Colorsync & Canon

Hmmm

Garyi, just to be totally boring, unfortunately I don't know what to do having had precious little experience with printing on the Mac.

In fact, I'm in the market for a printer, and am weighing up the same i560 canon, v's one of the new just released epsons, either the C64 or 84. They have four colours with four seperate cartridges, the main claim to fame being this new durabrite pigment ink, which is said to be waterproof/smudgeproof, and very long lasting re fading with time, light, and exposure to air etc.

I've been unable to get text samples, however the photo side of it is good, albeit not as glossy as dye based inks.

My main need is a printer for the likes of email, web pages, pdf documents, and resumes etc, with some photo work - as I intend to get an A3 photo printer later when funds allow. I like the idea of the epson having the seperate long lasting inks, also being optimised for plain paper, it'll save on running cost. Reading around the web, though, the Epsons seem to attract quite a bit of criticism re blocking of the print head, use of ink etc.

I'd be interested in your thoughts/comments re the two brands, as you now have owned both. Would the Canon give a black text result comparable to a laser, or would that be expecting too much?. Also, would it achieve that on plain paper (such as for resumes, business letters etc) or would some sort of specialty paper be required?

As always, your input is much appreciated.

Yours in Macdom,

Warmest Regards

John...

Populist thinking exalts the simplistic and the ordinary

Can you come at it from the opposite direction?

Set the colour on your screen to match the output from the printer then you can "tweak" your images if necessary on the computer.

Of course if that involves work you can't accept ignore the suggestion as useless.

Other comment. Try changing paper type in the print setup window maybe you can "cheat" and get the balance you want by telling the printer it has different paper in it.

GEOFFP

Geoff I may have craked it by doing what you say, its taken a bit of tweaking but output seems good now. Plus of course I found a button which said for the canon to use coloursync, that helped ;-)

John.

I have now had the pleasure, of HP, Epson, canon and Lexmark.

The epson was a good printer and as I said a work horse, however there are some things you need to seriously consider.

Firstly yes the compatibles are dirt cheap, I could get two black and two could for 20 quid. But they wer restricted by the chips, I would say on average I was lucky to get 90 colour pages of normal prints, I.E. not photoes, and it made it very very expensive, I dare to think what originals would cost. The print quality was so so but text had a habit of being laid quite thick onto paper and could blur. They are really noisey and the endles clean cycles will upset you in the end. This is not just me saying this because I have a new printer, but because it genuinly became a problem. Switching on the printer would result in head cleaning, endless problems with lines in print resulted in head cleaning etc. The heads are cleaned by a flimsy looking bit of bloting paper which soon becaomes sodden in ink, which componds problems and the software insures that you CANNOT print once its decided the ink has ran out, even though it hasn't and by cannot I mean that it will tell you to change carts bbefore proceeding.

The lexemark, well in my experience don't even go there, expenive ink because the head is in the cart and appauling print quality, (in fairness this was a reasonably cheap machine I had)

HP, I have generally found them to be very good, although I don't like the fact they have two different types of coulour ink, one for photo one for normal coulour prints, meaning you have to change the inks over for photo printing, harkens back to the good old days.

Canon. Well on this machine nothing to fault so far, its well built and nearly silent in operation. The ink is just in wells as such so if you want you could simply refil these carts although compatibles are very reasonable. It does edge to edge printing on A4 which I have used and is great and its also very fast.

I have to be honest for my money I wish that I had considered canon when I originally bought my epson, I can see very quickly that the print quality is far superior espcially on printed text. One final point my fiance works for Kodak who keep an eye on the printer market and the reason I went for canon is because its top of thir list right now.

This is just my opinions, and bear in mind the epson is one year old technology, you might be chuffed with an epson, ultimatly I was not.

Gary - if colorsynch is working, then it's probably the way to go - but [if I remember correctly] you use Photoshop Elements, and if so, have you run the Adobe Gamma utility which might refine things? Colour profiles generally do your head in - I think the colorsynch system, if it works, might go some way to ending the madness, but you could try it.

Epson are in league with Satan, in my book. They might give the last nth if all you do is print photos on a regular basis with glossy paper, but in the real world, the endless performances of the Epson Symphony, crap plain text, expensive tiny cartridges that lie etc. etc. far outweigh that. Magazine reviews never cover everyday performance or running costs - just speed and ultimate results in a lab situation. Trawling the web for peoples' experiences gives a somewhat different picture.

