Some of you may have seen this one coming.

Now that I've got this wonderful new digital camera, I'm itching for a really good photo printer. I am going to take my time and carefully research this over the next few months, so there's no rush. But I'd like the opinions of the people on this BBS.

Our current 720-dpi Epson 440 is nice. It was very inexpensive, its ink cartridges are easy to find, and it's been reasonably reliable. When printing on photo paper at its finest setting, it delivers rich, solid colors and the results are very film-like.

Except for the 720-dpi part, that is. When your eyes get closer than about 12 inches from the page, you can see the stochastic dither pattern of the dots. I just printed a pathological worst-case-scenario picture of my mother-in-law standing in the snow with a white dog. The darkly-colored portions of the photo looked fine, but the areas of subtle shadows on the surface of the snow were terrible, with widely spaced and very obvious dither-dots.

So now I'm wondering "what's out there" in printing technology now. Last I looked at color printers (years ago), the closest you could get to "no dots" was teribly expensive dye-sublimation processes which delivered true gradations of color.

So who can give me advice in this area? I'm looking for something that will:

- Print on 8.5x11" paper. I want to print large portrait-sized photos, not tiny little things for a photo album. This rules out those consumer-targeted "photo printers" that plug straight into your camera.

- Print without showing noticeable dot patterns.

- Deliver solid, film-like color on glossy photo paper.

- Have a reasonable (not necessarily "cheap") cost-per-page.

- Have reasonably color-fast inks. In other words, I don't want the reds to fade into pink after a year. (The epson 440 seems to be pretty good about this.)

- Be priced in the consumer range, not the graphic-arts-house range.

Anyone have any advice? My next stop is www.dpreview.com to see if they review photo printers as well as cameras.

I have a cannon S630 printer which I have been using with my olympus c2100uz. Using cannon photo paper pro, I have been able to produce borderless 4 x 6 prints that look just as good as ones from the photo lab. I also have been producing 8 x 10 prints on photo glossy paper that turn out great.

People are always suprised that I produced the 8 x 10s on a printer. Ive been using cannon paper ($.50 a sheet) but recently bought Kodak paper at $.20 a sheet.

Printing speed for photos is good, and text printing is extremely fast - I think its faster than anything on the market right now. And its only $200.

As far as printing software goes, download qimage - its very easy to use and has some easy to use tools - like white balance adjustments.

Try Epson's Photo line of printers. They use 6 inks instead of 4 and have incredibly small dot sizes so that the dots are pretty much invisible to the naked eye no matter how close you look at the prints. They run $1200 - $130. The Epson Photo 785 got a good review at Imaging Resource at www.imaging-resource.com. The prints are supposed to last 25 years before fading. Even the cheapest one can print "borderless prints." Check it out.

Tony - I have an Epson 1200 for sale. It's less than a year old and in great condition. I've recently upgraded to the Epson Stylus Pro 5500 for my wife's art business. The 1200 is great for printing photographs and will print sizes up to 13"x44" panoramas. It's 6 color and 1400 x 720 dpi. There is a review at ." target="_blank">http://www.thetechzone.com/reviews/printers/epson/photo_1200[/url].

Includes all original manuals, software, cable and 2 sets of brand new ink cartridges (2 black and 2 color).

Cost $275

I happened to end up chatting with HP's "architect" for their imaging and printing systems. I learned a bunch of neat stuff.

- Use HP paper with an HP printer. Use Epson paper with an Epson printer. Tell your print software the exact model of paper that you're using. They measure the daylights out of their own papers and carefully tune the ink they send to look beautiful for their own paper. They treat other paper as "generic" and do something that won't totally suck.

- Print in "best" quality mode rather than "normal" or "draft". It will take longer, potentially much longer, but the printer has the chance to deposit more ink, giving you deeper blacks and more saturated colors.

- Modern inkjet paper is a marvel of technology. They use superabsorbent materials on the paper coating to suck up the ink and keep it from spreading. This allows them to deposit much more ink than they might be able to do on traditional paper, where it would smear out and soak through.

