Whats a good printer for printing on canvas

HP3200 series and the Canon iPf6000 and up.

 

+1 Canon

 

Epson 9880 is fantastic.

 

Educate yourself fully on Giclee and fine art reproduction. There are many more questions you need to ask first.

http://www.breathingcolor.com/wordpress/

While this is a good source of info they are also a media manufacturer.

 

What size prints will you be making? Epson 7900 is a great printer for 24" wide prints.

 

Any modern Epson, HP, Canon or Mimaki Aqueous Ink printer with at least 8 inks should do it.
Also of concern is proper profiling, material selection, capture setup and viewing area. And a well calibrated monitor is a necessity.

 

Budget for a good liquid laminator as well. Aqueous inks will need to have a protecting coating applied. Both for UV and scratch protection. The clearstar products work awesome for this. Spraying them is a pain and the **** gets everywhere. Rolling them simply takes too damn long.

 

Epson uses the ultrachrome inks in it's aqueous line up. They are what's referred to as a hybrid pigment ink. This allows it to print on glossy medias, but impacts the lifespan of the inks. They toss a "matte" black into the mix as well. This is their true pigment version of the black ink.

If you're looking to see longevity test results of the major ink brands in aqueous printers go to:

http://www.wilhelm-research.com/

 

I have done the same print on two Roland printers. One waterbased pigmented inks and one solvent. The solvent prints are not bad but when you put side by side with a propper waterbased pigmented (not dye) you will see that the colors are better on the waterbased.

Having said that if you want Giclee you have to use waterbased (I believe) to get the 75 to 100 year life. The canvas you print on can also change the results but solvent are duller.

If you just want canvas prints (don't call them Giclee) then solvent is not bad and there are some good solvent canvas options out there and you don't need to coat.

As for coating the waterbased I do use a roll on and it takes a bit to get the mix right but does look good once done. I use a gloss that mixes with water.

You might be able to get an older Roland (FJ 42 or 52) for under $2000 and they do a nice job on canvas prints. The ink is a lot more $$ with the waterbased pigments than dye but dye won't last nor is it as waterproof.

You can find some good 3rd party waterbased inks but then you need to make profiles.