We use an old B&W HP laser mostly [it's a 4P - a dinosaur in today's terms, originally costing over £700 but it will do 4000 pages on a £40 toner cartridge [this was before the hardware/consumables ratio had become skewed], has never gone wrong and still produces perfect results every time. The fact that it is ten years old and was designed for DOS doesn't seem to bother it]. It's built like a tank. I expect a replacement will cost £120 with lower capacity £90 carts.

As well as this, we always have an A3 colour inkjet for semi-pro artwork. Our Epson had to be chucked because we had the effrontery not to use it for three weeks, by which time the heads had dried up beyond recovery. Having the print head in the cartridge may seem extravagant, but there's a lot to be said for it.

We now have an HP A3 which has been faultless, and isn't especially thirsty. It's actually quite difficult to find reviews of A3 & A2 printers, John, so word of mouth is probably the best you'll get.

throb

I have moved away from printing colour photos at home except for when speed is the essence.

After looking at the cost of printing on an inkjet printer I now have all my prints produced on photgraphic paper, I ftp the files to a lab in London, they print the images and post them back to me first class post. 6by4.5 inch prints cost me 19p plus postage. I can send off multiple hundreds of files and get them back very quickly - far quicker than printing locally. The quality on A4 and A2 work is excellent.

As the images are printed onto Fuji Archival paper the fade resistance is pretty good and I do not have to concern my self with the printer wearing out or becoming obsolete.

So try www.photobox.co.uk a try

I am not involved with Photobox apart from being a satisfied customer.

Just my reactionary 2p

Derek

<< >>

Greetings all

Garyi, thank you for your lucid and most informative comments. These are the things I need to hear whilst my head is spinning with the advt.copy/boasts/claims etc from product brochures - they never tell you the real world picture.

It sounds as if the Epsons have a lot of cleaning cycles, thus using ink, if it does it everytime you turn it on. And yes, I can see how that would become annoying over time. I take it the Canon doesn't use/need such 'rituals'?

From what I've read on Epsons' site re the technical side of it, apparently the cartridges are chipped so that the thing never actually runs empty, as apparently otherwise one gets air in the lines from the cartridge to the printhead, thus causing even more difficulties, apart from the wastage of ink as you point out.

Throbnorth, is the Epson symphony you refer to the start-up cleaning cycles? Having to get rid of a printer because of head clogging beyond repair after three weeks of disuse is bad news IMHO.

I mean, even if you were a regular user, say once a week or so, what would happen if you went on holiday etc? As a matter of interest, was this with the genuine Epson inks as well?

Goodness...

Warmest Regards

John...

Populist thinking exalts the simplistic and the ordinary

John, when I was using my epson daily it was in general fine. But if I left it for a week, then use typically I would need to clea the print heads.

The canon dosn't have this cleaning ritual, you just have to do it manually if the printing gets lines in it. It hasn't yet.

FWIW I don't remember HP or Lexmark having its own clean-up-cycle-evry-time-you-get-near-it.

I agree with Garyi et al - I have an Epson 670 and it's crap, to be honest. As said, photos come out very well (all 3 of them I've bothered to print in the 3 years of ownership!) but normal prints can be quite variable, and that cleaning thing REALLY REALLY REALLY (I can't emphasize that enough!) gets annoying.

Oh, and I used to use Epson original inks as well - that IS damn expensive especially when you know the things are about a third full when the printer claims they're empty. Grrr... I've left mine on for the last 3 months now - it doens't do that cleaning ritual then. It just makes a lot of noise - man those Epsons suck!!!

HP and Canon (I've also had those - older models - briefly) DEFINITELY do NOT have that cleaning PITA ritual - the HP was instant on as well - very nice. I still don't know why I didn't get another HP when I got my last computer... Oh well!

This photobox place - would I get laughed out of town for only using a 1.3 mpixel (an admittedly good one) camera?? Alternatively, what are places like Boots like for prints-from-cards??

__________________________
Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

Domfjbrown

Quality and Photobox prints.

If you read

http://www.photobox.co.uk/quality.html

you will see that there is a section on the reccomended minimum size of image for a given print size.

RE Boots etc. When I last used Boots for printing images from a CD I was very disappointed that they were cropping the image to a 35mm aspect ratio (3by2) regardless of the aspect ratio of the image. With Photobox one can request a print to fit option that ensures that all the image appears on the paper. This was the primary reason for leaving the high street companies. Then the quality of service and product became apparentand I have not been disapointed with Photobox.

