Big Prints, Big Profits

In the old days, changing inks was a time-consuming process. Today, wide-format printers offer clever ways of avoiding that hassle. For example, Agfa's Grand Sherpa printer comes with eight ink slots, which can be run with eight dyes, eight pigment or four of each—so it's not necessary to change inks at all. Encad's printers have half-liter reservoirs of ink "so you don't stop printing to constantly change out cartridges like the early printers," says David Hawkes, Encad's manager of product management. And HP's printers let users swap inks back and forth in one machine in about 15 minutes.