Recommendations for A3/A2 printers please

[ggn]

I am researching the best option for an artist friend who wants to enlarge photos to use as a reference for paintings. They are a bit of a technophobe so I'm not sure they could cope with the problems that often come up with refilling and CISs so I am thinking maybe a colour laser or at least an inkjet that is reliable and for which you can get third party cartridges at a reasonable price.

Thanks,

ggn

 

[ghwellsjr]

The Canon i9900 will print on A3 paper, actually, it will go to 13 x 23 inches. It is still listed on CompUSA's website and may still be available in some stores for $450. It uses 8 readily available and unchipped cartridges although the green and red are hardly ever used.

 

[WhiteDog]

GGn, I do not understand why reference prints larger than 8x10 or 11x14 are necessary. Your friend my have a good reason. The expense, complexity, storage issues, and headaches of making large prints have to be assessed. Running larger printers becomes a study in essentially a new and deeper technology and demands more proficiency than the letter-sized ones.

The i9900 has been very good, but gives way now to the Pixma pro9000 which is a different kettle of fish with chipped cartridges, and which is not the slam-dunk that the i9900 was. The HP and Epson product lines have their fans and the products have drawbacks too.

As a person involved in photography and art myself, as as a qualified framer and conserver, I wonder what value you will get from a 12.5 x 18.5" print unless the original is this size. I find that in the digital world there is a lot of resizing where the respect for proportion, volume, weighting, and just common sense compositional issues seems to have evaporated. Larger prints do not make better art.

If you are just looking for way to inventory shots and to show them to customers, get a digital camera and a low-end LCD projector. You can make you slideshow any size you want that way, and it is not much more expensive. Maybe I am rambling.

 

[ggn]

Thanks for your replies- I will see if I can find the i9900 in the UK. My friend is a painter so they just want enlargements to use as reference whilst painting (previously they have been getting them done for 20 pounds (40 dollars) each!

ggn

 

[ghwellsjr]

Actually, in the UK and most countries other than the USA, you will want to look for the i9950 which is identical to the i9900 except that it also includes a tray for printing directly to CDs and DVDs.