What printer do you use?

[Far_X]

Maybe not the place to post this but as I am not a member of any photography forums, I thought I would try y'all. What sort of photo printers do people have? I know that my sister has an Epson that has nine cartridges in it (can't remember the model - stylus photo r800, I think) but she lives in England so I can't take advantage of that. I was looking at buying one but also worried about the actual cost to print a photgraph and whether they are comparable to these online printers that you can easily find. What are the biggest print sizes that they can do also? I know that someone will ask what sort of price range, I have no clue about that but nothing that cost more than my digital rebel!! It would be too envious. Thanks.

 

[justleesa]

I have a samll HP printer that prints 4x6, the cost for one pic on good paper is about 50¢ - at my LPS I am charged 30¢. Although I am not 100% happy with the cropping, I am much happier with the quaility I get compared to my printer (whinch I only use in emergencies). I was looking into something bigger but the prints of an 8x10 were only ones cheaper than at my LPS.

I have tried getting pictures printed online and was disappointed with almost every delivery that I received (ordered at least 10 or more times - and more than half of the orders were either unsatisfactory or just never showed up). I found that my small family run LDS had the best quality and service. AND - No waiting for a week for them to show up with the mail.....I wait about 10 - 15 minutes and get my prints right then and there!

For me LPS is the way to go and home printing in emergencies.

 

[SubMariner]

Maybe not the place to post this but as I am not a member of any photography forums, I thought I would try y'all. What sort of photo printers do people have? I know that my sister has an Epson that has nine cartridges in it (can't remember the model - stylus photo r800, I think) but she lives in England so I can't take advantage of that. I was looking at buying one but also worried about the actual cost to print a photgraph and whether they are comparable to these online printers that you can easily find. What are the biggest print sizes that they can do also? I know that someone will ask what sort of price range, I have no clue about that but nothing that cost more than my digital rebel!! It would be too envious. Thanks.

We have the Epson Photo Stylus 1280 that we regularly use for 8" x 10" prints. On photo-quality glossy paper (coincidentally, the best of which is also by Epson) the results are every bit as good as what we could get from a local photo outlet. The max size it will print with decent res is about 14" x 23" (I think, but don't quote me).

This particular model has a black cartridge & a colour cartridge (r/y/cyan/blue). Good results can be had using Rhino or OEM replacements.

Hope this was of some help,

 

[Kim]

The cost of desktop printing is generally the ink cost - and that varies greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer. Epson is probably the cheapest. The new Epsons (sorry I can't say model numbers as in Japan they are different) use several individual cartridges - as you said. The advantage of this is that if only one color runs out then you can just replace one color cartridge rather than a larger combined colors cartridge which is much more expensive. However - that said, it's sometimes easier to get discounted prices on slightly older cartridges so your best bet is to look around first.
Personally I would only buy Epson.

 

[Scubatooth]

leesa just a question have you profiled your printer yet to get the colors accurate and the way you would like them? or did i just do a information overload on you?

sub the 1280 will do max of 13x44 inch prints, and you can go larger if you use the proper Raster image processor or RIP.

for the printing i do at home its done on a epson 2200 for which i have no problems with it at all and the prints look great (thanks to so very good color management and calibration that i have done) thanks to the profiles that i had made for them. personally there are only a couple of papers that i use and they are Epson Enhanced Matte, Semigloss, and lustre papers (these are the professional media papers) and then Red River Paper Polar Matte. Mainly i use matte papers as i like the look for most prints (except fo the UW images i have worked on then they look better on lustre(for inkjet) or Fuji crystal archieve for photo prints.

Now if im getting prints done on photo paper there are two online places i use and they are WHCC.com (white house custom color) and Mpix.com (a division of miller labs, one of the US's most well know professional labs in the US). i mainly use WHCC for my color and digital work (for personal and school) as they use fuji crystal archieve which some of the best and most archival photo paper on the market. Then i use Mpix for there kodak digital BW paper and for the Metallic paper that has a peral shine to it that makes some images really come alive


some links below

www.whcc.com
www.mpix.com
http://www.redrivercatalog.com/
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/pamPaperFinder.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes

FWIW

Tooth

 

[Dee]

I've been very unhappy with the results from my old HP Deskjet 712C, although it was listed as a photo printer when I bought it. The main disappointment is the color is never correct. And yes, Tooth, I have calibrated my monitor and profiled the printer WAY more than once. I've had other photo $$ priorities and haven't done much researching to replace it.

I've had some photos printed at the local LPS and while the colors were OK, they weren't exactly accurate. They have no clue what U/W colors should look like and the corrections they make is all wrong. At the time I didn't understand about the cropping they do so I wasn't pleased with that. Now, if I'm going to print something, I crop it to 4x6 myself...or whatever size I need.

My best results have been with Ofoto.com. When compared to the photos on my monitor they are exactly the same. I think I paid 29¢ each for 4x6. The prints took about 4-5 days to get here. In the future I will use them again, it's just too easy.

 

[mjh]

Just got an HP Photosmart 8450, so far so good. Have printed some top quality 8x10s. It has 3 unique ink cartridges so if you run out of black you don't have to by all new ones as w/some photo printers.

 

[DesertEagle]

I use a minilab with prints with Fuji supergloss polyester-based paper. It's the closest thing to cibacrhome/ilfochrome.

If I were buying a printer for home use it would be the Epson R800. It uses pigment-based inks that won't fade. Don't worry about DPI resolution. Droplet size is the key. This model has a droplet of 1.5 or 2 picoliters. You won't be disapointed.

 

[SubMariner]

Don't worry about DPI resolution. Droplet size is the key. This model has a droplet of 1.5 or 2 picoliters. You won't be disapointed.

This is a a VERY good point! Thanks for bringing it up!

 

[ReyeR]

For A4 size I use an Epson 810 inkjet - pictures printed on Premium Semigloss Photo Paper are stunning! Biggest PITA is the nozzle cleaning you have to perform if you don't use it regularly. The 810 has 2 cartridges - black and colour (which contains 5 inks CMY + LC + LM). If one ink in the colour cartridge runs out I have to change the entire colour cartridge. Look for a printer which has separate cartridge for every ink colour.

For 4x6 I use an Olympus P10 dye-sub printer (won in a comp). Unfortunately they don't have a choice of paper types to choose from.