I understand that cropping of information from the prints is a problem with other suppliers other than Boots. I did write to the Customer Service dept at Boots complaining about the cropping of the image and they informed me that I did not understand the process or what I needed. So much for the "customer is always right". They of course may have seen the light and do the job properly now

Apart from the quality of Photobox there is the convenience of the process - I collect together all the images I want printed into one directory and then ftp them to an unlimited storage space on the Photobox servers. I then select the images to be printed (all of them) and submit them - If I submit the print order before 4pm I get them back the next day. Unless Mick P's mates (work colleagues) are demonstrating their right to not work.

So I save on driving into town, paying for a car park, hanging around to be served, driving home , driving back the next day, parking the car, hanging around for the prints to be done (they are just being done now Sir) (just like cobblers and shoe repairs) finding them to be cropped badly etc and driving home without the prints. The £1.50 postage is a great saving.

YMMV

Derek

<< >>

John, - yes the symphony is the startup / headcleaning ritual. It's actually quite amusing the first time you hear it. And I always used kosher inks. England isn't by and large a very hot place, so I dread to think how long you could leave an Epson turned off for in Oz....

throb

Hmmmm

Heh, I feel a bit like as the song goes "a candle in the wind' kinda swaying this way and that, back and forth...

I'll eventually get there though...

So, at the moment, I'm swaying a little towards the Canon, as I sure as hell don't want problems if possible with guzzling ink, noise, and/or blocked ink heads.

However, the siren call of an inkjet that approachs a laser, for both text quality, and the smudge, water, and light resistant properties also on offer with the Durabrite Inks, still tugs at me re the Epson C84.

I've managed to get some brochures on all the machines, and am presently waiting for some print samples to be sent out by snail mail for comparison purposes.

Here in OZ, whilst one can see the machines in various retailers, I have yet to find anyone that will actually demo a machine so one can see some text & photos for oneself firsthand, and judge it for noise etc. The usual argument being that there is so little profit/markup etc in them, that to fill one with cartridges etc just devalues it to much to be worth it.

Great service, especially when you're shelling out AUS$290 for the C84/83 Epson, and AUS$245 for the i560 Canon (rrp $299).

Of course prices vary all over the world, but it's still quite a bit of dosh, and I need to be as well informed as possible before plonking down my hard earned.

At this point, it seems as if Canon has got the better hardware, with regards to noise, and maintainence re cleaning/problems with head clogging etc - a pretty important thing if one doesn't want a machine to become an expensive doorstop through lack of regualar use, or conversely having to continually use it to keep it 'moist' as it were, and thus paying out all the time for replacement ink.

On the other hand, these new Durabrite Epson inks seem to be a very worthwhile advance in inkjet technology - provided they live up to the promise of course, and the hardware doesn't drive one nuts by the sounds of things.

Ideally, I think a laser for B&W text, and a good A3 inkjet for photos would be the ideal, but two machines is just not in the budget at the present time, and the extra versatility re media and colour still makes the inkjet an appealing proposition as a general purpose printer.

Still, I wish they were more reliable and trouble free though..


I am looking forward to getting some print samples for the Canon as I mentioned - if anyone has something nice to say about Epson, I'd appreciate an opinion on them..

Thanks so much all

Warmest Regards

John...

Populist thinking exalts the simplistic and the ordinary

John, Kodak as I mentioned earlier do tests on various ink jets as they come out, this is to aid in the devlopment of their papers, you would be suprised but some papers simply will not except some inks and you get a glazing on the surface which looks crap.

Canon (at the moment at least) is winning with the smallest ink drops, leading to the crispest text. Of course technology moves so quickly, but I can't stress enough, even if epsons print quality is better than laser, just don't bother. If you get it don't say people havn't warned you when in a years time after 48000 clean cycles and a million ink carts your heads have disintergrated.

Consider HP as well, they are good printers.

To get a wider expression of views it might be useful to ask a few questions on the discussion forum at

http://www.dp-now.com/index.html

In the not too distant past they did a print cost comparison of the major makes of printers.

I have an Epson - an old one (4-5 years old) - a Photo Stylus so it is pre the chipped cartridge and individual cartridges, I use it for printing sheets of thumbnails and typically I get about 30 A4 sheets per cartridge.
So far I have lost 3 sheets due to clogged jets and the need to run a cleaning cycle - I use all Epson supplies and the printer sits idle for several weeks at a time.

