Large Format Photo Printers

Large format photo printers are printers with a print width over 17 inches. A printer with a printer over 100 inches is usually referred to as a grand format printer.

Large format photo printers may use a roll of print material rather than individual sheets and can incorporate hot-air dryers to prevent prints from sticking to themselves as they are produced.

Some printers will allow you to print on fine art paper or even 1.3 mm thick art board which is great for mounting exhibitions.

Less than $700: A printer such as the HP DesignJet 111 can make prints on a 24 inches wide roll 150 feet long and comes at a price most people can afford. This is a great printer for making poster sized-prints. Print quality is said to equal more expensive printers, and is fast and economic.

Less than $1,000: The Canon Pixma PRO9500MkII enables a photographer to take his profession to the next level, offering high quality prints and a print resolution of 4800 x 2400 dpi.

It includes; an ambient light correction feature which optimizes the color output to match the specified lighting conditions; a 10-color pigment inks sytem; the ability to print borderless images up to 13" x 19" at a maximum of 4800 x 2400 dpi; and PictBridge connectivity so you can print directly from your camera, mobile phone or DV camcorder.

It also has Auto Photo Fix which categorizes your images into one of five types - portrait, scenery, night scenery, snapshot with scenery, and snapshot with night scenery - and then applies optimal image correction. For instance, it will automatically brighten faces that are backlit and under-exposed, and correct color cast to help ensure more accurate skin tones.

Just over $1,000: The Epson Stylus Pro 3880 is an entry-level, professional, large-format photo printer which can print up to 17 inches x 22 inches. For a desktop inkjet printing device, it is said to be exceptional in producing high quality prints.

It incorporates professional, 8-color inks with advanced magenta pigments which provide more dramatic blues and violets.

It has a maximum print resolution of 2880 x 1440 dpi and supports different forms of media such as semi-matte paper, fiber paper, media art paper and art boards up to 1.5mm thick. It comes with a high capacity manual feeder that can handle sizes of 4 inches x 6 inches up to 17 inches x 22 inches. It has a 120 sheet capacity tray for plain paper and another that can hold 50 sheets of photo paper.

Advanced Black-and-White Photo Mode makes it easy to create neutral or toned black-and-white prints from color or monochrome images. Auto-switching between matte and photo-black ink gives superior contrast on glossy, matte and fine art papers.