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need advice for a photo printer 200$ to a thousand. Buy local preferably.

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I'm looking for a printer that can produce vivid realistic photo impressions from the screen to paper closely matching quality as possible.
mostly designs will be cliparts svg and raster designs on paper done in gimp krita and photoshop.
 
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if so, then I would avoid ink , only laser/powder printer. it might help and narrow your choice.
from screen to paper not only depends on printer.
 
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Eee, no, laser printers are worse for photos, they have much smaller resolution and use less colors (typically 3 colors only)

Until jumping to far couple of questions you need to answer yourself:
1. What maximum size of paper you will be printing on?
2. How many pictures you will print? Speed of print and ink cost may become important.
3. Do you need water resistant pictures? In past most inks would smudge on contact with moisture, don't know if that changed.
4. Do you need long lasting ink, i.e., archiving quality so you can look at the picture 20 years from now and it still looks good?
5. Are you ok with printer only, or you want machine with scanner as well
6. Do you want network printer (Wi-Fi or whatever so you can print from multiple computers without having printer plugged to one that would have to be on for printing)

I would check something like Canon PIXMA PRO-100/PRO-10 or similar from other brands.
 
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Laser printers are easier IMO, because you don't have to worry about ink drying out. Otherwise, everything Tom.699 says is quite accurate.

If you're doing SVG cliparts, I think Laser printers are more than sufficient. Laser printers are much better than they used to be. But if you want "photo quality", you need to go ink unfortunately.

I would check something like Canon PIXMA PRO-100/PRO-10 or similar from other brands.

Something like that is an 8-tone cartridge. Which means it will run out of ink sooner (8 different packs each are individually smaller than the 4-tones you typically get with a laser printer). Laser printers are also dithered and aren't as smooth. But for most figures and cartoons, I think laser printers are more than sufficient. It costs more to run that kind of ink. And ink also runs dry if you fail to use it within a certain time frame.

My personal preference is to have a laser printer at my home, and then to use a commercial printer whenever I need something photo quality. Laser is faster, cheaper (in the long run) and easier. Leave ink to the high-volume printers who actually will use all that ink before it dries out IMO.

----------

If you're doing a one-off project, use something like lulu.com (https://www.lulu.com/products), or find a local printer (virtually every city has a local graphics artist / printer available) to do your job. Maybe do small runs on a lower-quality, but cheaper, laser printer at your own leisure. But you really can't beat the quality of commercial printers.

I know my local drug store does photo-prints. https://www.cvs.com/photo/prints
 
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Sorry Houdini, you were right, my bad, I guess concentrated too much on "vivid realistic photo impressions" forgetting about "cliparts svg".

Miguel, if you not planning printing photos just graphics than I agree that laser is better and indeed easier to maintain (no need to worry if you don't print anything for few weeks), faster, and cheaper in long run.
 
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I would go with either Canon or Epson Pro.
Make sure you buy the calibrating software too, I think Color Monki or Sypdr (spelled?) can do both your monitor and printer.
 
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If you want something on the high end of inkjet - Canon Pro-10. I remember hearing good things about it when it comes to printing photos in both color and b&w.

As for laser, we had a Canon combo at my uni and it was decent. But that thing was huuuge and I wouldn't use it at home. Cartridges were around $80 per tone (C,M,Y) + $80 for black, lasted about 2000 pages+ of mixed use.
 
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When it comes to photos, ink jet wins. Google it. Ink jet wins. Lasers are great for text and casual photos. But the OP stipulated, "vivid realistic photo impressions". Not doing that with laser.

Plus I note the following stipulation (my bold underline added),
From the screen to paper closely matching quality as possible.
That clearly means you need a professional quality monitor that can be properly calibrated too. You cannot calibrate the printer until you calibrate your monitor. To get realistic printouts, what you see on the monitor MUST first match what you see in the viewfinder.
Sorry Houdini, you were right
No Tom. You were right. If you want professional quality photo printouts - as the OP apparently does, ease of use is not really a factor. And drying out is really a moot point too, unless you go for several weeks without printing. Printing a test page once a week will take care of that. Yes, ink does have a shelf life, but it is typically over a year once the cartridge is removed from the sealed wrapper. So that is not normally a problem either unless you rarely ever print. And if you don't print color documents every day, just don't stock up on years worth of ink. Buy new ink just before you are about to run out.

Houdini is right when it comes to the paper though. For your final print out, use top quality photo paper.

And I am not going to get drawn into yet another debate about genuine inks and 3rd party inks. I am going to say this and that's it - IMO, if you shop carefully, 3rd party inks work great for B&W text and casual every day photos suitable for most users and print jobs. But for "consistent" color accuracy, professional "realistic" quality photos, time after time, that can only be assured with genuine inks.
 
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The best photo printers imho are dye sublimation.

IDK if they still sell them, but I have a small sony 4x6 printer that I love.
 
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I need to print about 100 color graphics a day
speed not an issue,
it doesn't have to have a scanner
it doesn't have to be water resistant or long lasting
size of paper preferred 12x12 but if letter sized used is still ok.

I have a hp laser jet prints good color output but I need more resolution.

is the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 better than the canon pixma recommended? just saying cause it costs a thousand about doble the price. what model of epson pro are also recommended here? should I just buy the pixma? and does the pixma prints in cardstock paper?

also I read the pixmapro100 is not a production printer but does that mean it can or can't print 100 printouts daily for years.
 
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