Dedicated Print Server - is one needed?

[UK Printed Mugs]

We currently have about 12 printers connected by wireless / usb directly to one laptop and or via network cable to router.

Currently one laptop is used to produce artwork and send jobs direct to relevant printer.

Is there a better way of managing this especially for future proofing whereby we might want another computer to send jobs to a printer?

We are moving to a better premise soon and be good chance to put house in order.

[pisquee]

We tried using one PC essentially as the server, and using it to share the printers, but although this meant we could print to the printers from any computer, it had the downside of taking longer to print, as the print file was spooled and sent from user's computer to server, which would then respool and send to the printer.
Not revisited it since, now we have one computer with the printers attached via USB and not shared, with the print spool separate on an internal SSD drive, but also set to keep spooled files, so for common designs we can reprint direct from the print queue, not having to reload into Photoshop
(The SSD drive only has the print spool/queues, Windows swap file, Photoshop scratch disc, and Adobe Bridge cache on it)

[UK Printed Mugs]

What useful information thank you. Is it Adobe Bridge that would allow print jobs to be resent to printer without needing say Photoshop again?

[logobear]

We are the complete opposite, with multiple computers all printing to common printers.
Nearly all printers are ethernet connected so easy to hot desk....
Can you set up your printers as network printers instead of local with sharing?

[pisquee]

No, not from Bridge - from the print queue window itself, in printer settings you can select to keep print jobs, so when a job finishes it stays held in the queue, so you can right click it and select Restart ... we have one main sublimation printer (wide format) and have multiple print queues set up for it - so one for cushions, one for lampshades, etc ... so each standard design is just held in the queue and can be reprinted without having to load a file into any programme, just using the Windows print driver system.

[UK Printed Mugs]

Ooooo thank you. Can I ask should we be using Adobe Bridge? I need to read up more about it but does it put all your design resources on the cloud (external) or is it for organising artwork files locally?

[pisquee]

Adobe Bridge can be just a file browser, but can be used for batch processing files using actions you set up in Photoshop - being able to print from it directly is missing though