Photo Printers

[RBFC]

As an alternative Christmas gift idea I have, my wife has been interested in getting a very good photo printer for some time. We have an HP all-in-one color laser printer model 2840. It does a great job as fax, regular text printer, and copier. However, its performance when using photo-quality paper is abysmal. Perhaps we have neglected some particular setting, but this problem has remained throughout all our attempts to get good photos. The photos will be printed from the iPhoto library in her computer, after download from her Nikon D50 camera. Typically, the color is lousy on the printed photos while it is fine on the monitor.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Lee

 

[DonH50]

I have color laser. Unless you lay out a LOT of money, they are only good for business copies.

What is you budget?

I have an older Canon that was tops in its day, but Canon/Epson and sometime HP are always duking it out for top dog...

The Imaging Resource has some reviews: http://www.imaging-resource.com/

 

[amirm]

Photo quality is excellent in all printers these days. It comes down to speed, reliability and compatibility. The latter is with respect to using different papers.

There are so many models that whenever I am in a mood to buy one I go and read the reviews at cnet, pcmag and pc world. I triangulate them and then pick one.

As much I used to swear by Epson, if you don't use it often its heads tend to clog. The Canons don't do this as much and I believe HP is the same.

 

[Bruce B]

I have an HP57?? All-in-one printer and it does excellent photo printing. Most color printers these days do an awsome job. Just have to make sure you go into your settings to select the correct photo paper and you always want "Best" resolution. Mine lets me set dpi as well.

 

[rblnr]

I happen to like Epson and Canon photo printers a bit better than HP, but it's entirely subjective. Luminous-landscape.com is another source for very good reviews. I own a Brother color laser in addiiton to my Epson R1900 -- it's a great machine for what it does and more expensive than the Epson, but it can't touch it for photo quality.

As much I used to swear by Epson, if you don't use it often its heads tend to clog. The Canons don't do this as much and I believe HP is the same. As much I used to swear by Epson, if you don't use it often its heads tend to clog.

Yeah, my old Epson R800 used to clog alot -- cleaning the heads meant going thru a lot of ink which is annoying and expensive. Some new Epsons have larger ink cartridges which is good news. Other things to think about -- download paper profiles for your printer if avail. The ICC profiles for my Epson for different kinds of paper make a difference. And even if your screen is perfectly calibrated, you will go thru some trial and error to get the results on it to match your output. When using iPhoto for example, I know I have to give over color control to the printer, and bump up my brightness and saturation in the printer control a few points. Printing in Photoshop changes this somewhat.

 

[DonH50]

Photo quality is excellent in all printers these days. It comes down to speed, reliability and compatibility. The latter is with respect to using different papers.

There are so many models that whenever I am in a mood to buy one I go and read the reviews at cnet, pcmag and pc world. I triangulate them and then pick one.

As much I used to swear by Epson, if you don't use it often its heads tend to clog. The Canons don't do this as much and I believe HP is the same.

I would qualify this with excellent in all photo printers, which are for the masses virtually all inkjet.

All inkjets have problems with heads clogging; it is best to run a copy through now and then. I have tossed two low-end printers in the past three years because they sat or did nothing but B/W text and the heads clogged. It was cheaper to buy another printer than replace the heads.

Historically Canon has offered better (higher) image quality and Epson better print life (different formulations). HP has been up and down enough that I don't really look at them (OK, I am also biased by what the company business-wise has done in the past few years).

Epson and Canon have some excellent printers in the $500 to $1000+ range; below that I tend to agree with Amir that it doesn't really matter. BUT, I have personally found that true only to a point: the very low end printers with a couple of ink tanks do not have nearly the color space of those with 6 - 12 cartridges. But oh my! does ink get expensive, especially when I only print now and then so end up throwing out many dry cartridges with lots of ink left.

My old Canon (i9900) I got for its image quality and ability to do large prints -- which, of course, I haven't done, and the full version of Photoshop I got and upgraded until a few years ago has seen hardly any use as well -- too many toys, too little time!

 

[Greg_R]

All inkjets have problems with heads clogging; it is best to run a copy through now and then. I have tossed two low-end printers in the past three years because they sat or did nothing but B/W text and the heads clogged. It was cheaper to buy another printer than replace the heads.

+1. I know many professional photographers send their work out to various photo labs. I prefer a decent color laser for home use (make sure the driver support is good) because the ink doesn't dry out or clog. As for photo labs, our local Costco surprisingly has very high end hardware... if it is calibrated correctly they can product very high quality prints. Find out where your local photographers send their work and use that location.

 

[WDB]

I had an HP Designjet 130 wide format printer that I could leave sit for six months and then print a photo without having to do a head cleaning, I have thrown away many Epsons for head clogging. I had an Epson pigment printer that was great for printiing long lasting photos but it had to be used often or it would clog and I got tired of wasting ink doing head cleanings. If you are not concerned about print life just about any photo printer will give you great photos.

 

[amirm]

I was in a hurry to print something at our vacation house and bought an Epson all-in-one against my better judgement as it will get very infrequent use there. Will report back as to whether the head clogging issue is still there.