What’s the difference between a photo/graphics printer and a CAD/technical printer?

The best wide format printer for your business depends on your budget, space limitations, and types of files you plan to output most often.

CAD/technical printers were originally designed to output drawing files from CAD/CAM and GIS software. These printers typically use aqueous dye inks and often do a better job printing on lower-cost bond papers for everyday office use. Most models use a combination of dye inks to print colors, and pigment black inks for fine lines and text.

Because architects, engineers, government agencies, and mapmakers now use more color and images in their work, the newest technical printers can produce everything from monochrome line drawings to color renderings, aerial photos, GIS maps, and presentations. Because the latest CAD/technical printers can print full color images, they can bring wide-format printing capabilities to all types of offices. In addition to printing on bonds and coated papers, they can print on photo papers, poster papers, display films, and banner materials.

Photo/graphics printers output digital files that include a mix of full-color photos, text, graphics, and color-accurate logos. Most photo/graphics printers use specially formulated aqueous pigment photo inks and higher-cost materials to print long-lasting photo and art prints or some types of outdoor signs and graphics. The newest models of photo/graphic printers blend 6, 8, or 12 inks, and automatically switch to different types of black inks when printing on matte or gloss photo papers.

Many photo/graphics printers are designed to efficiently process Adobe PostScript files, including PDFs and images prepared in Photoshop.

Some pigment-ink prints output on archival papers can last 100 to 200 years or more if they are framed behind glass or kept in albums or dark storage at the proper temperature and humidity.

Because the 6-color and 8-color aqueous-ink printers are faster than the 12-color models, the 6- and 8-color printers are typically used for higher-speed production of posters, everyday portraits, and décor photo and art prints. The 12-color models produce the superb color gamut and deep, rich blacks that professional photographers and fine-art printmakers need to make heirloom portraits and museum-quality prints.

Many commercial providers of higher volumes of photographs, signs, and display graphics have upgraded to faster graphic printers that use solvent, eco-solvent, latex, and UV-cure inks.

At Freedom Paper we offer many Canon imagePROGRAF and HP Designjet aqueous ink printers, including some designed primarily for CAD, technical, and general use and some designed for photography and graphics printing.

Having so many models from which to choose can make it difficult to make a decision. Call us and tell us more about how and where you plan to use a wide-format printer, and we can help you zero in on the best option.