Printer for type design & proofing

Seán Mongey

I’ve come across this other thread about reasonably priced laser printers for proofing. I was wondering if there have been any further developments since that was published? Maybe a compiled list of printers worth getting that suit different budgets would be handy?

From reading that thread I’ve a vague idea of what to look out for but hitting a wall when it comes to actually picking one as I have very little understanding of postscript.

This is what I’m considering at the minute but the low price tag seems a bit iffy for 1200x1200dpi and genuine adobe postscript 3. I’d be great to hear your thoughts, insights or suggestions or even resources where I could learn more.

Thanks

George Thomas

Check the specs for that printer you're looking at. It does NOT have Genuine Adobe Postscript 3, but uses an emulator. That info is from Epson Europe's web site.

EMULATIONS: I239X, Genuine Postscript 3™, PDF 1.3, PostScript 3, ESC/P, PCL6, PCL5e, ESC/Page, ESC/P2

attar

Don't think Epson does genuine PostScript whatsoever. Certain Ricoh models do, otherwise you're looking at Xerox.

George Thomas

http://www.printershowcase.com/colorlasertestdrive.aspx

They offer all major brands, and have a Test Drive service for color lasers -- and may do it for B/W too if that's what you are looking for. There is no requirement that you buy the printer from them even if you use their Test Drive service.

The price for the Test Drive is low and can help to keep you from making an expensive mistake. You provide the file and they will print it on lasers of your choice and return the output to you. Then you can make an informed decision.

I can attest from experience with them that the Test Drive saved me from buying the wrong printer. I had considered a major name-brand, but was astonished at the poor quality from it.

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

I’m far from an expert when it comes to laser printers, but irrespective the laser printer’s brand, PostScript (emulation), resolution (enhancement), or whether the font contains (proper) hinting, or was distorted by the scanner during the following tests, and –last but not least– the exact moment of the nearest lunar conjunction, one thing that IMHO has a lot of influence on the (correctness of) the printed image is the density setting. I believe that one has to calibrate this (and to recalibrate this depending on the amount of toner).

The best way I can think of is to print examples (for instance using ‘OHamburgefontsiv’) at a relatively small point size, let’s say 12 points (too small makes matters more complex) using different density settings and to enlarge this to for instance 72 points using a scanner. Next, one can print the same example directly at 72 points. The printer’s density will have not much influence on the latter point size.



Above you will find two ‘OHamburgefontsiv’ applying DTL Haarlemmer printed from TextEdit at 72 points using two different densities (1 and 5) on a HP Laserjet 4100 tn (ProRes 1200). The two versions below were printed at 12 points using the same two different density (and resolution) settings. One can compare the outcomes with the top range to find out what is the most reliable print at small sizes. The scanner-resolution for the 16-bit grayscale images was quite large, but the images here are 72 dpi, so that is of relative importance.



The images below show enlargements of the examples which were originally printed at 12 and 72 points. My experience is that differences can be more dramatic per printer (manufacturer) and per toner (sort/refinement).