Photo Printer Advice Needed

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mbroberg

mbroberg

IAP Activities Manager, Emeritus
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My wife wants a new printer. She does a lot of work with photos and wants a really good quality photo printer. Any advice or opinions from you photography experts would be appreciated.

Thanks!
 
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Adorama.com has a Canon Pixma Pro-100 photo printer that you may want to look at. Canon lists it for $500, Adorama is selling it for $398 with a $300 rebate and free shipping. Also includes free 50 sheet pack of Canon semigloss photo paper (13x19). Has 8 ink cartridges. Only downsides are that it is a BIG unit, and that the inks are not archival. Just got one for my wife, and I like it. Oh, and it prints wirelessly. Not bad for $98 (plus tax, of course.) Russ
 
Probably 8X10 or smaller. She also just said she would like all-in-one capability, not a printer exclusive to photos.
 
All in one as in Printer-fax- copier or just a printer? Most Photo printers will do other printing as well just the ink cartridges will be overkill for that. Do you have a budget set for it?
 
I recently purchased a Canon Pixma MG7120 in the $150 price range from officedepot. This is by far the best inkjet printer i have had. The ink it uses is HD for photos and is fast drying. There is no need to spray any type of lacquer over photos or labels. The ink can be purchased in separate cartridges or in bundles which will run you about $50. I use label paper with a photo like glossy surface

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Heres a review of the canon

Canon Pixma MG7120 BK Wireless Inkjet Photo All-In-One Printer Review & Rating | PCMag.com
 
What format is she taking pictures In? Raw, Jpeg? If she wants top quality she needs to be taking them in Raw. IF she is taking them in standard jpeg that could be part of the problem. I have had several hp printers that would print decent photos for what you want. However My wife has had several photo printers that print better pictures as she is a serious amateur but those are way over your budget.
 
Thats part of the problem,when she goes to print them in larger sizes she doesnt have enough information. My wife took A picture of a hawk on a fence post in raw one day. When we blew it up to 13 x19 you could clearly see a spider web and spider on it that you couldnt see in an 8 x 10. It may be your printer if its older is also part of the problem but jpeg is not helping at all. Oh and that camera was A nikon d1x with only 4 megapixel. Not the bazzillion megapixels cameras they have today.
 
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One more suggestion, if I may. At the risk of sounding like a salesman for Canon (I'm NOT!), we will only get that brand in the future. Here's why. If you are careful, you can get Canon printers (including a variety of mulitfunction printers) which have separate cartridges for each color, not like the multi-color cartridges we used to get with our old HPs. With those, if one color went out, you had to replace the whole cartridge - for a lot of money. Also, the Canon printers come with FULL cartridges, not "starter" ones. But Canon has started to sell some with multi-color cartridges. I wouldn't buy one. For best results, you need to use the inks and photo papers sold by whatever brand printer you buy. You can't mix. And, IMHO, NEVER buy off-brand inks. Killed a printer head that way, one time. It's not worth it. Shop around online. If you are interested in Canon, first go to canonusa.com to see what is current and what are the features. Pay particular attention to what ink refills the printer takes. Then go online. Amazon.com is usually pretty helpful for reading reviews and prices are usually pretty good. There are other places to look, too, like SlickDeals. Anyway, hope this helps. Russ
 
Mike:
IF you use Apple iOS PRODUCTS (iPhone & iPad), I would buy an all-in-one that supports AirPrint, also.

It really is handy to print directly from those products without having to use 3rd party software or having to re-write code to make a printer work with mobile devices.

Other than that, my opinion is that ALL of the home printers on the market today are PURE CHINESE JUNK, and cost WAY TOO MUCH for ink or toner refills.

Good luck!
 
I've used many printers over the years, and can say that just about any inkjet printer you get in that price range is going to give you the same results. We used the 11x17 Epson for a long time ago (around the time of Mike's D1X...) and it gave great results when fed the right materials...

That said, you can improve the results greatly by getting high quality photo paper, and if it is available for your printer, better quality ink than the manufacturer's. I would suggest you look at injemall.com or ink2image.com
or google "archival inkjet". Find out what printers you an buy better supplies for and purchase that printer.

I have in the past suggested for people to look into Dye-Sublimation printers, as I have LOVED having ours for years and it is dead on photo-lab quality right on your desk in about 20 seconds per-print, but they are VERY expensive to purchase in that size (4x6 only printers can be had for a few hundred dollars, 8x10s are over a grand), their per-print costs are low, but the amount of material you have to buy is often large.

We have used Adoramapix.com online for commercial color printing since our local pro lab (i.e. not CVS or Walmart High-School kids running the auto machine) closed down, and for larger prints their price, quality, and speed is fantastic, so if she is ever looking for larger, high quality prints, I can't recommend them enough...
 
Not a lot to add, avoid Lexmark--their supplies are patented and they have enforced it, a recent court judgement has all the other ink manufacturers avoiding Lexmark--cost per copy will become astronomical.

NEarly all printers use four color cartridges, now--so that is not a big issue.
The technology of an ink-jet printer (the only kind you will find under $300) is commoditized---pick a label---there is little difference.

Look at the instructions, though---MANY have a "best" quality setting. That will drink toner but give better (sometimes outstanding) results!!

I'd also avoid HP, but only because I have had 3 now that have not lasted a year.

I am now using a Lexmark, but I bought a bunch of liquid ink and will refill---not recommended if you like convenience----I like CHEAP!! And I do know how to do it.
 
As a "would you believe", I can now purchase used Sharp color machines that retailed 5 years ago for around 5 grand for $100 a piece.

This is available to all copier dealers, but they are not selling----so yes, there have been "dogs" made!!
 
I bought an Oki color laser in 2005 and used it up until about 6 months ago. 8 years of use and I only replaced the toner twice averaging about 5000 pages on a set.
I only retired it in favor of an HP Pro 200 color laser because I couldn't find toner locally and ordering a full set of Oki toner cost more than the new HP plus it was due for new imaging drums after the next set.
I'd never go back to ink.
 
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