I buy the supplies from "7 day shop" which are quite compettitive in price.

If pushed I would be looking at Epson range first but, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I use outside labs for the majority of the printing as it works out price competitive to home printing.

Apart from the web link above there are quite a few web sites dedicated to printing so I suggest that you Google on Epson and printing and see what you find

Remember what you read on the web is only mechanical hearsay<g>

Derek

<< >>

FWIW my Epson has never clogged, does a brief but not especially noisy clean cycle when I switch it on (ie harldy ever) and sits unused for weeks and shows no ill effects. I never print text but using a specialist photo printer to print lots of text is just plain dumb and if you have this requirement you probably have the wrong printer. Epson's photo printers in particular always do really badly in tests on text printing -- both quality and speed.

From what I can gather from reading reviews, if you want a genral purpose workhorse printer which is great at medium print volumes and does a good quality photo then HP might well be the best best. If you lean more towards the photo printer with some or no text printing (perhaps the odd letter to the bank manager pleading for more funds to buy new cartridges) then you want either an Epson or the Canon.

Personally I am leaning towards the Epson becuase its 7 color ink sets look to give it the edge over the Canon for B&W (which is most of what printing I do). My main decision is whether to go for the A4 950 or stump up the extra £200 for the A3+ 2100.

Then again I have been meaning to buy a new printer for over 2 years so quite possibly I'll do nothing.

Matthew

With respect both Matthew and Derek have stated that their printers are old (in the technical sense), new epson printers are a pain in the arse. Mine is a year old, I can only hope that new software and the chipping has improved, judging by the fact they were pulled up for it would indicate that they are not.

Matthew,

quote:

---

My main decision is whether to go for the A4 950...

---

Make that an i960. The i950, even though it's been on the market for just a few months, has already been succeeded.

Here's a review of the i960, if you're interested.

quote:

---

Personally I am leaning towards the Epson becuase its 7 color ink sets look to give it the edge over the Canon for B&W...

---

Although my i9100 is stunning with colour, I have nagging doubts whether the 2210/2200 might have been the better option for B&W. If that's what you're thinking, too, have a look at this article on Epson's matte black ink (because matte printing is all the rage with B&W artsies). I don't believe you have this ink option with the Canons, so the Epson may be the clear winner for your needs.

Joe

quote:

---

Originally posted by Derek Wright:
If you read

http://www.photobox.co.uk/quality.html

you will see that there is a section on the reccomended minimum size of image for a given print size.

---

Yey - so my antique will still do 6x4 - the biggest I've ever gone to with photos in colour (I have some A4 b&w prints I did in an evening class); I've often thought about getting a better camera but that said, the one I have'll do at that res

My Epson is 4 years old - it's still w*nk...

__________________________
Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

quote:

---

Canon (at the moment at least) is winning with the smallest ink drops, leading to the crispest text. Of course technology moves so quickly, but I can't stress enough, even if epsons print quality is better than laser, just don't bother. If you get it don't say people havn't warned you when in a years time after 48000 clean cycles and a million ink carts your heads have disintergrated.

---

Garyi, I would never blame anyone but myself if I made a choice that I came to regret

Heh, I might be particular in my choices, but I'm also quite open to listening to and taking in the advice/experience of others, as to sorting out what best suits my needs.

Joe, Derek, Matthew et al, thank you for your comments, and also for the links.

OK, here's where I'm at with this. I've been doing heaps of reading around on the net, photo forums and such, as recommended and hence have drawn a few conclusions from that, along with the informed and experienced comment from all here at Naim.

I'm generalising, but my impressions are that for A3, or high end usuage/serious amateur/professional etc the likes of the Epson 2200 are pretty much an almost de-facto standard, or it seems to appear that way. Certainly in fine art photography etc, the high-end Epsons seem to be the main printer of choice re brand.

Conversely, the HP range seems to be the de-facto standard for general office use, with strengths in text/graphics etc, and the Canon being seen to be an ideal all-around general purpose printer. Not withstanding that they make both entry and high level stuff as well, as do HP.

It appears that all inkjet printers are prone to clogging through disuse. The HP/Lexmark can be easily 'cured' by simply replacing the combined print head/ink cartridge (at a cost of course), but thus the running costs are high, re buying a new printhead everytime you have to replace a cartridge when it runs out of ink.

