Newbie crying for the fastest printer without losing quality

[jackies35]

Ok. Here is my story....... I am a newbie and I want to make sure I am right with my decisions...

1. I am an Event Photographer and I need a faster PHOTO printer which print EXCELLENT photo pics (8x10 and smaller or larger).

2. My customers are willing to pay anything for the picture (of themselves or love one) but they won't wait 2 minutes for it to print. The lines are too long.... what should I do with these SLOW INKJETsssss???

3. I heard about the Kodak 9810 and Kodak 1400... Does anyone here have one? These printers are more for outdoor and event printing than the regular inkjet. These guys "from what i heard" prints like lightning flash and does not loses it excellent photographic power at all... Anyone ever tried this machine??


Oh by the way, I also heard that the Kodak 9810 is very expensive $ 3,000... Who in the WORLD would buy this printer??

please help the newbie.

 

[pebe]

.............Oh by the way, I also heard that the Kodak 9810 is very expensive $ 3,000... Who in the WORLD would buy this printer??

please help the newbie.

Photographers whose customers are prepared to pay anything for a picture supplied in less than two minutes!

 

[fotofreek]

I read a post some time ago from an event photographer who solved this problem by purchasing more than one consumer grade printer so he was able to have several photos printing a time. Probably cheaper than the one you mentioned.

 

[ghwellsjr]

The Canon i9900 claims to meet your needs but I tried printing an 8.5" by 11" from my camera and it took three and a half minutes.

See this link:

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=117&modelid=9870

It claims this printer can print:

4x6 in 38 seconds
8.5x11 in 50 seconds
13x19 in under 3 minutes

Of course there is an asterisk that explains: "Print speeds will vary depending on system configuration, software, document complexity, print mode and page coverage."

 

[ghwellsjr]

I hooked my i9900 to my computer and it is a whole lot faster. It makes a difference which software package you print from. For a letter size, Easy Photo Print took a minute and a half while Arcsoft Photo Studio took a minute and a quarter. For 4x6, the times were cut in half.

The printhead in the i9900 (same as iP8500) is 5/8 inches tall as opposed to 3/16 inch for the more common printers. This allows it to print three times faster. It also takes 8 cartridges.

I also was able to print a large format 10.5 by 22.5 picture in 100 seconds on plain paper with Photo Studio. During this printout, the paper advanced 5/16 inch at a time while for photo printouts it only advanced around 3/16 inch and sometimes it appeared to make two or three passes without advancing the paper at all.

Clearly, these printers have the potential for fast printing but you may have to find the right settings to get the best speed out of them.

 

[AlienSteve]

And you may find that there is no perceptible difference between the highest setting, and the 2nd or 3rd highest setting. But those lower settings will print a -lot- faster.

This is especially useful when printing large prints, as large prints generally don't require as high a resolution as smaller prints.

Also, check your image resolution. You may be using PPI settings way above what is necessary, which makes the computer spend more time getting the image ready to print.

This site talks about tests with an Epson 2200. You may wish to run similar tests on your Canon.
http://www.rags-int-inc.com/PhotoTechStuff/Epson2200/

Based on that site, I tend to resample my images to 288ppi when printing to my Epsons. Or if printing 11x17 or larger, I resample to 144ppi.

I used to use a Fargo Primera Pro dye sub. 15 minutes print time, but first there was RIP time... that was murder. On a Pentium 100, it could take anywhere from 20 to 90 minutes, and then add on the fixed 15 minute print time. So I used an Amiga, even when I was using an A3000 at 25MHz, it took only 3 minutes RIP time. Still that bloody 15 minute print time... and it was $2500! VS the then current Kodak dye sub that took 90 minutes to print but cost $7000.

My Canon BJC 610 wasn't much better than the Fargo for print speed, taking about 10 minutes to print an 8x10 photo. Fortunately my Amiga multitasked and I could be working on the next image while it was printing. It was still murder, as you say no one wants to wait. Were I to take Polymorph Digital to conventions and such again, I'd definitely be using a Canon.

 

[ghwellsjr]

How does 45 seconds for an 8.5x11 photo sound? You have to outsmart this printer to get this speed. See my post:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1536

 

[ghwellsjr]

I have added more information to my post:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=9079#p9079

Now I would recommend that the fastest and best photo printing on the Canon i9900 be done by specifying Photo Paper Plus Glossy (no matter what photo paper is used) and selecting Draft as the print quality. This is a 3-pass mode that will produce the exact same looking printout as the default 8-pass mode that takes more than twice as long.

My previous suggestion of specifying Plain Paper Standard quality printing (after disabling the "Identify paper type" sensor) is a little bit faster by 12 to 15 seconds (for 8.5x11) but it is not worth taking the slight hit in image quality.

You can count on one minute per 8.5x11 photo from the i9900.