Which printer for digital photography?

I have a canon ip4000r which is a wireless one, but this was only 140 quid. However I can say this with total honesty you will not go wrong with a canon.

I got sick to bloody death of the tie in with epson, all the new printers have chips on the carts which when the printer decides is empty, is empty even if you know its half full.
I don't know if they stopped the practise, it got to a stage where they were being investigated. They also use various crappy laws to get alternative ink companies closed down. All in all a nasty little company.

Lexemark have the printer head in the cartridge, which makes the carts really expensive.

HP are quite good in my experience, but again the carts even from other companies are expensive.

So as I say for me, the canon range are superb. I used alternatives for my canon, its individual ink tanks which I can get for £1.23 a pop. Even if I went the canon route they are only a fiver each, making a full colour £15. Plus they are honest, the carts are clear so you can see how much ink is left and the software will only recommend you replace the ink. Not make you.

Steve

Think laterally and consider using an online lab like Photobox.co.uk

The costs per A4 size print are comparable and if you want a large number of prints made then the lab approach requires significantly less supervision.

The benefit of the local printer is to give you instant (well 5 minutes or so) expensive prints.

And in this case your current Epson will meet your needs unless you want to go larger than A4.

Althought I've got a reasonable Epson printer (stylus 890, the A4 version of the venerable 1290) I've recently switched to using an on-line photo printer - Photobox. I emailed about 200 pics to them last Fri at 8am, cost was 8p per print (for 6"x4") and the prints arrived in the post on Sat morning. I haven't looked too critically at them yet but at first glance the quality seems really good, even the black & white shots, which I've struggled to get right on the inkjet.

I'm guessing that the Epson paper alone costs more than 8p per shot, let alone the ink and the cost of the printer in the first place. Photobox sent me a calibration print so that I can adjust my monitor to match the prints. Overall I'm really impressed.

Just a thought but it may be worth giving them a try before you blow lots of 'hard-earned'

Phil

Thanks for the advice on the online service however I'd much prefer the control I get doing the printing myself, plus it's very rare that I'd ever be printing large quantities at any one time.

My old Epson can still produce decent results but it's had a very hard life and is no longer reliable enough so definitely needs replacement anyway.

If I were you I would goto a PC world or something and check them out, get one of the muppets there to do a test print, but please bear in mind what I have said regarding Epson, it might make you go really f**King mad, it certainly did with me.

I have not had a single issue with canon printers. (I don't work for them BTW )

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
If I were you I would goto a PC world or something and check them out, get one of the muppets there to do a test print, but please bear in mind what I have said regarding Epson, it might make you go really f**King mad, it certainly did with me.

I was in PC world at the weekend and they only appeared to have lower end printers on display.

quote:

I have not had a single issue with canon printers. (I don't work for them BTW )

I've seen some good reviews of Canon printers recently however I will admit to being somewhat biased against them because the early bubblejet printers they made were total crap.

I can't say I've had much in the way of problems with my Epson or HP inkjets so they would always be my first choice. The R800 I was thinking about has 8 seperate ink tanks which I like, plus I've read that the Epson inks last a lot longer without fading than others.

I've found a couple of sites with reviews but at the price range I'm considering it does appear that Canon, Epson and HP are the only real options.

Looks like both Epson and Canon let you upload a digital image which they'll print on the printer you're interested and then send you the results for review. I think I'll give that a try which will also allow me to compare them to my current printer.

Having used all four over many years, I prefer HP to Canon Lexmark and Epson. BUT, I have seen the light and use a lab now. You say you want to retain "control" but a good lab will work with your parameters if you choose to send them, to give much more consistent results (and cheaper in the long run). I doubt if you are able to match your camera/software/monitor/printer calibrations to the same extent as a pro lab. So your "control" is actually likely to be variable.
I keep an HP printer for the occasional instant pic, but it's use as a photographic printer is getting rarer and rarer as I get used to the lab. My favourite isPeak

Honestly, I've absolutely no interest in having a lab do the prints for me.

In all honesty if you haven't got a colour profiling device that you can use on your monitor AND the output of a printer then I wouldn't bother because it's a royal pain in the arse trying to get these to match, and you will waste a load of time, ink, and paper on trial and error. In all likelihood you probably won't get much closer either since the basis you have for comparison is probably wrong in the first place!

Assuming that you have something like a Colour Spyder or Gretag Macbeth, I would ignore what Garyi says and look at an Epson with a continuous ink system such as the Lyson system. This basically replaces the Epson cartridges with a chipped unit connected by a tube to a bottle of ink - it always reads as a full cartridge so you never have to replace part-empty cartridges and you top up as required so you never run out half way through a print job. Expensive to start with but it quickly pays for itself.

Some info here:

http://www.robertwhite.co.uk/Lyson.htm#CISpack

May be possible to track down cheaper CIS units on the internet which do the same job, but continuous ink is the way to go.

iDunno I agree that these systems appear be great, however what I am reading from Steve is that he wants a printer to hide somewhere in the home office for occasional photo prints, a hacked Epson with coloured bottles every where and tubes is possibly against what he wants to achieve.

BTW I would agree the photo prints from Epsons is also very good I am not denying that, I just get right royally pissed with the tie in and the fact my epson constantly got clogged up until in the end I just gave up with it and that was not a lower range one either.

Photo prints from the Lexemark I had were absolutely appalling, infact so bad I would imagine it was a poor driver or something.

I got the example prints back from Canon and Epson and while both were very good they weren't night and day better than my old Stylus Photo is producing so I'm going to continue with that until it finaly dies.