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.

 

[MossRoad]

The actual costs of good color printing at home can far outway the cost of the trip to the Walgreens as you mentioned, where the 4x6 prints are as little as 20 cents a poke. Be sure to add up the total costs of printing. That includes the cost of the printer, the ink cartridges and the paper. See if you can find how many prints the cartridges are rated for, etc...

We have an Epson for color printing of school stuff and things like that. Their inks look great years later. I like them better than the HPs that I have seen.

 

[Tractors4u]

I would definately do some cropping, color fixing, and etc. We have been without a color printer for a while and she wants something to do photos with. We had a Compaq printer that came with our first computer that finally died. It did print some nice photos when you used photo paper even though it was a cheapo printer. I think she likes the idea of the small handy size portable printer such as the Epson and others like it. If she wants to sit in the living room with her laptop and print photos while she watches TV or whatever. Most of the 4X6 printers I have seen spec out at about 29 cents per print. I still like the idea of one that can print 8X10's that I take with the Rebel Digital 6 mega pixel. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Bob_Skurka]

Sounds like you need 2 printers!

 

[SkyPup]

We have a professional Epson P2000 color ink jet photographic printer with 150 year archival inks, it is difficult to tell the difference between it and a Kodak 100ASA color print. I would highly recommend Epson for professional result.

We had a professional ALPS dye sublimation printer prior to the Epson for professional color prints, it was okay but not reliable and trashed it after only one year.

The HP inkjet printers have come a long way lately with new inks that resist photo-oxidation and ultraviolet crossbonding of the aromatic components of the ink. We use a couple of different HP DeskJets for normal photo printing that is not archival professional quality.

Remember, the price of the printer itself is nothing compared to the paper and ink you use in it, all the manufacturers know this too....

 

[Logan]

I have to agree with MossRoad. I have tried printing at home and have found it expensive and get mixed results. I printed about eight pages of prints last week and it took almost half the ink in the color cartridge to do it. And I wasted two pages trying to get everything set up. I just got back from Eckerds Drugs and asked about their photo service. They told me to download photos in jpeg format to a CD and they would print the pictures on Kodak paper, just like 35 MM prints, for 29 cents each.

 

[BillG_in_TX]

I have used Ritz Camera for digital photo printing. They do a great job, with professional quality equipment and personnel.

Just today, I tried their on-line service at RitxPix.com. It was fairly painless. Same prices as in-store dropoff, and I'll stop by the store on the way home from work and pick up the finished product (they will mail them, also).

 

[Gatorboy]

<font color="blue"> I have used Ritz Camera for digital photo printing... I tried their on-line service </font>

Sam's, Wal*Mart among others have this same type of service.

 

[frank_f15]

I WILL AGREE with MOSSROAD. I PRINTED A LOT OF PHOTOS ON MY EPSON 890 , GREAT PHOTOS, BUT I FOUND IT IS EASIER AND LESS EXPENSIVE TO TAKE THE DISK to the local store and let them print them i still on occasion print photos if the wife just has to have one real quick, or for special projects.

 

[_RaT_]

Dye sublimation is not necessarily the only way to go for fade resistant, waterproof prints. Epsons R800 usees dye chrome inks as do the 2000 series (which is about to be replaced) as well as their larger format printers. Go to stevesdigicam.com for tons of helpful info. As fade resistant and water proof as the Epson dye chrome is, I still think the inkjets that uses pigmented inks produce superior richer colors which seems to be the concensous (especially Canons i9900, the color is unbelieveable). The problems is that they may fade appreciably in time depending on exposure. If you simply place a print on the refrigerator with a magnet and especially in any amount of sun, it will be a problem. If you mount it and keep it out of the UV, it will last a remarkably long time. If it goes in a photo album, even the pigment inks are lasting for quite some time. The Epson R800 produces very nice photos up to 8X10 full bleed. It will print to a CD as well. For the best in affordable Black & White, nothing compares to the HP 8450. While I use various programs to help with my post processing, the new Photoshop Elements 3 is very good, simple and offers a very good photo database. I use Qiamge for my printing, both programs are relatively inexpensive.

Canon 9900

Epson R800

HP 8450


I use a Canon 300D and primarily print 4X6 on my Epson 800 or HP. I do however print some pretty incredible shots of my 3 year old on 8X10 premium glossy Epson paper. The only other paper (from Epson) recommended for the R800 is Epsons Premium Matte. Neither in the 8X10 size are cheap, but the results from a high image quality like the DRebel etc., can be staggering. I always do a 4x6 test print first as what you see on your screen is never what you get. The problems is screens are RGB or Red Green Blue and printers are CYMK or Cyan Yellow Magenta and Black. Additive and subtractive color issues .

RaT...

 

[SkyPup]

I agree with your comments, I have a dedicated $50,000+ digital desktop publishing setup here in my laboratory for digitized professional scientific submissions to peer reviewed journals and the Epson archival inks work much better than the dye sublimation setups. We do fluroescent microscopic photographs of human tumor cell lines as well as reporter gene expression via transgenic viral infections of human cells and the Epson is first class. I have a cloned setup at home so I can work from my home office as well and even some of my friends who are professional photographers come by to learn how to digitize their work! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif