Printing on mats

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nancyg

nancyg

CGF II, Certified Grumble Framer Level 2
Joined
Jul 6, 2006
Posts
384
Loc
Warwick, NY
I am going back and forth on a printer, and have narrowed it down (for today) to the Canon pixma9500 or the Epson 3800. They can handle paper thickness of 1.2mm and 1.5mm respectively.

Does anyone have experience printing on mats with either of these printers?

Thanks

Nancy
 
Nancy, forget about printing on mats with any printer using pigmented inks. These printers are designed to use a coated paper to print on. Cresent used to make a printable mat but I think it has been discontinued. You will be much better off printing on a nice mat paper and then mounting that to a mat board.
Dave
 
I'll bet wizard can give you some good info becuase don't they have that software that is designed to print on mats?
 
Thanks guys, thats what I wanted to know.......I was all adrift.

Smile Away
Nancy g

PS. Any thoughts on the newish Epson 2880? Or will I be sorry I didn't get the 17" 3880?
 
Yea me too Jerry. The colors were really soft. I have been able to do some neat looking washed lines and stuff. Thought about developing that but I have enough hobbies I don't market well that is much more proffitable.
 
I see a lot of printing on mats, all done through Epson Pro Graphics range of printers, and the best results are achieved using Bainbridge's "UltraPrint" matboard - which has a specialized print receptive coating for the sharpest results.

I would suggest getting both of the printer salespeople to show you demos of printing on matboard, by sourcing and sending them blank samples of Bainbridge UltraPrint mat board for them to print on, and send back to you.
 
We've printed on matboard with our Epsons; the 10K does the best job. Better than printing on matboard is printing on paper with inkjet receptors and then mounting the paper to the board. I think I did this for a grumbler. There are spray coatings available that allow printing on anything you can get to go through the printer. The big problem is positioning the print on the board so that you can cut out a window. It can be done and here's where a manual mat cutter comes in handy.
 
I use an Epson 4800 to print on mountboard.

I generally use Colourmount 308 (an off-white) if I want to print titles or text and set the printer to plain paper at 380 dpi. Normally the results are fine.

Here's an example - not a brilliant photo but you can probably spot the difference between the picture and the printed mount.
 
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