I've been there with the Lexmark connected to the PC, thus as I don't want a repeat of that experience, have ruled out HP or Lexmark. Not that they don't make good printers, but rather that the setup etc doesn't suit me.

OK< now to the crux of it.

Canon or Epson.

I'm leaning rather heavily, (in the wind of indecision ) towards the Canon.

I simply don't want to find myself having to use it constantly, even when I don't 'need' to, to keep it, er, 'moist' as it were. That gets expensive re ink. On the other hand, I don't want to find myself with blocked heads due to disuse, and then be in a position of having to either undertake expensive repairs, or possibly having to junk the entire machine, as could happen with the Epson with it's fixed printhead.

So on maintainence grounds, the Canon is swaying me more and more in it's direction.

Yes, the new waterproof smudge resistant properties of the latest durabrite ink in the Epson C84 is a plus, however, the results are OK, but not 'knockout' impressive on glossy paper re photos, so one is somewhat restricted to either plain paper or matte - which is fine, as it's not really designed as a dedicated 'photo printer' as I understand it.

However, at the end of the day, if it clogs etc, then it all becomes a bit of a moot point really.

And this is where the really helpful opinions of others count - at the end of the day, I wouldn't like to say one printer is better than the other in absolute terms, more a matter of which best suits ones needs, and here other users experiences are most helpful.

I've 80% made up my mind to go with the Canon, and, up one level (I can hear my credit card protesting ) to the I860, or i865 as it is sold here.

It seems to be from reviews I've read, the best overall solution to my needs. It has 5 inks, with 4 dye inks C,M,Y, etc plus 1 with pigment black.

Hence one gets 4 colour dye ink photo printing, on a wide variety of media, plus the pigment black for use with plain paper, or perhaps a quality matt coated paper for the best text result for the likes of resumes etc.

It would give away a little to the C84 durabrite inks with graphs/charts etc and text combined, as then one would be using dye inks with the black pigment, and so the colours would not be quite as sharp as the pigment ink on plain paper, but still, as I don't contemplate doing a lot of that sort of thing, I feel it's a fair tradeoff.

A neat bonus is the ability to print on CD-R's DVD's etc.

On figures, it's 3db(A) quieter than the C84, or 6db(A) when in quiet mode.

It has a separate, user replaceable head as has been mentioned, should clogging beyond repair occur.

It goes down to 2 picoliter drop size, as against 3 for the C84. Whilst the difference can't be seen with the naked eye, it can be seen under magnification, from examples posted from one review I've seen comparing drop sizes - it's a bit of an obsessive point perhaps, but it does appear to give a slightly smoother result and finer detail. But just,,, so I am being very picky here.

But as you can tell, I'm starting to lean somewhat heavily in a Canon direction

I still think the Epson is one impressive machine, just a matter of what suits my usuage pattern/needs best. As an aside, I see Epson are introducing a new A4 photo printer, the R800, which looks to be pretty amazing with 8 inks - one has a special polymer gloss coating, hence they now have very long life, gas and lightfastness with pigment inks, combined with the colour gamut and gloss finish of the best dye inks. It looks to be an sensational machine - Epson must've been doing some work on their head design as well, as it offers the worlds smallest drop size at 1.5 picolitres.

Still, it's some months off, and will be well out of my budget for now. Who knows when they introduce the technology in an A3 version - would be one v/nice machine.

Garyi, if I may ask you one important question; I rang the Canon people here today, and they said yes, but we havne't tested it yet, as regards whether the Canon i560/i865 will work with OSX 10.3.1, which I'm running. If you've got Panther, does the Canon work OK?

Also some of bundled apps work with Mac, others don't. Does the app which allows you to add frames, captions etc (Photorecord I think it is) work on the Mac?

Sorry to keep asking you all these questions, but as you are a Mac owner, and have had both Canon and Epson, and appear to be a nice person to boot, that makes you my new best friend...

Heh, I really do appreciate all the helpful comments - it can be a great community here at Naim.

Warmest regards to all

John...

Populist thinking exalts the simplistic and the ordinary

John

Your comments make me think that you will not be printing a large number of pictures - do you have any estimate -

I suggest you look around Oz and see what outsourcing faciulities there are.


If there are such companies, your printer requirements then can be simplified in to a good enough type category rather than a pursuit of excellence project.

After all why buy an object that is going to cost you more when you are not using it (drying out problems)

Not buying now does not stop you buying when the decision re buying might be easier (and definitely the features etc of next years printers will be better than this years) whereas buying now may be regretted later.

