Should I go for Laser Printer?

[ethervaughn]

I am running small business, the business concern with printing especially photo prints, some of my friends suggest me to buy any laser printer he said that the laser printer should be more affordable for you. I want suggestion, if you have face same experience please share here.

[JimBoyce]

I have a HP black only lasor that cost $100.00
The cartridge is about $80 and lasts 1-1/2 years.
An ink jet printer with about the same print load lasts 2 months and the cartridge costs $40. Do the math.

[ethervaughn]

I am doing printing work for ready made garment and fabrication business.

[Torchhead]

It depends on what you need as output. You at least need a color laser printer to do photos. A lot of color lasers don't do photos well. For true photographic reproduction you need fine dot structure and more colors than 3. You will find the cost of toner for color laser printing to be equal to if not more per print than inkjet.

For garments you need to transfer the print using some method. Usually that involves heat (dye sublimation, heat transfers, etc). Toner in this category tends to leave a "halo" effect.

So the answer has to do more with what you want the final product to look like and how critical good photo reproduction is to your customer.

The Canon i9900 I have (which I bought more for the large format than photo printing uses 8 ink cartridges and will print a photo that you would be proud to hang in your home or office and up to 13" X 19" in size. I buy my inks through the re-fillers all over the internet so the cost is not too bad.

Lasers are really good for printing lots of B & W documents at low cost. Not so much for color photos where lots more toner is used per print and it costs a LOT more.

So what exactly is the ready made garment and fabrication business? T-Shirts, Jackets and Caps? There is a really good forum for the T-Shirt business that covers all kinds of production questions.

TOM Caudle
www.CandCNC.com

[ethervaughn]

The Canon i9900 I have (which I bought more for the large format than photo printing uses 8 ink cartridges and will print a photo that you would be proud to hang in your home or office and up to 13" X 19" in size. I buy my inks through the re-fillers all over the internet so the cost is not too bad.

Lasers are really good for printing lots of B & W documents at low cost. Not so much for color photos where lots more toner is used per print and it costs a LOT more.

So what exactly is the ready made garment and fabrication business? T-Shirts, Jackets and Caps? There is a really good forum for the T-Shirt business that covers all kinds of production questions.

TOM Caudle

Thanks you very much Tom for the information.