UV printer for high-quality art photography printing

[Teava]

Hello!

I'm a new member and I'd like to thank everyone in the group for their valuable help. I've been reading different threads in order to get as much infos as possible these past few weeks. I guess I'll be more active when I get more experience.

I own a small photo print shop in Tahiti. I mostly use a Canon 12-color-inkjet IPF-8300 for fine-art paper printing.
I'd like to expand my business to direct printing onto aluminium or PVC sheets. Because of the high humidity and the fact that people tend to keep there houses fully open all the time and all year long, lots of customers are asking for prints that could be hanged outside and that would be less sensitive to humidity.

I also consider opening up my business to sign making, knowing that my main business is to print high-quality photography and organise photo exhibitions from time to time.

I'm looking for a 4'x8' flatbed UV printer for less than $100000. Color reproduction, definition (for close-up viewing) and overall image quality are much more important than speed. So far, I've narrowed down my search to:

- Fuji Acuity Select (6 channel)
- Océ Arizona 318GL
- Mimaki JFX200-2513
- CET Q5-500

I don't have the price for the Fuji thought. Does anyone know? I've sent an email to Fujifilm, but still haven't been answered.

Are these good choices? Which one would you recommend? Any other machine would be worth considering?

I haven't read much in the forums about the Mimaki's image quality. The only disadvantage with this one, is that it doesn't have the roll media option. If its image quality is better than the others, I would consider getting it and add a roll latex printer for flexible media. The good thing about Mimaki is that they have one of their facilities in Torrance CA. I go to Southern California very often and very easily. I own an apartment there and I do all of my business in the region. Plus if a technician has to fly to Tahiti, there are 4 to 5 direct flights weekly from LAX.

The disadvantage for the Océ and CET is that they don't have the option for Varnish, like the Mimaki and Fuji. I could do without the varnish if image quality is much much better on these.

The Fuji seems to be the top choice, but it will depend on the price.

Sorry for the very long post. Hope to get help

 

[Stanton]

Welcome to the Frey.

I respect that you have some real questions.
I had a digital printing department that tended to be a money sink.

My fault. I never devoted the sales resources to exploit the tools.
Shortsighted goals.
Used it for in house sign face support. That was a mistake.
Everyone makes mistakes.


Manufacturer rep won't get back to you ?
Who is your contact ?

PM me...

 

[chafro]

Hello,

i think The Fuji acuity Led 1600 might be a good choice for you and it's around 50k! It's not very fast but should have a better resolution than the options that you listed above. It has LM,LC, varnish and white. For art, printing direct to plexiglass or another clear is a must! And you need white for that.

send some files to get samples!!

 

[Teava]

Hello Chafro,

Thank you for the advice. I will seriously study the Fuji Acuity LED 1600. I had considered getting a "Hybrid", but I thought going flatbed would be better. I will definitely try to get some samples. I also consider going to the next SGIA in LV

 

[Teava]

Are you sure that it only costs $50000?

 

[chafro]

I have a quote for two of them at that price, now the seller told me he was giving me a very good deal. They might cost a bit more not sure,, but for sure under 100k.

cant speak for the reliability of the printer, but just thought it was worth a look for your needs.

 

[Teava]

I have a quote for two of them at that price, now the seller told me he was giving me a very good deal. They might cost a bit more not sure,, but for sure under 100k.

cant speak for the reliability of the printer, but just thought it was worth a look for your needs.

Thanks again! I will make my investigations

 

[rubo]

UV printer for high-quality art photography printing is an oxymoron - they don't exist. Of course you can print on aluminum and plexy with UV printer - but have same file printed on any UV printer and an Epson - you will see huge difference in print quality. You don't really need a flatbed to print on the media you mentioned, there are ways to do it with R2R printers with waterbased inks - and if you want a flatbed you can look at many DTG printers based on Epson - sure they are only 44", don't know if it's a problem for you. If it is, there are some 54" Roland and/or Mimaki printers with white ink and all...You just need a printer with straight media path. So you'll be able to print much better quality photos - and you can buy about 10 + more printers for the money, no inherent "flatbed" printer headaches - you'll have your share of headaches but not as costly as with "real" flatbed.