Derek

<< >>

[This message was edited by Derek Wright on THURSDAY 27 November 2003 at 12:11.]

[This message was edited by Derek Wright on THURSDAY 27 November 2003 at 12:12.]

quote:

---

Certainly in fine art photography etc, the high-end Epsons seem to be the main printer of choice re brand.

---

John,

If fine photography printing is required, ink jet wouldn't be used at all. Epsons are well publicised, but not that good. If you don't use the Epsons every other day, forget them.

A good HP printer will do for all printing requirements. If you need very high image quality, go to your pro lab, as they will have printers you wouldn't be able to afford.

It's all very well talking about picolitres size, but if the heads can't put the drop in the precise point, it's pointless.(pardon the pun) Compare prints, taken from the same file, from different printers and you will see what I mean.

Hmmmmm,

Just re-reading all the advice, and decided I need to apologise to Garyi for inadvertantly barging in and semi-taking over his thread.

I hope you've managed to sort out the colour issues Garyi - please let us know how you've got on there.

Derek, you raise some eminently sensible thoughts, as has Count D, thank you both.

At the moment, I'm still entrenched with 35mm film, working predominately with transparencies which I have developed/mounted locally. I can also get them put on a disk for storing/viewing purposes on the computer, although nothing quite beats the look of a projected slide.

Computing, along with A/V, are two new hobbies/interests to have developed over the last couple of years, and the concept of the digital darkroom interests me, however as always one has to balance that against time and cost.

When I get a digtal SLR, and I'm in no doubt that the photo world is heading inexorably towards digital, then the combination of computer, and an A3 photo printer is quite appealing - except for the aforementioned time and cost. In that sense, forwarding images online for printing is not that dissimilar to what I'm doing now, and makes a lot of sense. And there is one service that I know of here, where I could do exactly that.

And the point Count D raised, of the printers being used being of a standard and cost one couldn't afford, is well taken. Incidentally, from my web trawling/research, I gathered that amongst the serious amateur/enthusiast/semi-pro most seemed to favour the Epson 2200, mainly it would appear because of it's printout size, and colour fastness/longevity with the pigment inks. But as Count D pointed out, I was somewhat erroneous in my comment that fine art photographers would use inkjets. I assume dye-sublimation printers, or other technologies with which I'm not familiar?

Interestingly, about a month back I was at an exhibition of photographic art, and it never entered my head as to what medium would be used for printing.

Still, I do need/want a printer for the home, now, mainly for general purpose use, i.e. web pages, letters, my resume etc, and the odd photo taken from discs of my transparencies.

Frankly, I wouldn't be seriously interested in an exclusively photo printer unless I had a digital camera as well - for some reason or other I find the immediacy of the combination very appealing.

When I got my new mac a few months back, I looked at getting a digital camera and photo printer then (just a 4-5 megapixel digicam, and an entry level 6 inkjet printer) but decided against it, as whilst the results from the printer were excellent on photos (Espon 830u) text was relatively poor, and the cameras didnt suit me at all, so decided to postpone until I could afford a better camera in particular.

So yes Derek, I will not be printing many photos, and my printing needs are more general purpose with some photo work thrown in as it were. So yes, I can get highest quality prints as needed done at a lab, as both you and Count d have wisely suggested.

Perhaps later, when I do have a digital camera, I may entertain the idea of something like a 2200 or the Canon i9100 or whatever there successors may be for that bit of home printing/immediacy use.

I would agree with the Count re the HP printers being useful for text and photo work, albeit after my experience with the only printer I've had - a lexmark which was given to me near new with my first computer, a PC 2 yrs ago, I would be reluctant only because of running costs. The HP uses the same setup re the lexmark with integrated print heads and cartridges - a good idea for a quick fix if they clog, but horrendous prices for cartridges here - one is basically paying the same price for a set of cartridges as for a new printer. The results though, printwise, are excellent on both photos and text.

Hence the Canon i560 or i860 - both designed to be general purpose printers that happen to have very good results with photos, and are cheapish to run. Re your comment about finding something that will do the job, as against a pursuit of excellence objective Derek - very sensible and I agree, however I'm reluctant to go lower down the scale, as results don't impress, and in particular one is back to integrated tri-colour cartridges with increased expenditure re ink costs.

Count, thank you for your wise and experienced comments also - I believe you are, or have had experience as a professional photographer, and I always appreciate the comments from others more experienced than myself.