That said, I have an HP DeskJet 970Cxi. It's got a nifty two-sided printing feature, and runs amazingly fast in "draft" mode, but it's photo-quality prints aren't as good as the "photo" printers. If you want to maximize photo quality, the six-ink Epsons are probably the way to go. If you want a printer that's also going to be cranking out code or other generic stuff, and then occasionally does high quality prints, I'm quite happy with my printer.

I have much experience with the Epson Stylus Photo line of printers. I have a 700, my neighbour has a 750, my friend uses a 1200 and we have a 1270 here at work. They all print fantastically.

Select the proper paper and quality settings and off you go. I believe the 12xx models are the only ones that give you tabloid and longer printing options.

Go and check out the reviews... Epson's older inks have had some problems but iirc they have a new formulation now that will last.

If you want any more details feel free to email me or to post here. I love these printers and I also can't wait to upgrade my Epson camera to a Canon S300!!!

I'll keep this short and simple. I've had numerous Epson and HP printers over the years... and I'll now only buy HP. The difference between the models i used was staggering, but i haven't used an Epson in 2 years, so who knows what's changed. I've never had a problem with my HP 925c Deskjet, which is an older model nowadays, and it does all you required and more. Every Epson i've had either jammed all the time, pulled multiple pages, or just gave me a general pain in the ass. HP's build quality just seems so much higher than Epson's... and the ones i've used have printed MUCH faster. I'd say go to a CompUSA or the like where there is a huge row of printers and have a look for yourself. My recommendation is for HP though. YMMV.

I have done quite a bit of research into this, and here's what I came up with:

1. Buy Epson! - Everybody swears by their photo printers
2. You get what you pay for - There aren't too many big differences between the 780, 820, and 890, other than price. However, people say the 890 is much more sturdy and well-built than the 780, and is worth the price difference.
3. If you want to do large prints, nothing beats the 1280, which can do up to 13x44 panoramas.

Overall, I think it comes down to the 890 or the 1280. Unless money is really tight, I'd say go for the 1280. It's worth the extra money.

If you're really lucky, you can find a 1270 used or on clearance, although it's pretty rare these days. There's pretty much no difference between the 1270 and 1280.

Thanks for all the advice so far, everyone, keep it coming.

As a follow up to some of the things I've seen in this thread so far, I want clarify a couple of points:

- Speed is not an issue for this printer, and neither is text/draftmode printing. For text, I have a perfectly good laser printer. For quick non-photo color work, I have the existing Epson 440. The only thing I will ever print with this printer is high-quality glossy photos using special paper.

- I know about using only the correct paper for the job, and about using only ink carts from the manufacturer. I know about how to set the printer driver properly for the proper paper and quality type.

I have had only one problem with our current Epson, which is that the ink, when left "sitting" for a long time without printing, clogs up in the nozzles. It's built-in cleaning routines were inadequate for unclogging the nozzles. I had to do some web research to find some homebrew remedies for unclogging the nozzles (which eventually did work, thank goodness).

The reason the clogging happens is because the Epson does not replace the nozzles along with the ink cartridges. The nozzles are a permanent part of the printer. If they clog and you can't get them unclogged, it's over $100.00 for replacements.

So that nozzle thing might be another factor in my purchasing decision. Anyone have information on that?

Oh, and www.dpreview.com doesn't seem to do printer reviews. Too bad!

I also can't wait to upgrade my Epson camera to a Canon S300!

As I discovered, you want the S110, not the S300.

I just spoke with Tony, and he says he wants a printer that will print only photos. In that case, I would recommend the cannon s800 or the soon to be released s900. Keep in mind that the paper you choose to print on will make a big difference in print quality. If the paper doesnt soak up enough ink, it will bead up and look very bad.

