Unread postby dewarp » Thu Dec 13, 2012 7:11 am
Hi chriznatch
No one here has suggested a printer. Unfortunately I too cannot recommend one as you seem to need an A4 printer whereas I use the truely amazing Epson 3880, which is an A2+ printer and surely too expensive for your needs. However, some comments:
Agreed that the first thing to check is the calibration of your screens. Also, your ability to edit your images is dependant on the quality of your screen.
Next, accept that no matter how good your equipment and skills, your printed images will never look identical to your on-screen version.
For years I used a specific print shop for my A3 club prints. The print shop used a standard Xerox A3 photocopier, not their more expensive Epson Pro printers. The Xerox tended to over sharpen, increase saturation, increase contrast, and had a slight green shift. Since I insisted on them using the one particular Xerox and one particular paper I was able to compensate for these changes and over time could get some impressive prints. I would prepare my images in Photoshop and then, at the end, deliberately make "negative adjustments" to compensate for what the Xerox would do. My point is, if you stick to a single printer and insist that they use a particular machine and paper it is possible to tune your print files to get your desired output.
Next I decided to print some larger images for permanent framing. The same shop printed these on their big Epson roll-feed machine. I was disapointed at the outcome. I realised that I could go through the same learning curve, but because the prints were so much more expensive, it would be pretty costly. I decided to bite the bullet and buy the Epson 3880 (May 2010). Since then I have done all my own printing.
By the way, getting seriously into printing is another huge learning curve, something akin to learning photoshop.
regards - Peter