What printer would you suggest for fine art printing. I am a mac user and would like to print on the avage of -

100 prints a month. I need a printer that will be able to print on fine art paper and the inks must be archival but I need the printer and consumables to be cost effective. I was going to use a vendor but it might be more cost effective to purchase a good printer and have control of production.

You need to do a little research. I have that iP4300 the other person mentioned and it does produce decent photos and prints, but is definitely NOT a fine art printer. It will not be able to handle all the different papers you may be looking to use; its inks are also not in the true archival class, although they are good. It also cannot print large prints. Canon does make other printers, many can produce larger prints. Also I d look into a printer that uses a wider range of inks (you can get printers with 8 or more inks, they add special colors to give a truer range beyond basic CMYK). Most decent printers now use separate cartridges for each color, so you are only replacing what you need. Epson also makes many good to high-quality printers. Both Canon and Epson are compatible with the Mac. And both companies do offer printers that use archival inks. You really need to do some research on your own to figure out what will suit you best. Look for reviews, visit the company websites, and if possible go to some shops that sell printers (NOT the big stores like Best Buy.) See if you have a good local photography/camera shop, not one of the chains, that might carry printers. There are such things, and the good ones are staffed by people who know their equipment, what works best for different purposes and can make recommendations to you. Also see if you have any local print/photolabs that you could visit and talk to. They can help. You may also want to invest in calibration devices to help with your color accuracy between computer and printer, once you get your printer. And today I don t think you will find that producing your own prints will be terribly cost effective: If you are going for really high quality, you will need a printer that s probably going to run you over $1000, and your inks will also be where you ultimately spend a tremendous amount of money (it s in the nature of the consumer printer company business). Good luck.

I would get the Canon IP 4300, the printer has won several awards and consumer report award, you will not find a better printer and the best part is it is compatible with the Mac, get the cartridge refill kit for it and save money, hope this helped and good luck.