Ive been a very happy user of a Canon i9990 printer for several years now. I have really loved it. One thing I really love is the separate ink cartridges instead of the bundled 3 tone gimmick, where you end up throwing away tons of ink because one chamber emptied. It also prints on 13×19 paper and the image quality has been outstanding. Though most of my prints are from a lab, Ive used it to supplement other parts of my business, and I think all serious photographers need a serious printer, even if they only use labs for most of their prints. There is nothing like doing a shoot, and delivering prints to a client in as little as an hour afterwards.

The only thing I dont like about my i9990 is that it cannot print on CDs or DVDs. My understanding is that Epson owns the intellectual property rights in the US to do so, so I started looking into their printers and from my research, it seems the Epson 2880 is the way to go. I was able to get my hands on one recently and take a very close look at what it can do.

Now there are a few things that arent great about it, like the price $799, you have to swap out black ink cartridges if you switch between prints and paper, and it is a touch slow, but everything else about it is incredible. The prints I have seen out of this bad boy were nothing short of jaw dropping, it prints on CDs and DVDs (very handy for customizing proof disks without having to print on a label), and uses multiple color ink tanks.

This is on my Christmas list.