (specifically for an MSP) and am yet to find a single consumer-grade inkjet printer that I think is worth buying long-term.  Others may disagree but I believe that all printers are inherently evil and should be burned, buried, exhumed, exorcised by an old priest and a young priest, burned again, buried at sea, excavated from the sea floor, thrown from a third-storey window and then nuked from orbit.  Just to be sure.

With that said, other experiences are valid...

[Mandy D]

@GrumpiusMaximus I wholly concur, but I suggest finally launching into orbit, then TSI (trans-solar injection) for final cremation! I use A3 laser printers, now, as they are more durable and never get clogged up like inkjets and they are much faster.

[blinky]

11 hours ago, georose said:

Canon Pixma pro 100. Prints color and black and white up to 13 x 19. Bought back in 2016 for $399.00 and then got an additional $250.00 rebate. Looks like they are over $900.00 now. Thus far haven't had problems with ink drying up even though I only use it on occassion.

I'm looking at the pixma Pro 200, so that's good to hear the 100 is good

[ollypenrice]

I'm going to argue firmly against printing services. Astrophotos are highly stretched and at the extremes of dynamic range. A calibrated screen does not, in my experience, give a predictable print outcome. It may or it may not. With your own printer you can make small test prints and adjust them before running a big one. I bought my own printer after print service disappointments.

For photo printing in any quantity only an ink tank printer makes sense. Cartridges are financial madness.

So... I use an Epsom ET15000. I'm very, very pleased with it and, as an astrophotographer, I'm a fussy so-and-so. I did wonder whether a 4 ink printer would cut it but, to my eye, it does. I'm also more than happy with the quality of regular photos - macro, landscapes, portraits, etc. I'm a far less observant critic of regular photos than of astrophotos, however.

Once you've bought a printer like this, printing costs are trivial.

Olly

[Ouroboros]

@ollypenrice It must be nice to print at A3 size. I couldn’t really justify it. As I say, I am someone who regularly needs to print at A4 size and who happens to use the printer for the occasional photograph.

Out of interest what paper do you use? I use Epson Premium Glossy I think it’s called, which is fine.

Do you calibrate screen and printer? Do you print from PhotoShop? 

[ollypenrice]

2 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

@ollypenrice It must be nice to print at A3 size. I couldn’t really justify it. As I say, I am someone who regularly needs to print at A4 size and who happens to use the printer for the occasional photograph.

 

Since this is part of what I do professionally, I had a good excuse for A3.  At least, a good enough excuse to get past my feeble conscience! 

2 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

Out of interest what paper do you use? I use Epson Premium Glossy I think it’s called, which is fine.

I use the same.

2 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

Do you calibrate screen and printer? Do you print from PhotoShop? 

I calibrate the screen using a spider. I do print from Photoshop using ProphotoRGB colourspace. Do I calibrate the printer? Now there's a question! Since my best answer is, 'I don't know,' I suspect that the real answer is 'No.' All advice welcome...

Olly

[Ouroboros]

2 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

I calibrate the screen using a spider. I do print from Photoshop using ProphotoRGB colourspace. Do I calibrate the printer? Now there's a question! Since my best answer is, 'I don't know,' I suspect that the real answer is 'No.' All advice welcome...

Well, I don’t really know any of this either. I am aware though that there are Spider like gizmos that can calibrate the printer + computer by analysing a printed colour chart much like you use the spider to calibrate your screen. 

[Xsubmariner]

I use an Epson ET8550, It’s an excellent printer capable of all paper sizes up to A3 and greatly benefits from eco tank technology. I recommend this because of its print quality and amazing value for money ink bottles, gone are the pathetic small ink cartridges priced as gold. It also comes with user friendly software and can employ paper calibration data if you can acquire it for your chosen paper.

 

 

[Elp]

Ref Spyder, it needs to be specific to the monitor panel technology, a lot of the lower consumer grade ones don't work with OLED panels for example.

A lot also depends on your monitor, most monitors do not display a wide range of colour gamut. If you've even compared your normal monitor to a more professional one you'll see all your colours tend to "blow out" on the pro monitor because they can display a more accurate colour space with higher dynamic range. Add in a printer, well your colour spaces need to be matched as a start but if the monitor isn't calibrated you'll immediately get colour difference when you print.

I recently acquired a cheap Canon Selphy printer because I wanted a tiny printer for printing the odd photo (and one that definitely does not use inkjet tech, the home printer has been changed to a mono laser now, no more headaches after years of using Inkjet). The Selphy uses dye sublimation, paper is expensive, but I found I can postcard print my AP stuff and the colours come out pretty much the same as my OLED monitor with no faffing around required. The print quality is excellent like developed film of old but with modern digital sensor clarity, the photos will also last years and years. Small but mighty prints.

Edited January 24 by Elp

[ollypenrice]

5 hours ago, Elp said:

Ref Spyder, it needs to be specific to the monitor panel technology, a lot of the lower consumer grade ones don't work with OLED panels for example.

A lot also depends on your monitor, most monitors do not display a wide range of colour gamut. If you've even compared your normal monitor to a more professional one you'll see all your colours tend to "blow out" on the pro monitor because they can display a more accurate colour space with higher dynamic range. Add in a printer, well your colour spaces need to be matched as a start but if the monitor isn't calibrated you'll immediately get colour difference when you print.

I recently acquired a cheap Canon Selphy printer because I wanted a tiny printer for printing the odd photo (and one that definitely does not use inkjet tech, the home printer has been changed to a mono laser now, no more headaches after years of using Inkjet). The Selphy uses dye sublimation, paper is expensive, but I found I can postcard print my AP stuff and the colours come out pretty much the same as my OLED monitor with no faffing around required. The print quality is excellent like developed film of old but with modern digital sensor clarity, the photos will also last years and years. Small but mighty prints.

I don't have many issues with colour, other than blue sometimes being too saturated. The adjustments I need are to brightness and dynamic range. I very often need to subdue the brightest parts of the image and sometimes need to lift the dark stuff up a bit. My monitors are about 12 years old and I use a Datacolour Spider. The problem with this is that I can't increase the screen brightness as much as the spider demands and a friend to whom I lent it said the same.

I suppose I should just shell out for a pukka monitor, really, but I'd welcome your input.

Olly

[Elp]

You'd have to do some spec checking as well as consideration for size and budget, but Dell Ultrasharp IPS monitors have been high on the list for years for professional work as they display high percent if not max on a few colour spaces such as sRGB, Adobe and DCI-P3. IPS tech has been around for years and was the goto prior to OLED coming to the market which can display higher than 100 pc ranges in some of the spaces. Some are overkill as human vision is limited in being able to distinguish in such a range of colour, but if the monitor doesn't have the range built in the displayed colour accuracy can suffer, for colour grading video work this ability becomes critical in order to match shots together in an edit.