Printers? Need to show off the pics of my tractor

Gatorboy · Nov 11, 2003

If you want to print photos, you should go with a <font color="blue"> Dye Sublimation Printer </font>. I bought my wife an Olympus P400 printer for Christmas, so it is sitting hidden in a closet right now. As you can see from the link, I bought it on eBay and paid just under $275 for it.

I can't wait for Christmas so she can try it out! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

OkeeDon · Nov 11, 2003

Some of them (not necessarily all) come with starter ink kits that aren't as full as the replacements.

I've gone through a few Epsons and Cannons that have quit for no reason; still have the old HP's, not the best for photo work but very reliable.

I needed a new scanner, so I recently picked up a Lexmark X75 combo scanner/printer (that will also scan/print to make a copy) for about $50 on sale at Wally World, and it's a good, basic, workday printer.

A little off-topic, but 98% of the pictures I take are for the web and email; getting my own domain name, server and decent gallery software turns out to make it easier to share my pictures, and cheaper than printing them. When I dunked my old Sony Mavica FD71 digital camera in the water not long ago, I replaced it with an identical, used, FD71 from EBay, because it always worked great and the low resolution is good enough for web stuff.

For cost comparison, a domain name is as cheap as 6.95/year (for a 10 year period) at godaddy.com, I got a multi-domain reseller server deal for $250/year at page-zone.com, which I split up between 7 different domains for business and family members, so my single domain cost is a little more than $35/year (I have plenty of space left to split it up some more; the reseller package is 2 gbytes of space and 10 gbytes of transfer), and I got an excellent gallery program called phpGallery for free from sourceforge.com. While my pictures are nothing to write home about, you can see my gallery at Horner Family Gallery.

gsganzer · Nov 11, 2003

The HP 7550 is being discontinued and can be found at a good bargain price. These were top rated. I bought an HP 7760 a few weeks ago and have been real happy with it.

Golfgar4 · Nov 11, 2003

Yup, I'll agree with that! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

We have a HP 7550 that we use to print out pictures of some of our framed art work so we can show clients various framing techniques and samples. It works great!

Bob_Skurka · Nov 11, 2003

DYE SUBLIMATION PRINTERS ARE THE ONLY REAL CHOICE FOR LONGEVITY AND QUALITY PHOTOS Any printer that uses ink cartriges will fade. Several computer magazines have pointed this fact out in their reviews.

We do a lot of photo printing at work.

We have an HP Photosmart 7550, the prints fade badly when using the special photo paper from OfficeDepot (cheap). The prints fade pretty badly when using Kodak photo paper (mid-priced). The prints fade slowly when using HP photo paper (expensive) but they still fade very noticably over time.

We are so dissatisfied with the HP Photosmart 7550 for printing PHOTOS we moved it to the credit manager's office and he uses it for printing black and white documents. Don't misunderstand, the printer does a fine job printing all sorts of things, but if you want a PHOTO that your grandkids will still be able to look at years from now, don't bother.

We also have SEVERAL different models of EPSON photo printers, the results are basically the same as the HP photo printers. Not worth the effort and expense. All the EPSON and HP printers produce very nice prints with the right paper, but over time, especially if you mount the picture on a wall where it is exposed to light, the pictures fade. The more sun, the faster they fade. Keep them in a box and they may keep for years, but what is the point of printing them if they are going in a box?

The only printer we found that will NOT FADE when the prints are exposed to normal room lighting for over a year is a DYE SUBLIMINATION printer. We are using a Canon brand printer, but there are some other brands. These printers are TYPICALLY dedicated photo printers and TYPICALLY print size is limited. However, quality is AS GOOD as you get from a photo-lab using regular 35mm film. The prints are water proof so a splash will not harm them, in fact you can run them under water if your kid throws some spaghetti-o's against the wall and hits your favorite picture (don't ask how I know that!!!). Our Canon cost $199. I don't advocate it as a specific brand, it is by far the best we found and it works very well for us. I would suggest any of the brands such as Olympus, Canon or Sony would be safe bets as long as you go with the Dye-Sub printers.

Bob_Skurka · Nov 11, 2003

By the way, my last post was pretty opinionated and I don't want to offend anyone, but we have spent several thousand dollars on probably more than a dozen different models of photo printers over the past 3 years, we have essentially thrown out or relegated to other duties every one of the printers we bought specifically for photo printing except for the dye sublimation printer. We have photos from the dye sub pritner that are 15+ months old that look just as crisp as the day they were printed. We have prints from the vaious ink-jets that are unacceptably and badly faded that are less than 1 year old, showing a yellow cast to them with the whites and grays faded into white blobs.

IF you use an ink-jet type photo printer, ONLY buy the factory recommended INK and ONLY buy the factory recommended paper. The factory inks are formulated to work with the factory papers, if you use Epson Paper with No-Name ink, or HP Ink with No-Name paper or some other combination of those things then you are simply asking for trouble. You save money on supplies but end up reprinting your pictures so they cost you double . . . or triple. And the factory supplies are expensive, they factory ink and factory paper can easily add up to double the cost of the printer in less than 1 year.

So if I sound opinionated, I am. If I offend anyone, I am sorry. However, I've spent the money over and over and over and over and over again and been disappointed each time. We use ink jet and laser printers all over our office complex and all are good printers for printing documents, not a single one of them is worth using for printing a photo.

Golfgar4 · Nov 11, 2003

Hi Bob!

The photos we print out are only used in a portfolio that we have to let clients look through. When it's not being used, it's closed and kept in a closet. So fading really isn't a problem - at least that we've noticed! /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

We do use both HP and Kodak photo paper, whichever we find on sale. We change the pictures in the portfolio often enough that I don't think we need to worry about fading.

Eventually, we plan on getting software for the computer that will serve as a "library" type of system. We can load in the photos of artwork (or whatever) and categorize them. then when a client wants to see a specific kind of art, or certain artist, or whatever, we can just do a search for what's specified and view them on the computer screen. It will dramatically reduce the need to use the photo printer. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

hazmat · Nov 11, 2003

Thanks to everybody for the info so far. looks like I've got some homework to do.

Bob - thanks to your company for spending thousands /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif to figure this out so I don't have to. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

We have brought a CD/memory stick to wally world for printing, but the closest one is 20 minutes away - not very convenient. I haven't tried emailing/uploading any to an online place.

Bob_Skurka · Nov 11, 2003

Hazmat, the problem with taking your memory stick to Wallyworld is that every one of the printers you test will look really good the day you print it. 6 months from now you may find that you are totally dissatisfied with some, or all of the prints.