 

[Stanton]

Thanks again! I will make my investigations

As per our PM...

Don't make a purchase decision based on some one Else's mistake.
Too much bad advice available online.

None of us have bought and used every product on the market.
I have not.


Wanna buy based on someone telling you what to buy ?
Based on their single purchase and experience ?
or, based on someone telling you to hold out for more !

No reason this can not take many weeks.

I don't have a turtle in this humpfest.
Don't get bullied into a decision based on emotion.

You came to the right place, choose the right advice.

 

[chafro]

UV printer for high-quality art photography printing is an oxymoron - they don't exist. Of course you can print on aluminum and plexy with UV printer - but have same file printed on any UV printer and an Epson - you will see huge difference in print quality. You don't really need a flatbed to print on the media you mentioned, there are ways to do it with R2R printers with waterbased inks - and if you want a flatbed you can look at many DTG printers based on Epson - sure they are only 44", don't know if it's a problem for you. If it is, there are some 54" Roland and/or Mimaki printers with white ink and all...You just need a printer with straight media path. So you'll be able to print much better quality photos - and you can buy about 10 + more printers for the money, no inherent "flatbed" printer headaches - you'll have your share of headaches but not as costly as with "real" flatbed.

have you seen a durst omega 2 print? Or a swissqprint 1080 dpi 9pl print?

you would be amazed. They are getting close.

 

[rubo]

have you seen a durst omega 2 print? Or a swissqprint 1080 dpi 9pl print?

you would be amazed. They are getting close.

[SUP]5[/SUP]close

adverb \ˈklōs\ : at or to a short distance or time away

this ^ is from http://www.merriam-webster.com

 

[chafro]

from the same link: huge

: very large or extensive: as a : of great size or area b : great in scale.

By your answer I'm sure you haven't seen these printers work.

 

[hotrod46]

"High Quality"?

What do you mean by high quality? A former post was saying UV Flatbed
does not yet approach the quality you get from your Canon. I agree.

Still for you there is a much bigger question...who will fix it? Whatever
direction you end up going, and geez I can't believe how smart the members are,
who will fix it, and at what cost, has to be calculated, and may I say, confirmed
by someone in the company that is not a salesman.

I ran a UV Flatbed for 4 years. I paid $50,000 for it and made $500,000 so I should
stop my whining, but it makes me sick that the company was able to just say "We
have no one to send." That was it. Over, done. UV Flatbeds are, I found, more complex than
solvent printers. Finally I just gave up and it sits against the wall, victim of an "air leak"
that the experts say can't be found.

Finally, you are much more likely to approach the quality of your Canon with a solvent printer,
(still, the colors might be different) and much more likely to find a source to fix it and support you
where you are.

 

[chafro]

He said there was a huge difference and yet he has never seen a fine art uv printer work. Have you? Because if you haven't seen any if this two printers work or their prints there really in no point to keep arguing.

My point is there is not huge difference anymore and there are A lot of shops doing very good money doing fine art with high end uv printers.

And we know quality my shop has been printing for 15 years with a light jet and a lambda printer (silver halide prints) .

and I agree with you about service, it's a must.

 

[Teava]

Very true, servicing will be my main concern.

Secondly, I know I will not equal the print quality of my Canon. I'm just looking for the best quality out of a UV printer or any other printer that would enable me to print directly on rigid material, like aluminum or PVC (up to 1/2 inch thick).

PVC would be used for customer who want to hang their photos outside and for outdoor photo exhibitions. Photographers who exhibit their photos outdoors here use banners and the quality is not even halfway close to being correct. Those who want the absolute best quality, would get fine art paper from the Canon for indoor use only.

Aluminum would be for indoor/outdoor for those who want the shiny effect and be satisfied by the fact that their photo is printed on an "exotic" material. Whatever printer or printing method, photo labs like mpix, bayphoto, adoramapix... are using will be fine.

 

[growler]

Just focus on a printer with a small dot or a variable dot.

I run a Océ 460GT and I can tell you first had that photographers love the output. If you are printing larger there is none of this pixel peeping from 5cm to look at the quality. Put it at arms length then start the comparison.

The 6 colour vs 4 colour etc all depends on the quality of the printhead and droplet size and the quality of the software and profiles driving the printer. Anyone can make a great printer print **** images due to lack knowledge and prep work etc.

The 318 could well be worth getting samples on, but as mentioned above, you would definitely want to look at white for blindside printing on acrylics, the clear ink you will have to make your own call on, it's a very situational ink and requires a immaculate print environment and considerable more print time but is worth it if it fits in your field of work.

 

[Teava]

The only one and quickest to respond is Océ. I'm now in contact with a rep in my region (Southern California). I will get some samples and see for myself.
Thanks

 

[artbot]

seems printers are being batted around. all good machines. what volume, and price per square foot do you expect? there are flatbed print suppliers that have great hp fb's printing at $1.50psf (print cost only). do some serious number crunching before you get a machine that can't keep up with it's foot print and such. these machines like to be run constantly. the less and less and less you run them the more set up you can expect. if you've been using a canon photo printer, then you are on the extreme side of "user friendly" machinery. a flatbed printer is a much more complex machine to keep happy.

all while these major oem's are putting together $100k printers, china has been building some very cool new equipment. you can get a dual dx5 belt feed flatbed for $16,000. pretty tempting. i'm tempted. i'm sure it will be better then the clunker flatbed i'm running right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeMJRlYE04I

 

[Teava]

I will make all the calculations and study each possibility. I understand the fact that these machines are much more complex to keep up than my Canon.
Thanks for the advice

 

[jkline]

What was you flat bed of choice?

Hello!

I'm a new member and I'd like to thank everyone in the group for their valuable help. I've been reading different threads in order to get as much infos as possible these past few weeks. I guess I'll be more active when I get more experience.

I own a small photo print shop in Tahiti. I mostly use a Canon 12-color-inkjet IPF-8300 for fine-art paper printing.
I'd like to expand my business to direct printing onto aluminium or PVC sheets. Because of the high humidity and the fact that people tend to keep there houses fully open all the time and all year long, lots of customers are asking for prints that could be hanged outside and that would be less sensitive to humidity.

I also consider opening up my business to sign making, knowing that my main business is to print high-quality photography and organise photo exhibitions from time to time.

I'm looking for a 4'x8' flatbed UV printer for less than $100000. Color reproduction, definition (for close-up viewing) and overall image quality are much more important than speed. So far, I've narrowed down my search to:

- Fuji Acuity Select (6 channel)
- Océ Arizona 318GL
- Mimaki JFX200-2513
- CET Q5-500

I don't have the price for the Fuji thought. Does anyone know? I've sent an email to Fujifilm, but still haven't been answered.

Are these good choices? Which one would you recommend? Any other machine would be worth considering?

I haven't read much in the forums about the Mimaki's image quality. The only disadvantage with this one, is that it doesn't have the roll media option. If its image quality is better than the others, I would consider getting it and add a roll latex printer for flexible media. The good thing about Mimaki is that they have one of their facilities in Torrance CA. I go to Southern California very often and very easily. I own an apartment there and I do all of my business in the region. Plus if a technician has to fly to Tahiti, there are 4 to 5 direct flights weekly from LAX.

The disadvantage for the Océ and CET is that they don't have the option for Varnish, like the Mimaki and Fuji. I could do without the varnish if image quality is much much better on these.

The Fuji seems to be the top choice, but it will depend on the price.

Sorry for the very long post. Hope to get help

Hi we are in the market looking at flatbeds, we were looking at Oce460 and CET Q5. Leaning toward Cannon got a curve ball thrown at us on Mimaki JFX200, are you familiar with this one? Curious to what you ended up choosing?
Thanks for your time.