I'm unable to do an exacting comparison re same file on different printers, however I now have the print samples (glossy photo's with some text on them) via snail mail on a Canon 560, & 850; HP 5550, Epson 830U, C63, & C61.

For photos, IMHO and it is not an exact comparo, as the prints are different, either the Epson 830U (6 col photo printer), or HP 5550 (used with the optional colour cartridge i.e. 6 col printing) with the HP being better for text. The Canon i850 appears to be about the same as the Espson C61, albeit text is better on the Canon, and the Epson C63 and the Canon i550 are pretty much equal, down a little on the ladder overall, and again text being better on the Canon.

So apart from the theory, as far as I can see with my relatively limited experience and ability to do any really meaningful comparo's - a slight win to the 6 colour photo printers, but the 4 colour ones run very close for photos, and better them for text.

I'd class the Canon equal to the HP for text, but ahead on running costs. The HP will better the i850 on photos if you go to the trouble of swapping out the reuglar cartridge for the photo one, thus making it a 6 colour printer, but that, plus the running cost doesn't sit well with me, so it's looking like the Canon.

All I need to do is find out if the thing will work with OSX 10.3.1 - and Canon isn't saying, jut yet.

Thanks for listening to my thoughts, especially if they seem a bit convuluted - heh that's what owning a Naim HiFi does to you - makes you picky and choosy about 'quality' and 'standards' - on the other hand maybe that's why I bought it in the first place...

Cheers all

John...

Populist thinking exalts the simplistic and the ordinary

John, Canon have worked with apple for many years, being the company that built apples bubble jets when they made them.

Suffice to say I have never seen a canon that was not compatible with Apple. As usual the drivers are already on your mac.

You seem to be leaning in many directions because of the photo camera situation.

Last year more digital cameras were sold than tradtional ones, and the writing is on the wall. Manufacturers of traditional finally 'came out' and admited a 1.3 meg camera photo printed at your typical aspect ratio was as good as tradtional photoes.

John playing with photoes even in photoshop elements opens up a whole new world too you, I would suggest that any decision you make on a printer will need to take in to account a future purchase of a digi camera, its the only way forwar now.

FWIW the canon prints photoes very well and edge to edge, they are still a little dark for my liking though, Still tweaking at the moment.

Of course all printer son the market have come forward in a year since I had my epson, so in that respect epson might be the way forward for you.

John

Given your rather broad range of needs for a printer - consider getting two - a laser printer for getting quick quality printing of text and monochromatic images - see if you can get a duplex feature for the printer so that you can print on both sides of the paper then printing pdf documents that come with tech equipment becomes a doddle and also the documentation seems much more readable when printed on both sides as well as requiring less space to store.

Lots of web sites print very nicely to monochrome and a print out on a laser a lot faster than on an inkjet.

Then also buy an entry level photo printer for your quick and dirty picture printing.

And as discussed before you send the images to be lab printed for the "quality" or hi volume images.

You might be able to get a "office type" level laser printer secondhand from a computer auction of bankrupt stock type type of thing mor a refurbished printer.

I run the above combination of equipment so I know it is a useful combination of tools.

Derek

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John,

You're quite correct, I am a professional photographer and it wasn't long ago that I went out in search of a high quality printer that could do both photographic prints and text. Because of the number of prints I sometimes get asked to supply, I thought even if I spent £900 on one, it would still be worthwhile. I looked and looked, but basically came away disappointed. If you like quality prints, you will be unhappy with all home priced printers, so I wouldn't spend too much on one.

I ended up buying a HP 7550 Photosmart and a separate laserjet for print. I see Derek has just written this (sensible chap). It might sound silly buying two printers, but it really does make sense. You won't be wasting expensive inks on text and the laserjet is better on text anyway. Both printers don't need to be expensive. The Photosmart is perfect for my cd labels and "contact sheets" and personal prints to show family, etc..

You mentioned about the HP inks being expensive, but so are the Epson. The cleaning cycle of the HP has always kept my printer clean and sometimes it goes unused for 2-3 weeks. The registration on the HP was what impressed me. It prints repeatedly to extremely fine tolerances.

This is my next printer, probably. I currently use an Epson 1160, which prints up to A3, but I would like to be able to print up to A2. I use Lyson quad black inks, and soft fine art paper, pretty much trouble free. (The only problems I had with clogging were with the dreadfully overhyped Piezography inks from Cone). I do agree that the Epson software is a bit clunky.