New to printing - looking for solution for digital posters

[melman]

Hi everyone, I'm trying to find a good way to print fairly high quality art posters sized roughly 35x16. I'm probably going to be producing 200-400/week, so I'm more sensitive to the variable cost of each print than to the fixed cost of the setup.

I've been looking all around on these forums and on the internet, but I still have a question that someone with more experience might be able to help with:

It's important that the finished product doesn't have blank margins. I looked at Epson printers that can do borderless printing, but as best I can tell, Epson's ink costs are a lot higher than for something like a Roland Versacamm. Is there a good way to trim borders after the posters are printed, or is Epson my only option?

 

[rgloor]

Printing without margins

Printing without margins

Have you checked for iPF series from Canon? With them you can print borderless, depending on the media used. For the amount of posters you want to print it could be either iPF6000S, iPF8000S or iPF9000S.
Renate Gloor

 

[lfelton]

A couple of ideas for you:-

First, you might want to cross post this in the wide format forum if you haven't already done so.

There are quite a few "production" printers that will do borderless printing, the Agfa Anapurna and HP equivilent (sorry, can't remember model) come to mind.

For trimming, check out the "Fotoba" cutters, which are automated.

On that volume, there's quite a lot of work involved, especially with a small printer like a Canon or an Epson. I'd also think laterally and see whether it's feasible to team up with an established printer operating something like one of the big HP Scitek machines. The quality isn't going to be quite as good as you will get from a small machine like the Canon, Epson or similar, but may be suitable for your application. They operate on a completely different cost model (huge capital, huge maintenance, lower m2 operating cost) and I would expect that they could sell to you for cheaper than you could print them on an Epson etc., especially if you can show them that the work will be regular. Obvious benefits are you not having to cover capital costs and employ someone to print and finish these posters.

 

[odiseas]

Roland

Roland

with roland you could print & cut in 1 pass..any size, any form.. look at de WF forum...

 

[ArtEXPERT]

Printing

Printing

If you need help with this, I can refer you to the best in the industy. I worked for the people who invented the Giclee process, and I have been in the art industry for MANY years.


Dan

 

[Banners and Big Prints]

Sample some poster printers

Sample some poster printers

Hi melman,

If you are considering a major purchase, it may be worth your while to outsource a few print runs and then verify the quality of the posters that you get from suppliers using different large format machines. The increased cost to outsource a few jobs could be justified as an "R&D" expense. Feel free to get in touch with me if this idea appeals to you; I may be able to help.

Kevin