Canvas Prints: Epson or Canon

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Canvas Printing: Epson or Canon

Maybe your a wedding photographer, or possibly a landscape photographer or maybe a print professional or you could be  a person with a camera and a printer , and because of the properties of canvas you print on it occasionally or maybe like me, you print on it exclusively. After all after all canvas is timeless, it has been the medium of choice for hundreds of years and when you think of a million-dollar art piece or one that’s valued even higher, no doubt it was created on canvas.
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When I got into the photo on canvas business Epson was really the only name in fine art canvas printing. Now it seems that Canon has entered the market, HP has made an attempt however in my opinion Epson and Canon are really the only two names when it comes to printing on canvas. Now there are some out there who would say that the iris drum printing machine is the only way to make giclée prints. This particular printer was originally designed for proofing and later was retrofitted to handle art papers for the purpose of fine art prints, at first it’s inks did not last very long but over the years many adjustments have been made to the iris printer in order to produce fine art giclée prints. The original company CreoScitex of which iris was a division no longer exists. The company that makes the equivalent is called Ixia. These printers retail for $45,000.

The first printer I purchased for printing photos on canvas was the Epson 7800. This particular printer has eight ink sets three of them are black those being, matt black, light black, and light light black. The matte black ink is primarily for printing on more porous type substrata such as canvas and fine art papers. The matte black and can be swapped out with photo black for printing on photo papers. This printer is a 24 inch wide printer. From time to time I need to make larger prints to accommodate my clients I have a good friend who has a 11880 and a 9800. This enables me if need be to make prints up to 64 inches wide although the need for this is rare. The 880 series printers from Canon introduced a few new features the most prominent being the addition of an ink to the ink set, vivid magenta, and A Teflon coated printhead for less clogging. The idea behind adding this new ink was to be able to hit a broader color gamut.

As I made comparisons between prints from the 7800 7880 the differences were marginal this prompted me to hold off on upgrade as long as possible in order to spend upgrade capital on a future printer with a marked improvement. On the horizon I am now looking at the 9900 printer as the next upgrade for our company. This particular printer is speculated to be available from Epson some time in the early spring of 2009 possibly February or March. The 9900 Epson printer boasts a 10 ink, ink set with the introduction of orange and green inks. There are many other improvements along the way including a take-up spool for those long overnight print jobs. Another feature of this printer that is looking appealing at present is the faster print speeds, it looks to be about twice as fast roughly.

In making a determination as to which printer would make the most sense as an upgrade I can’t count out canons imagePROGRAF iPF8100. As I make comparisons between this model and what is currently available the 9800 which would be the equivalent in size, when comparing prints from these two printers the differences are marginal. As a the images begin to be scrutinized under a loop the differences become clearer. The Epson has slightly better gradient transitions whereas the Canon has the capacity to hit a wider color gamut. Canon can hit a wider color gamut because it has more inks, 12 in total and Epson has better gradient transitions because it’s printhead technology utilizes a smaller droplet size and the droplets are adjusted in their size with electric currents. Another huge point for Canon right at the moment is that it can produce prints way faster. All of these things have to be considered and depending on how much volume you do and the type of client you have the pendulum in the decision-making process could swing either direction. As for me at this moment I’m going to hold my breath until March and see about putting these two companies in the ring again before I make my final decision.
In a perfect world I would have a 9880 until then.

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