hi all i was just wondwering if any of you have any recommendations for companys who print top quality b-cards. ive already sent for samples off moo.com and 247printhouse.  i dont want vistaprint as ive seen the quality and they are very poor. sorry if any of you out there have them .

---

My DCM gallery

Try your local copyshop or business printers, as most of them will have commerical printers to produce the best results.

---

SK
The Best Photographer in the world 4th November - 5th November 2006 & 17th-18 November 2007
Oldboy’s Gallery

I design and print my own (21 cards on an SRA3 sheet at 50 sheets a minute).  But then I do service the digital printers that produce them

---

Mark

My DCM Gallery

MarkD:

I design and print my own (21 cards on an SRA3 sheet at 50 sheets a minute).  But then I do service the digital printers that produce them

Do you work for Xerox then?

---

SK
The Best Photographer in the world 4th November - 5th November 2006 & 17th-18 November 2007
Oldboy’s Gallery

It just so happens that I do

---

Mark

My DCM Gallery

MarkD:

It just so happens that I do

Use to use Xerox printers, 4890's, 2060 and a few others.  

---

SK
The Best Photographer in the world 4th November - 5th November 2006 & 17th-18 November 2007
Oldboy’s Gallery

OldBoy:

MarkD:

It just so happens that I do

Use to use Xerox printers, 4890's, 2060 and a few others.  

I still work on 2060/6060/8000 family along with iGen3 and the new iGen4 coming out in September.
I try to avoid the 4890's for reasons which may be obvious to you.  Horrible machines to work on

Back to the OP.  Where are you based as it may be worth while going to a digital printer that can print short runs and maybe design if needed.  Litho is not real an option nowdays unless you want 10's of thousands cards

---

Mark

My DCM Gallery

MarkD:

OldBoy:

MarkD:

It just so happens that I do

Use to use Xerox printers, 4890's, 2060 and a few others.  

I still work on 2060/6060/8000 family along with iGen3 and the new iGen4 coming out in September.
I try to avoid the 4890's for reasons which may be obvious to you.  Horrible machines to work on

Yes, they could be a bit messy to service but were great for printing. I was ACT trained on the 2060. Went to work for another company who brought Oce printers, which looked the business until you started using them. They had a print speed of 158ppm but it was half that if printed double-sided, half again if using high-light colour on one side and half again if colour on both sides. Unlike Xerox, if they bombed out whilst printing they lost the plot completely.

---

SK
The Best Photographer in the world 4th November - 5th November 2006 & 17th-18 November 2007
Oldboy’s Gallery

Any chance of getting back to recommendations of companys ! try emailing if ya want a converstaion.   

---

My DCM gallery

OldBoy:

Try your local copyshop or business printers, as most of them will have commerical printers to produce the best results.

This is one area where I'd love to buy local - save trucking all that heavy stuff around the country but

1. I once bought some cards from my local printers. Never, ever again. They printed them digitally and they were awful. Not only was the printing not up to scratch (solid areas of colour don't print well digitally) they hand guillotined them by eye. So they were different sizes.....
2. There are 5 printers in Canterbury - apart from the cards they have never been able to print anything I needed in house - they outsource it and charge me extra for the privilege. It also takes longer because printing gets delivered to them first.

Try..... www.alocalprinter.com (excellent printers - top quality, environment friendly, fast and cheap). They do the bulk of my printing including my current business card.
or.... www.inkylittlefingers.co.uk - similar to the first ones. A little more expensive for litho but their digital printing is excellent and very cheap. They do short run stuff for me.

---

Kidography. It's like photography. But more fun.

Jonathan Ryan:

 I once bought some cards from my local printers. Never, ever again. They printed them digitally and they were awful. Not only was the printing not up to scratch (solid areas of colour don't print well digitally) they hand guillotined them by eye. So they were different sizes..... 2

1. One crap local printer does not make them all crap.  My friend had a really crap wedding photographer therefore all wedding photographers must be crap

2.  Digital output depends alot on the equipment, state of the machine, operator knowledge, source files etc.  The products I work on outshine litho when setup correctly even on solid areas.  The biggest complaint I get is that the colours are wrong or it's a transparency problem which all comes down to how the source pdf is created - 80% of which are done by the oringinal customer with now knowledge of profiles ppd's etc.

Ever heard of Graphicstudio in Italy????  Their stuff is all printed digital

---

Mark

My DCM Gallery

MarkD:

One crap local printer does not make them all crap.  My friend had a really crap wedding photographer therefore all wedding photographers must be crap

and so like with photography I'd advise people to ask to see a body of work before assuming that a local printer has the correct kit and so must know how to use it. I assumed good file into good machine = great print. I was wrong and the lesson cost me a few quid. Now I always check samples before getting work done by an unknown printer.

2.  Digital output depends alot on the equipment, state of the machine, operator knowledge, source files etc.  The products I work on outshine litho when setup correctly even on solid areas.

Yeah I was amazed by what InkyLittleFingers can do on digital. Either they have a better machine than a local printers can afford or they know a lot more about how to use it (I'm guessing both). The fact that they are less than half the price of any printer local to me and actually faster is a bonus.

Ever heard of Graphicstudio in Italy????  Their stuff is all printed digital

Funny you should mention them. I've literally just got off the phone to their production team in Italy about their quality control (long story I'm not getting into in public - they are having a third stab at producing an acceptable quality album for me). I don't think I will be putting much more work their way....

You're right that they are all digital. Smaller books are done as digital offset, larger ones are digital laser on photographic paper. (Is that what used to be called lambda printing?). You'll know more than me about the differences but the laser is noticeably better than the offset. Seems there's digital and digital.....

---

Kidography. It's like photography. But more fun.

Jonathan Ryan:

OldBoy:

Try your local copyshop or business printers, as most of them will have commerical printers to produce the best results.

This is one area where I'd love to buy local - save trucking all that heavy stuff around the country but 1. I once bought some cards from my local printers. Never, ever again. They printed them digitally and they were awful. Not only was the printing not up to scratch (solid areas of colour don't print well digitally) they hand guillotined them by eye. So they were different sizes..... 2. There are 5 printers in Canterbury - apart from the cards they have never been able to print anything I needed in house - they outsource it and charge me extra for the privilege. It also takes longer because printing gets delivered to them first. Try..... www.alocalprinter.com (excellent printers - top quality, environment friendly, fast and cheap). They do the bulk of my printing including my current business card. or.... www.inkylittlefingers.co.uk - similar to the first ones. A little more expensive for litho but their digital printing is excellent and very cheap. They do short run stuff for me.

Well, I accept that not all printers are perfect, either local or on the net. The advantage of local is you are dealing with a person and you can see examples of their work. As regards ditigal printers, they need to be serviced on a regular basis and also need setting up each day. As for block colours never had a problem with Xerox's when the printer was setup correctly. When I was at the last IPEX show at the NEC, one of the laser printer was setup with the print-finishing attached. It produced business cards on A3+ paper, printed and cut to size all in one operation.

---

SK
The Best Photographer in the world 4th November - 5th November 2006 & 17th-18 November 2007
Oldboy’s Gallery

whats wrong with asking for sample from companys online!  thats what im doing at the moment!  i think oldboy your wondering off the subject. all i want is recommendations from forum users not a debate!

---

My DCM gallery

The batch I got from Vista were excellent. Let's hope the samples you get have better spelling than some of the words in your posts.

---

Be nice to each other


My DCM Gallery