There are some reviews to be found here: http://www.dp-now.com/Features/Printer_reviews/Photo-inkjets/Print_quality/Quality-Conclusions/quality-conclusions.html

Sean

We've been using HP inkjets at work for a few months now and I have been so impressed with the build and image quality that I have recently replaced my old Canon BJC4550 at home with an HP Deskjet 1220C. This goes up to 13" x 19" so I can print out my A3 CAD drawings. As for running costs - well we haven't been using them for long enough yet to do any calculations so I can't comment. I got an HP 840C for my Mum, recommended a 959C to my sister and bought my girlfriend a 930C. My sister got hers for exactly the same thing you want yours for - that's printing photographs and she's extremely pleased with it. The HPs seem nice and quiet too. Much quieter than the Canons we've had. I've heard good things about Epson photo print quality too. Personally I'd do as you said and look up some Printer group tests and reviews. That's what I usually do when I'm in the market for something. Good luck, I hope you get a printer you're happy with.

Tony... you seem to be a very smart chap... please sell me on the S110.

The only real reason I want the S300 so bad is for the 3x optical zoom. I previously thought that I needed the get the S300 in order to be able to get a waterproof case but I have since learned that they make those for the S110 as well.

Come on... tip the scale!

P.S. My current Epson has 3X and that's the main reason I don't want to go with anything less.

Tony... you seem to be a very smart chap... please sell me on the S110. The only real reason I want the S300 so bad is for the 3x optical zoom.

Correct, the primary advantage of the 300 is the better optical zoom. Functionally, there are no other differences I can see other than that the 300 lays out its buttons a bit differently. But the software seems to be almost identical and produces the same results with the same feature set.

My choice for the 110 over the 300 is size. The 110 is significantly smaller than the 300 (and the 300 is already pretty darn small). The reason I wanted a 300/110 is that the camera was so small, I knew I would be more likely to be carrying it when a photo opportunity arose. Since the 3x zoom was not high on my list of priorities, but size was at the top of the list, I chose the 110. When Loren showed me his 300, I was glad I made the choice.

My feeling is that this camera is for quick/easy snaps, not for serious photography. It doesn't even have a manual focus. If the zoom were important to me, then other professional features such as manual focus would also be important to me. They're not, hence my preference for the 110.

Yes, according to the review you just linked, that Canon 800 is a pretty great printer. However, that review is over a year old. Anyone else have more recent comparison reviews like that one?

Odd, I could have sworn it said January 2001 when I first looked. Now it says November.

Damn temporal vortices. Gotta get that fixed.

Thanks for all the advice so far, everyone, keep it coming.

Tony, you don't say how much money you're willing to spend. But have you considered spending more up front and save money in the long run?

If your budget can stand a $1200 hit, you can shop around and find an HP-4550N color laser printer that will (IMHO) produce better quality pictures at a fraction of the cost per picture of an ink jet printer. (You'll be paying 7--10 cents per page instead of 50--75 cents per page.)

If you are saving 60 cents on each print, it doesn't take long to recoup the additional up-front cost of the printer. I believe (with no research to support it, don't even know for sure why I think this) that laser generated prints will have a longer life than ink-jet prints; certainly they won't run and smear if moistened.

Caveat: it has been some time now since I actually researched the cost of prints made on a color ink-jet. If the cost has come down as dramatically as the cost of prints made on a color laser printer, then I am talking through my hat and somebody should tell me so.

tanstaafl.

Well... Since I happen to work for a Printer supply company (refills, re-mans, etc), I'm not going to get into the buy the Manufacturer's inks only..

But, I will comment on reliablity. HP. It's the only way to go for inkjet. Epson prints SLIGHTLY nicer in most models, but Lord, the number of complaints and problems that come from those things is HUGE. Our QA department hates them with a passion. Canons tend to be pretty good in terms of lasting, but HP's are built like tanks. The Standard HP cartridge is pretty well over-engineered. Not to mention that you get a significant amount more ink out of them.

I've been pretty happy with the quality of my prints from a Deskjet 990 onto photo paper, but for really major jobs, I go to the lab.... That's where the REALLY nice printers are (mega $$$$$).

Here's some printer reviews:
http://www.steves-digicams.com/printers.html
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRINTINDEX.HTM

For Epson info, check the forum at dpreview:
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1013

So are you saying that HP's ink cartidges are more reliable than Epson's ink cartridges or that the printers themselves are better?

