Photo Printer Recommendations

[Tractors4u]

My wife saw a commercial for an Epson photo printer. It prints 4X6 inch photos only. I am thinking about getting her one for Christmas. Do any of you have experience with these printers? Yes I do know that she can go to Wal Mart or one of many other places and print from a memory card on their equipment. This is something she wants, kinda like that tractor I wanted. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Bob_Skurka]

Brent, if you are considering a 4x6 photo printer, I would strongly recommend a dye sublimation photo printer. The prints don't fade like the ink printer prints. (yea, I know they are making great strides in photo ink, but they are not as good as dye sublimation) Several companies make dye sub photo printers, you might have to shop for one made by the company that made your digital camera. Prices seem to run about $140 to about $200. I have dye sub prints on my office wall that are a couple years old with no visible fading, and I have ink jet prints on my wall that look like someone soaked them in bleach because they are so faded.

 

[Tractors4u]

Thanks Bob. I have never heard of dye sublimation but I will look for it. Here is the one she saw, Epson Picture Mate.

 

[Bob_Skurka]

My brother has one like you are looking at, only it is from last Christmas so it probably uses different ink. He is happy with the ease of printing but has experienced the same fading problems I did.

As for the dye sublimation printers, I have a Canon CP 300 at the house that gets a lot of use (it has been replaced in their line by the CP330). I have an older model at work, but can't remember the model number.

They have several models, I'm not sure what will or won't work for you. They can print direct from a camera or when connected to a computer. Canon does NOT make a dye-sub model that accepts direct connection to memory cards like the Epson your wife saw.

By the way, dye sub prints are waterproof too!

CP 330 Printer

Similar printers are available from Olympus, Panasonic, Sony, etc.

Here is a link to an article about photo printers of all types :
Shortcourses Photo Printer Page

 

[frank_f15]

EPSON printers are Great! just make sure for best quality prints to use epson ink AND epson paper. and be sure she wants to be locked in to printing 4x6 photos only.

 

[Tractors4u]

TBN is always the place to go for abstract info. You guys have given me a great start. She want hold in the hand pictures from our digital camera. I need to see if I can pry some more details from her. I would like to print 8X10's with it because we just got a Rebel Digital, but it is HER Christmas present.

 

[Golfgar4]

Brent,

I understand that your wife wants one that prints out the one size (4X5?) picture, but wouldn't she be open to something with a little more flexibility?

We have a HP Deskjet 5550 color photo quality printer that we just love. I believe we paid something like $149.00 for it. When we print on photo paper, you can't tell the difference between the 35mm developed in a photo lab and our prints.

Now I don't suppose it uses the kind of ink that Bob was talking about, so maybe fading might become a problem. We've not noticed any fading yet , and we've had the printer for well over a year.

The nice thing is that we can print any size pictures that we want, and we can mix and match them. For example, if we download 4 pictures, we can print all 4 on one page and then we have to cut them apart (the only real down side I see to it). Or, we can print 2 copies each of 2 pictures, or 4 copies of 1 picture, or whatever.

I just printed out a bunch of pictures I took of our church's Holiday Bazaar and we posted them in the Narthex for viewing. I actually had a member who worked on the bazaar come up to me and ask when we had the photographer in to take the pictures! /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Anyway, your wife might actually appreciate the greater flexibility of a printer that allows for the printing of larger pictures.

Geesh, didn't know getting a photo printer was going to be as hard as getting a tractor, did you!? /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[reb]

Another consideration is flexibility. Some of the printers I have seen advertised take the picture directly from the camera or the memory card. If you use one that operates from your computer, you can crop, compensate for under or over exposure, adjust brightness and contrast, and generally make better quality pictures.

 

[jinman]

Brent, before you spend $199 on the Epson photo printer, look at the Epson R320. It can print directly on CDs as well as on paper. It has slots built in for most camera memory cards and a USB port you can plug any card reader into. It has a pop-up LCD screen where you can preview your pictures before you print them. Cost? $199 at Best Buy. I just bought one for my company and I really like it. It uses 6 ink cartridges. Check it out. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[Gatorboy]

<font color="blue"> If you use one that operates from your computer, you can crop, compensate for under or over exposure, adjust brightness and contrast, and generally make better quality pictures. </font>

My thought exactly. If you are serious about printing nice photos from your digital pictures -- you must crop, adjust, etc.