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Thread: Best value A4 colour poster/gloss prints?

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    Gold Member Marcos's Avatar
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    Best value A4 colour poster/gloss prints?

    I want to get a load of my photos and some downloaded pics printed to A4 in a kind of poster quality so they can go on the walls. Anyone know the best way to do this?

    A friend has a photo quality printer but would A4 prints just rinse the ink on that? Maybe if i can get cheap refills i'd consider it

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    No matter what printer you buy, printing A4 posters is going to consume it pretty quickly compared to text + graphic based pages.
    PC Pro did a good round up of this not too long back - ill try and dig out the issue. IIRC, as much as I hate them for their reliability, I think Epson came out tops.
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    Canon's are great, both in terms of running costs and quality (hardware and print quality), and *so* much faster to print than the Epsons, even a full colour A4 borderless print
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    Gold Member Marcos's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Stoo
    Canon's are great, both in terms of running costs and quality (hardware and print quality), and *so* much faster to print than the Epsons, even a full colour A4 borderless print
    Do you know what a good/best place is to buy cartridges?

    I'm trying to get an idea of how much it costs to print at home Vs at a shop, photobox do A4 prints for £2.50, and they are generally a cheap place so it seems printing at home would be much cheaper. Having said that i dont know how much glossy (or matte) paper costs

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    ~£10 for some nice ilford paper (50 sheets) ~£7 per colour cartridge (~£40 for a full set, but you rarely need to buy a full set, as you quickly find out that you use some colours more than others depending on what you're printing..)

    I can't say anywhere is paticularly cheaper than anywhere else - Jessops were as cheap as everywhere else when I looked, and I never use the cheaper brandless ink, it doesn't last as long, isn't as colourfast, and seems to evaporate if you don't print anything for a while..

    I can't say I've honestly sat down and worked out the cost per print, but it's certainly cheaper and quicker than photobox (I don't really like the quality of their paper either - it's a bit thin compared to posterxxl).

    But bare in mind the costing goes out the window if you have to buy the printer in the first place
    Last edited by Stoo; 12-04-2006 at 12:12 PM.
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    Gold Member Marcos's Avatar
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    i was planning on buying the cartridges and paper and then borrowing someone else's printer.

    I have a HP printer/copier combo available to me, and maybe a canon too

    what did you mean by £40 for a full set? A full set of what?

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    colour cartridges (for my canon anyway)
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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    if you want them glossy, and your doing a lot, then i'd start to think of a phaser. They give rather splended glossy(well wax) finish. Prolem is, if you crease the paper a lot, it can come off. These printers weigh in at around £400, but are cheap to run.

    Another idea is a CIS or Continous Ink System. I've got an epson R220 i'm planning to mod to use a CIS with 3rd party ink, the key thing with other peoples ink, is to not cut costs too much and get it from a reliable source. Besides the cleaning fluid, this brand of ink is all the printer will ever know.

    a CIS costs about £35 on fleebay.
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    Gold Member Marcos's Avatar
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    I'm only planning on doing about 20-30 prints max for now, i'm planning on getting one of those £50 laser printers in the summer and using that cheap refill method (is that any good btw?) for a4 b&w uni work. Other people in the household have colour printers for the rare occasions i need colour work done.

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