If your museum has its own large format printer then you can create all kinds of useful signs, posters, and banners.
Large format color inkjet printer prices are low enough so that museums, botanical gardens, zoos, and even departments within universities and colleges can afford to have their own wide format printer in-house.
Shown here are prints from a Hewlett-Packard DesignJet 2800CP large format inkjet color printer. This prints on photo paper 36 inchs wide (the model 3800 prints on paper 54 inches wide). In the prints shown here (indigenous Maya textiles photographed in Guatemala) each rectangular image is about 17.5 inches across. The printer prints continously, as long as you need (the paper is 100-feet long, on a seamless100 foot long roll).
These printers are easy to operate, indeed this printer is in my own office (F.L.A.A.R. Photo Archive). This printer is part of the long range digital imaging technology program, initiated 3 years ago by a fellowship from Japan's Ministry of Education. This Visiting Professorship took Dr Hellmuth to Japan's National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, for training in digital imaging. Dr Yoshiho Yasugi, curator at Minpaku, is a Japanese expert in Mayan languages, hieroglyphs, and Mayan weaving.
One of the many goals of this program is to ascertain what is the best yet most reasonably priced digital imaging equipment for schools, colleges, universities and museums. Since the Japanese economy took a nose dive over the last two years, there is no longer Japanese funding for this useful program, but F.L.A.A.R. still works hard and seeks support from the computer industry.
If you would like
more information on what equipment your institution should include
in its current budget, look at www.wide-format-printers.org, www.large-format-printers.org,
and www.FineArtGicleePrinters.org. These sites picture and explain
the various items of digital equipment, such as a RIP, pictured
here. The RIP is the brain, the raster image processor, of the
overall wide format printer system.
If you have ever seen the old plotters that architects and engineers used several years ago then you have an idea what a large format printer looks like. Today's inkjet printers are to some degree the descendant of those CAD plotters. Today, however, the large format printers are no longer called plotters, in part because they are much faster and produce photo-realistic exhibit-quality images.
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| reviews of large format printers most appropriate for signs, posters, banners including POP, both inside and outside: Encad vs HP, Roland, etc |
| large format printers 24" and above for fine art giclee prints, for first-time users, intermediate, and experienced users as well |
| large format printers 24" and above for top quality digital photo prints, museum-quality exhibit prints, for newbies to pro |
| which scanners are best for scanning negatives, slides for large format printing of photo-realistic quality; what overhead repro-stand scanners are best for digitizing the actual artwork for large format printing; what large format digital scan back systems are best for digitizing paintings or 3-D artwork (all high end) for fine art giclee printing. This report covers only professional equipment: no entry-level, no cheap home scanners; nonetheless, this and all other reports are written for the first-time buyer, for newcomers to digital imaging as well as for pros who want better equipment. |
| large format digital printers for textiles, direct printing on textiles as well as heat transfer with normal inks (no need for dye sublimation inks) |
| for dye sublimation heat transfer onto textiles, metal, wood, plastic, ceramics, metal and other treated surfaces |
| plotters and color inkjet plotters for CAD, GIS, aerial maps, 3-D graphic design, engineering or architectural drawings, etc. |
| large format printers appropriate for a college or university art or photography department, for a museum, repro shop, |
| helpful list of media and inks for signs, posters, banners; helpful list of media and inks for fine art giclee or photo-realistic museum prints. |
| quick-start help for first time buyers, list of the best RIPs; hints for what accessories you need; list of where you can get books and training |
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The FLAAR service is dedicated to assisting you make your initial decisions. If you already bought the wrong printer, we are not the place to rescue you after the fact (though you can indeed tell us all your experiences about what you like and don't like about your new printer; if you give us enough details perhaps we can think of something). But we do not answer any questions about cheap desktop printers. If your questions about RIP, media, inks, hardware or software would be better answered by the manufacturer itself we will forward your e-mail to people we know from meeting them at the key international trade shows. They will generally follow-up directly with you. |
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| home, FineArtGicleePrinters.org | index, FineArtGicleePrinters | home, digital-photography.org | index, digital-photography | |
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