If you are wanting to make and sell prints, be prepared to invest a lot of money in ink. I mean A LOT of money.

Canon Pixma Pro or Epson Stylus printers (ink) are great up to 13x19, but you have to buy the individual ink colors (C, M, Y & K) individually at upwards of $60 each. Some printers take up to 9 colored inks (light and vivid variations of CMYK).

Sony SnapLabs (dye sublimation) are great for instant on-location printing, but are really expensive and only go to 5x7.


Have you looked into using a national lab, and just marking up the costs?

Well I am looking to do a couple of things, and would more than likely never go above an 8X10 for clients.

But recently they have been asking if I print Christmas cards, which I don't. I don't even have designs laid out to create them, but because so many have asked I am preparing for next year. Also I am looking to do 2 hour "photo booth" nights for a couple of bars, and understand that most people would like to get prints right there as 3x5's or 4x6's.

When clients are looking for good quality prints, I always refer them to a local shop to help promote their business. They're 2 sweet old ladies, and have a lot of experience with printing.

So I guess, what are some specs that I should be looking for? Like when I am looking at a lens or a camera there are obvious things that tell me how good it is, but I don't know anything about printers.

HP Photosmart:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/Printers-/12...osmart&_sop=12

Canon Pixma Pro:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...o_Printer.html

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw...ro&_sacat=1245

Get good ink and great paper.

You want to consider reviews over specs. Reviews that have good things to say about about fast dry time, pages per minute printing, common maintenance issues, borderless printing.

For photo booth stuff, I use my boss's Sony SnapLab. They are about $1,500 and the paper/dye cartridges are about $200 a box.

You don't want to lug a huge printer around, so take size into consideration. Consider getting a proportionately sized Rubbermaid storage container and some cushioning material to lay inside for the printer to rest on.

Is your name Vince, or Eddie?

Either way, thank you very much for the examples and tips, really appreciate it!

no worries.

Another question,

If I am going to be taking photos and printing them straight out of the camera, should I still shoot in RAW?

No, because printers do not recognize RAW files. Shoot high quality JPEG. Bump the saturation and contrast settings up a little in-camera, too.

Since you will not be doing any post processing, I strongly suggest not using Auto White Balance. Get a White Balance card, and set the white balance manually if the ambient lighting won't be changing. Google how to do it for your specific camera, it's a really important thing to know anyways.

Never use AWB, ever.

But I will have to look into getting my white balance better dialed in. I tend to have a lot of post processing with my work.

What camera are you using? Most modern DSLRs have pretty good AWB. Shit, even the Canon 40D has pretty damn good AWB. My Nikon D300's require very little adjustments in post to WB.

I rarely stray from AWB because it works so well. I usually have to make tint adjustments, but not that often.

Really, hm.

I guess I just assumed it was always best to adjust the WB yourself.

So, if you're shooting a wedding (assuming that you do, I think you've mentioned that you do), you stop every so often to adjust WB?

Yeah... Now I feel like a dumbass haha