How many of you use an A3+ printer for home photo "exhibiting"... is the print size large enough to

Phal said:
I'm sure there are some third party cartridges which are better than others but as usual, third party peripherals vary a lot in quality.

If you're trying to get good, reliable and accurate performance then your best chances are with the manufacturer's own ink.
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This is the problem with third party cartridges. Consistency.

I have had some that have been great (this is just from an A4 printer), while others have been prone to fading. If I was producing prints for a paying customer I would go original. For myself and friends compatibles still get the job done but don't expect miracles.
 
Lab printing is so cheap these days I really can't see the attraction of home printing anymore to the extent that I don't even own a colour printer! I have a black and white laser for printing documents, address labels etc and if I need a colour print I go online.
 
The hassle of storage something the size of a A3 printer, ink and cost of the printer, unless you are printing to sell on a regular or semi regular basis, it's not economical.

Especially for home exhibition, you'll be printing a few photo once a year max for rotation? It's like £10 or something for A3 online. Pick any paper you want, or even print of metal if you want.
 
Where I live it is around 15-20 quid for an average print with no frills, matte photo paper. That does not seem cost-effective solution if I want to chop and change my photos every few months, which for 5 photos would be £75 per round.
 
I've gone full swing just ordered a Pro 100. There I was, rocking in the corner thinking good God, the prints will only last a few decades behind glass. Get a grip man. I'm not looking for them to survive if our civilisation becomes lost, nor am I selling these prints FFS!

I've been on the verge for a while now and to add to the fun I will be going down the high quality refillable route. If I'm happy with the results, it will save huge amounts of money and make home printing much more attractive than what it is with current ink prices.

I was semi tempted by the Pro 10 with its pigment inks, but I'm not totally convinced that third party inks are there just yet for the Pro 10. The chroma optimiser fluid which is used on gloss and semi gloss prints to deepen blacks and increase saturation seems to be a tad iffy. There are not enough people shouting positive things from the roof tops to roll the dice.

Shall see how I get on.
 
2StepSteve said:
I've gone full swing just ordered a Pro 100. There I was, rocking in the corner thinking good God, the prints will only last a few decades behind glass. Get a grip man. I'm not looking for them to survive if our civilisation becomes lost, nor am I selling these prints FFS!

I've been on the verge for a while now and to add to the fun I will be going down the high quality refillable route. If I'm happy with the results, it will save huge amounts of money and make home printing much more attractive than what it is with current ink prices.

I was semi tempted by the Pro 10 with its pigment inks, but I'm not totally convinced that third party inks are there just yet for the Pro 10. The chroma optimiser fluid which is used on gloss and semi gloss prints to deepen blacks and increase saturation seems to be a tad iffy. There are not enough people shouting positive things from the roof tops to roll the dice.

Shall see how I get on.
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Please keep this thread updated with how you get on as soon as you get it and start printing, as your sentiments seem to match my own with regards to the durability etc. Good luck! :)

Ps please also post which inks you get!
 
Have a look at places such as DSCL, very good quality indeed and a 16x12 print last time i looked was something like 96p. I have exhibition and competition prints printed by them and have never had any issues with print quality.
 
I've had the Pro-100 for a week now...

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I knew it would be big, but it's bigger than I visualised. Very well built.

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Very painless setup and had it connected to my WiFi within a few minutes. It's great that it has WiFi as there is no room at all next to my PC for it.

Loaded it up with the OEM carts which it was supplied with.

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In the below two magnified examples there is a slight colour difference. But it's the detail I am showing off here.

4x6 print from Photobox on Fujicolor Crystal Archive Paper Supreme
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Canon Pro-100S
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At first I had issues with prints being darker than they they should. But I've managed to overcome this by making use of soft proofing within Lightroom/Photoshop. It's been a fair few years since I did any home printing and had to remind myself exactly of the steps and processes that need to be taken. I also have to remind myself that no print is going to appear the same compared to the image displayed on a monitor in a room which isn't ideally lit.

I'm much happier now than I was with the colour matching than when I first started printing. But I think if I am going to continue going down this route with printing a lot, I will likely cave in and buy a spectrophotometer (Colormunki Photo) to make my own paper profiles, especially if I am buying third party inks. The price is eye watering for what it is, but if it works.. it works.

I printed my first A3+ yesterday, it's amazing to be able to print at this size and I forgot how exciting it is to print at home. There is a big element that is missed when ordering prints online, instantly you can reprint and see results, instantly. It's great being able to print your own stuff whenever you want in such high quality.

I've printed around 12x 6x4, 5x 8x10 and 3x A3+ and I've only touched the inks.

When they do run out though, I'll be filling all the carts with these:

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From Precision Colors. I went for the Deluxe 4oz pack, which includes everything needed, chip resetter, syringes, plugs, caps... and an empty yellow cart. The OEM yellow cart is a no no to refill, unless you flush the old ink out as any ink which is injected in to the yellow cart will cause a reaction and the ink will congeal.

I'll report back with how I get on with the refills!
 
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2StepSteve said:
From Precision Colors. I went for the Deluxe 4oz pack, which includes everything needed, chip resetter, syringes, plugs, caps... and an empty yellow cart. The OEM yellow cart is a no no to refill, unless you flush the old ink out as any ink which is injected in to the yellow cart will cause a reaction and the ink will congeal.

I'll report back with how I get on with the refills!
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It'll be interesting to see how you get on. Looks like the Pro 100 takes similar sized cartridges to the Pixma Pro 9000, which is probably my biggest gripe about it - they go practically nowhere!
 
Thought I'd give an update, as it's been a while.

Over the last few months due to Birthday's and Christmas I've been making more use of my Pro-100s. I hit the low ink warnings and broke out the Precision Color kit that I had stored away.

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I carefully drilled out the carts with an electric drill, after the first couple I had this process down quite quickly. Can see below the drilled positions covered with a rubber stop, this is where the carts get topped up.

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Each time you remove one cart, the printer detects this and runs a clean cycle; wasting ink and more importantly unnecessarily using up the waste ink pad in the printer. When one cart has the warning that it's low, it's best to just replace all the carts at once, this way you minimize ink wastage and ink pad usage.

Topping up is now very easy with the squeezey bootles, takes around 15 minutes to do all 8 carts. Topping up can't be done whilst the carts in place as once you remove the rubber cap the lack of pressure it creates causes the inks to start bleeding from the bottom. I will probably end up buying another set of OEM inks so I can have a set filled up ready to go on standby.

Very happy with the results of the PC inks, they appear the same as OEM! Looks like I'll get another 5-6 refills out of these inks before I'm out. Home printing no longer costs the earth.
 
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Columbo said:
Although I've had issues with 3rd party ink in the past, since I've been using Jettec Ink I can honestly say I haven't had a single issue and I cant tell the difference between it and genuine.

I've got a photo hung on my wall I took 9 years ago printed with it and it still looks fine.
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I used Jettec and Black Diamond for up to 10 years without a single issue or problem. I used to coat the images prior to framing for longevity reasons with a fixative.
 
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