If your budget can stand a $1200 hit, you can shop around and find an HP-4550N color laser printer that will (IMHO) produce better quality pictures at a fraction of the cost per picture of an ink jet printer.

One of my original requirements was:

- Deliver solid, film-like color on glossy photo paper.

I was under the impression that a laser printer could not do this. Pages that come out of a laser printer, as far as I know, always look like laser prints rather than photographs printed on photographic film.

I'm willing to be sold, however. If anyone can convince me otherwise, I will listen. Who's got some evidence in this area?

So are you saying that HP's ink cartidges are more reliable than Epson's ink cartridges or that the printers themselves are better?


Yes.

99% of an inkjet printer is the printhead. HP replaces that printhead with every cartridge (which we take advantage of, in re-mans and refills). The Printer itself is just a carrier with a little logic added.

From a reliability standpoint, QA and customer service hears very little from HP users, but the epson's are all over the place, in spite of the fact that we sell far more HP's than Epson. Based on my talks with some of our customers and suppliers, It's pretty much that way across the board.

I hate to say it. I really do, as I really don't like HP at all as a company. But it is the better product, IMHO. Better print quality (which is really marginal at the higher end printers) doesn't help much when you can't print.

Price wise, I think ALL of the OEM's rip the customer pretty bad (but what did you expect me to say?) At least with HP, you're getting a new printhead AND ink, instead of just ink... But remember, ALL of the OEM manufacturers give away their printers to make money on the ink... It's the old Razor/blades scheme.

As I stated earlier in this thread, I can also attest to the disadvantage of the Epson print head being separate from the ink cartridge. I was able to work around my problem without an expensive printhead replacement, but others have not been so lucky. And I used up the equivalent of an entire black ink cartridge in my many attempts at clearing the clog.

I'm looking more closely at the Canon S-800 at this time. Its print head is not replaced with the ink cartridges, however it is easily removable so it would be easier to service and replace than the Epson printers.

Unfortunately, when buy a Inkjet HP, you pretty much sign into buying a new printer with each new cartridge. If you buy a black and white, and color cartridges, you almost pay for a new printer.

RE: Canon: Its print head is not replaced with the ink cartridges, however it is easily removable so it would be easier to service and replace than the Epson printers.


Yup. My only qualification on Canon is that I've found their ink dries out a bit too quick from a storage state. I BELIEVE this has been corrected in the more recent models, but that's about it...

The print head is $85.00 and if there is a problem during the warranty period, they will send you a new one in the mail. Much easier than mailing it in for service.

Unfortunately, when buy a Inkjet HP, you pretty much sign into buying a new printer with each new cartridge. If you buy a black and white, and color cartridges, you almost pay for a new printer.



Exactly. That's why it pays to buy remans and refill kits. They work best with the HP's simply because of the printhead attached. It's easier for us to make refills and refill kits for Epson and Canon, but those printers STILL have more problems.

With the HP, 90% of the time, we have to clean the cart very well, redo the seals and it's good to go. The Average HP cart can be refilled more than 10 times (and considering they have more ink than the epsons or canon, that's alot of printing) before noticable degradation occurs.

We do a good business ($250 mil a year according to the last reports when we were public... Privately owned now, so I can't comment on the current business).

There is always going to be a cost associated with printing... You are using a consumable. Personally, I've found it cheaper to buy the HP than the others (even when I'm not 'helping' QA by testing.. ). And while I am biased (I'm not in sales/marketing, thank god, tho.), Our refills and reman carts are on the same quality level as the OEMs. Admittedly, there are quite a few fly by night refill companies.... Notably, they are the ONE ink fills all. They also tend to do a significant amount of TV and spam advertising... I've always enjoyed getting the spam for lower cost inkjets... It's not quite as much fun as the phone call's however.

We've got a pretty big staff of chemists just working on the formulations of the different inks. Each Cart is different, and to get the right color match is often a very difficult job. In fact, one of our larger problems is getting current cartridges out there because of the changing formulations. It can take quite a while to work an new ink through production and QA.



