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Post by dwlynch on Jan 27, 2024 0:37:19 GMT
There's already a thread for printing companies so that's not what I'm talking about here. What I'm interested in is talking about printing things yourself at home for a modest run of zines or comics. Experiences? Recommendations? Horror stories?
Myself, I have an oversize Epson Artisan 1430 that I got a long time ago with the idea of printing pencils on to large sheets of bristol. It worked as its supposed to but I found the process lacking. That printer is now on its way out and I'm wondering about what to replace it with. I've heard that most cheap black and white laser printers are high enough quality to put out a decent mini comic. Does anyone have any input?
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Post by awfulquiet on Jan 29, 2024 0:46:24 GMT
For black and white I print at home on a Brother laser printer. but for anything big and/or color I'm a fan of using the big Xerox machine at the library if that counts.
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Post by colinprojects on Jan 29, 2024 14:28:18 GMT
I printed my mini comic on my shitty HP printer, an HP Envy 7858. It did a fine job, some odd results here and there. I decided I liked the artifacts and how it fried the cover image. I printed Black and White, but it really struggled with anything that was grayscale.
On the plus side, I obtained the printer, ink, and paper from my partners work when it was shutting down, so my printing costs were 0. Highly recommend that if you can swing it.
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Post by dwlynch on Feb 10, 2024 4:25:55 GMT
For black and white I print at home on a Brother laser printer. but for anything big and/or color I'm a fan of using the big Xerox machine at the library if that counts. How does it handle gray scale? It seems like most laser prints I've seen are high contrast. Can you do shades of gray or does it have to be some sort of halftone? |
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Post by maxhuffman on Feb 13, 2024 5:54:16 GMT
i've printed a thousand or so copies of my current series on a brother hl-l2300d. it's relatively cheap, prints on both sides and goes up to 1200dpi. you can use bootleg toner and there's a cheat code to override the low toner warning. technically, it doesn't print grayscale– totally monochrome- it's gonna apply a halftone if there isn't one. personally i think the grain it adds to flat grays is nice...  |
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Post by franlopez on Feb 13, 2024 15:02:29 GMT
i've printed a thousand or so copies of my current series on a brother hl-l2300d. Hey, that looks great! Have you done any larger areas of black? Does it keep constant? |
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Post by maxhuffman on Feb 13, 2024 18:54:38 GMT
you'll get a little texture, especially when the toner cartridge starts to go, but blacks are generally crisp and opaque–  |
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Post by franlopez on Feb 13, 2024 22:16:22 GMT
you'll get a little texture, especially when the toner cartridge starts to go, but blacks are generally crisp and opaque– Oh, hey, didn't register the screen name, I actually have this one and read it a while ago, by the way, great stuff! (And can confirm, the printing works great for this.)
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Post by dwlynch on Feb 17, 2024 20:38:07 GMT
you'll get a little texture, especially when the toner cartridge starts to go, but blacks are generally crisp and opaque– Thanks for these images, that's super helpful! If you had to guess how many pages do you think you get out of a single toner cartridge? |
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Post by maxhuffman on Feb 19, 2024 23:12:48 GMT
hmm, good question. i've gone thru 20 cartridges since i got it in 2021 but harder to estimate total page count. starting a fresh drum + cartridge with next issue so maybe i'll try and keep track.
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