Canon - imagePROGRAF PRO-300

I have the ET8500 A4 printer and wish I had bought the A3 version for a £100 or so more.. I have just sold my Canon Pro 300 A3 plus printer. Basically the Epson printers are expensive and the ink is cheap. Epson make most of their money from the printer not the ink. For Canon the printers are quite expensive and the ink is VERY expensive. (see below) The prints from the Epson are very good especially as I do not use the top quality photo papers. Just Kolas Satin 250 g from Amazon that costs about £0.22 (UK) per sheet. Chat GPT estimates the ink cost of printing an A4 full colour photo as about £0.08 for the Epson and £2.00for the Canon. So I pay about £0.30 for each A4 print. I have a calibrated monitor and print from Photoshop. I have a action that adds brightness and a small colour correction to the file before printing. The results are usually a good match for the image on the screen. Occasionally I have to tweak the colour a bit and print another copy but at about £0.30 I do not mind. People at my camera club are impressed with the quality of the prints I produce and say they compare well against those from a top end printer like the Canon.

Exactly as mentioned above; - CP1500 is perfect for 10x15 prints and it is cheap to run. approx 0.33€/print - G550 or G650 are a great option if you don’t want to deal with any cartridge printers as they both work work bottled ink - PRO-1100 seems overkill in this scenario, it prints up to A2 - PRO-200S or PRO-310 are better option as they give you more control over your prints with more colors to work with. Or if you find a PRO-300 on the cheap. Go for that. They are both cartridge printers. The cost of running is higher the a G650 but you do get better color reproduction. I hope this helps!

Dye based inks versus pigment inks. Pigment inks are the way to go for longevity and archival. BUT where and how the prints are stored and displayed is a factor for all prints. Fumes from a newly varnished floor and such can turn images yellow and contribute to their fading. Pricing between printers and inks is noticeable. BUT, for me, it's not a photograph till you do print it. I use a Canon PRO-300 and am very pleased with it. Regardless, good luck and most important...have fun.

Well it will be expensive for sure (printer, inks, you have to print let's say every month or it will dry out) For many people ordering prints is better option But if you want your own photo printer then there are few good options - Canon pro-200 (dye based inks, but long lasting) - Canon pro-300 (pigment based inks so if paper survive the photo will be still good) - Canon pro-310 (upgrade to pro-300, more inks for better color reproduction) - Epson ET-8550 (it's eco tank so cheap inks and easier to use non-OEM inks - but not sure how long lasting OEM inks are, on the other hand have friends that are using non-OEM pigment inks and it works [well, needed some color calibration])

Get the lawyer a laser printer. For your photography, a dedicated A3+ photo printer is a beautiful thing. I used a Canon Pro-100 dye based printer for years. Great output. I think the pro-200 is its successor. Recently I jumped to the Pro-1100 17” pigment based printer. Excellent again plus even better, to my eye, on matte and art papers with the pigment inks. The Pro-300 also uses pigment inks but is cheaper being a 13” model.

Same, but I think mine is a pro 300? Definitely a separate hobby. But I got to say I really love that I just ordered a box of 7x10 scored paper and I can make personalized birthday cards for people whenever and I’ve also had a few of my photos framed nicely and I just really like being able to do small stuff like that

I've only had two, the Canon Pro-300 and the Pro-1100. 300 was a solid printer, but I found myself constantly changing the ink out which was annoying.

Honestly I'd buy two. First would be a laser or eco/super tank inkjet printer for the documents with a duplex feature. The second would be a dedicated photo printer for images. If you can't do that then I'd look for a Supertanker printer which the reviewers suggest are best for photos though your ink cost will likely be higher when printing documents. I have a brother multifunction laser that I bought on big sale about 10 years ago and still prints like the first day I bought it, we run around 3-5000 pages a year and now I've found a third party toner supplier that works its really cost effective. I also have a dedicated canon Pro-300 which prints incredible images and works great but is a little more involved and expensive to run. When the laser printer finally decides to stop working I'll probably go the epson eco tank route (one piece of advice I've read is to make sure you print once a week to keep the printer working properly). Good luck.

I know you said Epson but will put in a plug for the Canon Image ProGraf 300 (now 310). It's $850 at BH photo. I bought it in May 2024 and now produce 8x10 loose/framed and 11x14 matted/framed landscapes at local shows. In five shows I grossed 5k that year which, minus printer, ink, frames, mats and paper still netted me 2500. Way better than I could ever do with a lab. Best was being able to reprint popular ones for 2-day events.