Printer

[Hammurabi]

I need to buy a printer and I'm not sure what to get.

Right now there is no furniture or decorations of any kind in my dorm room, and it's pretty empty because I don't have a roommate. Basically imagine a 10x12 empty room with a white tile floor, white walls and ceiling, a bed, and that's my dorm room.

So, I'm thinking I'll print off about 100 square feet of a graphic novel/anime thing and wallpaper much of my room with it, it'll be about 220 pages total.

The trouble is, I don't own a printer and it wouldn't work printing it off in a lab on campus. I need a printer that can print very clear color, pretty much like what you would use to print off high quality photographs. What kind of printer would be best for this?

Also, would a particular type of paper or ink cartridge be best for doing something like this?

Thanks :) Or, if you have a more sane suggestion for decorating my room, that's good as well.

[Jimmi431]

my god thats gonna cost alot! okay any printer thats in the market now would do the job as long as its not a really cheap model (i'd spend bout 80 pounds on it) to set a good quality defined ink when pressing print you need to set the print copy to best (you usually get a choice of best, standard and draft). you can buy photo paper which will work in both inkjet and laser printers an this will still further increase the quality of the print.
thts bout it the rest is up to youre budget! cos print cartridges are not cheap unless you get dodgy ones!, so i hope you got a really small room! it is an original idea tho, i am impressed an hope it turns out well.

[Lordathestrings]

Ah, yes, marketing ploys!

The printer won't cost much. I bought an Epson 777 for ~ US$100. The printing supplies are where the money goes. Colour cartirges are seriously expensive - often more than the printer itself cost to buy! If you settle for ordinary copier paper, you can get by on a few dollars, but if you use quality photo paper, that costs as much as a dollar a page! :eek:

[Jimmi431]

hey you can get far cheaper photo quality paper! the string lord pointed out a specific product so will I! you can get "hp everyday photo paper" in packs of 100 for far far less than $1 a page.

[Hammurabi]

How many ink cartridges do you all think it would take to print off that many pages? Not all the pages are color, only about half are, so that helps things.

When I first had this idea I was thinking it would be a good idea to get them laminated, but it turns out I'm not that wealthy.

Is there some way to get a printer and paper to print off bigger images than the normal 8x11? With a normal printer I would be scaling the pics down from 9.5x12.5 inches to about 6x8, but if there is some halfway affordable way to print off the full pics that would be better.

[Lordathestrings]

If you're really lucky, the cartridges that come with the printer will finish the job, but I wouldn't count on it. It depends on how much ink is consumed on each of the pages, and of course, that's impossible to predict accurately. And, as Jimmi431 has pointed out, lesser quality paper will reduce your paper cost - at the expense of higher ink consumption! Take your concept to a printing shop, and discuss your options. You may find that a pro can do the job for less than it would cost you to DIY. {shrug} It can't hurt to ask.

[Hammurabi]

I don't think there's a printing shop around here. I'll ask at the university's media center, they might be able to do something.