On Mar 28, 2008, at 7:16 AM, Doug Brewer wrote: > Thinking of buying one, so I'm looking for estimates on operating > costs, > reliability, ease of use, etc. > > I also want recommended papers, exhibition quality. I prefer matte > and/or pearl finishes. >
I've been printing with an R2400 since 10/2005. I standardize on Epson Enhanced Matte and Epson Velvet Fine Art papers ... I've also used a little bit of Crane, Hahnemühle, and Somerset Velvet fine art rag papers, but frankly there isn't much gained over VFA. I've made somewhere over 2000 prints with it, all told. It has been an absolutely consistent, no brains reliable printer. I print almost exclusively with a fully color managed print workflow from Photoshop CS2 and Lightroom, using the Epson profiles (there's a downloadable set of higher quality profiles for the papers I use available from their website). For papers I don't have a good profile for, I usually print B&W and use the Advanced B&W mode to control the printer. My estimate given the number of prints I've made and the amount of ink I've used is that I'm paying about $1.50 or so per A3 print (approximately 11x14 inch image area on average) in ink plus the paper cost. EEM runs about $0.85/sheet, VFA runs about $2.75 (I think). It's been a great printer and continues to work perfectly. I'd do it again if I were buying a new printer unless I went up to the R3800 for 16x20 inch capability and a savings on ink (R3800 ink carts hold 5x the ink and cost 3x the money). Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
