I am wondering what printer to get fro printing out good quality photos? I dont even know where to start and was also wondering what printers you people have and what you lik/dislike about them...
I only have experience with Epson color printers. The Stylus Photo 700EX is what I've used for several years, but I bought my wife a $179 C80 and it is really great. I'm talking about the output. Other printers may be faster or have other advantages, but the output of the Epsons at their highest resolution and on the best papers can be amazing. And the prices are dirt-cheap on most every brand now compared to just a few years ago, so you can't go very wrong. Go to a store where you can see different brands compared and try to get a demo on really good paper to get a good idea what you want. Good luck!
Epson. Aside from quality, there are a number of third party vendors that delevop and sell goodies like ICC profiles and archival grade inks for Epson printers. There are also a number of web sites dedicated to fine art printing from Epson printers.
Depends how much you want to spend. I use Tektronix Phaser 780s at work and they print very very well, but slow for a laser printer. You can probably pick one up used for about $3000 or so. The 790 and 800 series are more expensive.
For $15,000 you can get a fiery system that includes it's own dedicated RIP and a CLC 1120 Canon color copier that prints blindingly fast.. in color.. with the best image quality I have ever seen.
Epson is the best. I had an Epson Photo 700, and loved it, but recently replaced it with the newer Epson Photo 820 (I had to have that OSX compatibility . . .). Both give amazing results consistantly. Epson also makes one of my favorite papers, the Epson Photo Quality Paper. NOT the photo paper. This stuff looks like regular paper, but gives the results of a photo paper at a much lower cost. Great for proofs, and for things that you don't want on a heavy paper.
I like the photo printers (5 colours). They are slower that the other Epson printers, but the slightly better quality is worth the wait.
If you're printing photos, be sure to go with a 6-color printer, and not a 4 color. I have a 4 color Epson 900, and the quality of some outdoor shots is poor.
The 6 color Canon printers are great, as are the Epson 6 color printers. I give the edge to the Canons because of the individual ink tanks.
i cant believe everyone likes their epson photo 700!!! i have one too, and while the photo quality is pretty nice, the text looks AWFUL. also, the colors were hard to calibrate, and are sometimes off. mechanically, it has been fine, just maybe one problem with the print head flying off, but i was able to put it back on.
i recently bought a HP deskjet 960, which has great photos and text. they also have the photosmart models which can print directly from your memory/flash card or memory stick and have a built-in screen. since i always edit on the computer, i didnt feel the need to get spend the extra dough.
anyway, go test them out. the only thing i can say is that i think the epson ink cartridges are cheaper. (but mine never lasted too long anyway...)
I just bought an HP 960, and I love it. Cost efficient (and good quality) for text, and beautiful photos (in my opinion). Although the epson ink cartriges are cheaper, they hold less ink (ESPECIALLY the 6-color) and they have the print head seperate from the cartridge, meaning that you may need to replace this after about a year or two (I think - anyone have experience with this?).
But that's just my opinion with some educated guesses, not necessarily facts
I sell both Epsons and HPs. My choice is the HP 960 if you plan on doing any text work at all. The 960 has better balance between text and photo quality. They are also quieter and you don't have to clean the print heads every other day.
As for Epsons the C80 is the only one I would consider. Its probably the best printer they have ever made. I still prefer the HP, but the C80 would be my second choice-much cheaper for color printing because of the seperate tanks..................
Let's see...so far we have a price range of $179 to $15,000. I bet you can find something in there worth using!
mac's girl...I only use my Photo Stylus 700 for photo applications, not for text, so I can't really say how it compares to other printers in that regard. I use a laser printer for black and white text. Yes, color can be off and hard to calibrate, but that is normal with most printers,
to a greater or lesser degree. Since the 700 came out, there have been improvements made by Epson, thus the C80 can be so cheap and provide such high-quality output.
Even though the C80 is a 4-color printer, I think it's output is decent enough for photos. I have both a Stylus Photo 870 and a C80 and I have to look really hard to see a difference in color.
I have a HP Deskjet 932c which I picked up at Staples about a year ago for ~$180. I really love it and it prints wonderful full color shots (taken with my Olympus Camedia 3000z) and very easy to read text.
The drivers are rock-solid in 9 & X, and provide you with all the options you'll ever need.
The only thing that I don't like is the retarded design of the paper tray, but subsequent revisions have improved that dramatically. I would suggest something out of their 940 lineup.
BTW-their cartridges have good capacity, and won't break the bank. I don't do much printing, but I've only gone through one full black and one full color cartridge in the time that I've owned the printer.
I have to agree with mac girl's comments about the Epsons.
While their drivers are good and support is great, the colors (default) on the C80 are pretty bad. It took me over an hour to get my settings correct to properly match what I was seeing on screen. The default setting is just way to dull and dark.
That said, once I got it right it's a great printer. Fast, nice text, fair photo quality (after much tinkering) and I love the 4 seperate cartridges.
I haven't had it long enough to test out the life of the ink cartridges. Hopefully they last a while.
seperare ink tanks mean little when each cartridge costs so damn much. I was looking at getting an HP 1700 with individual tanks but each tank cost about 22 bucks I think.
color for my epson photo 750 costs about 18 and black 20. lasts reasonably long and produces great quality.
I'm hoping they release a cheaper photo wide format printer though. 500 for the 1280 is hard to swallow considering its only advantage over the 199 model is wide format printing
Ya know, i dont think i've ever tested a canon printer. maybe i will before i open my HP printer up. if epson even planned to come out with OS X drivers for the photo 700 anytime soon, i might be less inclined to throw it out the window. and i cant find a serial-to-USB converter that doesnt cost at least half the price of a new printer. (i dont WANT to spend the money on a new printer, but it seems to be the most reasonable answer so far.) but my resume would still look like crap...so i'd have to buy a laser if i kept the epson. so thats not a cheaper solution.
plus, i can get a seventy-five dollar rebate with my HP 960 since i just bought a new imac, and HP will offer rebates if you buy any eligible HP product and any new computer (even from apple). offer expires at the end of this month i believe. so the HP printer comes out to be really cheap after the rebate. (in the end, it always comes down to money, doesnt it?)
anyway, i learned one thing after trying to calibrate the color on the epson printer for 3 years... dont wear red.
I finally got tired of doing endless cleaning cycles on my Epson 700 and gave it away to some poor friends. I have been researching a new printer and have pretty much decided on going Canon. I am most impressed with prints from Canons and I like the seperate ink tanks. Also I have seen tests that show Canon the cheapest to operate for consumables.
dpreview.com has a forum on printers and digital photography and I have found it most helpful for reasearching others experiences.
We use Epson printers at the office and at home. Both are wide format. At the computer shops here in Japan they have thick books full of prints from all the local brands. Epson has the best color prints. HP makes the best b&w text output (though not as good as it used to be). We've had one printer for two years and another for about a year. Both have worked flawlessly.
In the last couple years all ink-jets have gotten much better. If your needs are not very demanding probably any of them will be useful.
To get good color reproduction you do need to do a little work and testing. The drivers for OS 9 offer more options. I've found that the digital camera option really does improve images taken with the Nikon CP950, sometimes dramatically so.
Mostly we print short runs of brochures from Quark Express and for this purpose they work great though more speed would be appreciated.
With all ink-jets the prints will fade unless you seal them behind glass or in plastic envelopes.
Comments
When printers are as cheap as they are today, it makes no difference.
I have a Stylus C80. It rocks.
[ 03-15-2002: Message edited by: Eugene ]</p>
For $15,000 you can get a fiery system that includes it's own dedicated RIP and a CLC 1120 Canon color copier that prints blindingly fast.. in color.. with the best image quality I have ever seen.
I like the photo printers (5 colours). They are slower that the other Epson printers, but the slightly better quality is worth the wait.
The 6 color Canon printers are great, as are the Epson 6 color printers. I give the edge to the Canons because of the individual ink tanks.
i recently bought a HP deskjet 960, which has great photos and text. they also have the photosmart models which can print directly from your memory/flash card or memory stick and have a built-in screen. since i always edit on the computer, i didnt feel the need to get spend the extra dough.
anyway, go test them out. the only thing i can say is that i think the epson ink cartridges are cheaper. (but mine never lasted too long anyway...)
But that's just my opinion with some educated guesses, not necessarily facts
~bauman
As for Epsons the C80 is the only one I would consider. Its probably the best printer they have ever made. I still prefer the HP, but the C80 would be my second choice-much cheaper for color printing because of the seperate tanks..................
mac's girl...I only use my Photo Stylus 700 for photo applications, not for text, so I can't really say how it compares to other printers in that regard. I use a laser printer for black and white text. Yes, color can be off and hard to calibrate, but that is normal with most printers,
to a greater or lesser degree. Since the 700 came out, there have been improvements made by Epson, thus the C80 can be so cheap and provide such high-quality output.
The drivers are rock-solid in 9 & X, and provide you with all the options you'll ever need.
The only thing that I don't like is the retarded design of the paper tray, but subsequent revisions have improved that dramatically. I would suggest something out of their 940 lineup.
BTW-their cartridges have good capacity, and won't break the bank. I don't do much printing, but I've only gone through one full black and one full color cartridge in the time that I've owned the printer.
-Ender
While their drivers are good and support is great, the colors (default) on the C80 are pretty bad. It took me over an hour to get my settings correct to properly match what I was seeing on screen. The default setting is just way to dull and dark.
That said, once I got it right it's a great printer. Fast, nice text, fair photo quality (after much tinkering) and I love the 4 seperate cartridges.
I haven't had it long enough to test out the life of the ink cartridges. Hopefully they last a while.
color for my epson photo 750 costs about 18 and black 20. lasts reasonably long and produces great quality.
I'm hoping they release a cheaper photo wide format printer though. 500 for the 1280 is hard to swallow considering its only advantage over the 199 model is wide format printing
plus, i can get a seventy-five dollar rebate with my HP 960 since i just bought a new imac, and HP will offer rebates if you buy any eligible HP product and any new computer (even from apple). offer expires at the end of this month i believe. so the HP printer comes out to be really cheap after the rebate. (in the end, it always comes down to money, doesnt it?)
anyway, i learned one thing after trying to calibrate the color on the epson printer for 3 years... dont wear red.
dpreview.com has a forum on printers and digital photography and I have found it most helpful for reasearching others experiences.
In the last couple years all ink-jets have gotten much better. If your needs are not very demanding probably any of them will be useful.
To get good color reproduction you do need to do a little work and testing. The drivers for OS 9 offer more options. I've found that the digital camera option really does improve images taken with the Nikon CP950, sometimes dramatically so.
Mostly we print short runs of brochures from Quark Express and for this purpose they work great though more speed would be appreciated.
With all ink-jets the prints will fade unless you seal them behind glass or in plastic envelopes.