[censored].... That got side tracked in a hurry. Sorry.

Which printer supply company do you work for? How well do your refill inks hold up vs. the 25 yr inks the oems are providing?

Also, are the ink colors and substance perfectly matched to the stock inks?

Calvin

The funny thing with the printer business they sell the printer below cost and attempt to make the money back by selling printer ink cartridges. Whether it has a print head in it or not, that's what they do. That's why the printer companies are so upset by aftermarket print cartridges. The newer Epsons go so far as to include copy protection in the cartridge so if you insert an alien cartridge it will not accept it.

Calvin

Speaking of "laser" type printers.... avoid the Tektronix line of sub-dye printers. The image quality and color tone is terrible! Completely non photographic quality. It's extremely fast and more suitable for excel spreadsheets than photos. Kind of sad, considering the cost.

Just a thought.

Calvin

I agree with Loren. HP deskjets are the way to go. I have a 990Cxi and not only is it blazingly fast in draft mode -- ever seen a printer spit paper across the room??? In photo quality modes, it's truly stunning. Uses up a helluvalot of ink in photo mode though.

The only drawback to inkjet printers is they assume you are using white paper. If you put colored papers it comes out completely wrong. Also, if you do iron-on prints, you have to go with white t-shirts as there is no white ink in these printers. The only negative. -- which printers have white inks btw?

Calvin

No consumer-levels, to my knowledge, that is why you use iron-on "paper" to then transfer to the tshirt

My problem was printing out pictures of cartoon characters that have "white" eyes with black dots in them. When I transfer the iron on to a t-shirt that is colored, say, red.... you end up with the said cartoon character with angry red eyes!

Calvin

There are vinyl printing systems that allow you to print white ink or onto white backings. Not the same kind of thing, though.

Usually t-shirts are silkscreened anyway, it's starting to get to the point where this kind of printing is a commodity. Have you seen Cafe Press?

Speaking of printers.. How about RIP software. Does using RIP software give you better output on your photo printer?

I have an ALPS printer that can use white ink. It's a ribbon system instead of an inkjet, though. I got it because I was always getting printout run in the rain. Pretty neat system. The ribbon cartridges have a barcode on them and the printer automatically detects what cartridges you've got inserted. I've been pretty happy with it except for a couple of things. First, the print drivers that you have to use with Win9x are awful. It pops up this separate gigantic window showing you progress instead of just using the built-in print manager. This was fixed in Win2k. Don't know about NT or XP, though. Second, it's hard to find the print cartridges locally. Third, it uses a proprietary protocol, so I can't print to it from Unix unless I purchase a commercial printing system. I don't usually print out photos, so I can't tell you how well it works with that, but it does definitely print in white. And silver, gold, blue metallic and red metallic foil, etc.

I agree with Loren. HP deskjets are the way to go. I have a 990Cxi and not only is it blazingly fast in draft mode -- ever seen a printer spit paper across the room??? In photo quality modes, it's truly stunning. Uses up a helluvalot of ink in photo mode though.


That's the one I currently use at the house. Draft mode is awesome.. It's easily three times faster than my Hp4 laser and it's still good quality.

Speaking of the Iron-ons... That's actually something that we are working hard on...

We've got a Dye-sub process that can use either our inkjet inks on regular paper, or a toner we've done for color laser. You print it out reversed on a normal piece of paper, and then using a VERY hot press, you cause the ink to vaporize INTO the surface of whatever you want it on.

It's a really cool deal, as previous technologies have basically just been a film that is applied to the surface.... Wash it a bit and it cracks, or scratches, whatever. This stuff is embedded into it. I've got a luggage tag that has my business card embedded into.. for about a quarter of an inch. You can't get it off. We've cut sections of the tags off. Don't matter. The only way it's coming off of there is to get a belt sander and physically remove the top half inch. And it's in photo quality. Mugs, plaques, license plates... It's all good. And it's all done in about 4 minutes (on the lasers).

Maybe marketing will get it out to the vendors soon.

How well do your refill inks hold up vs. the 25 yr inks the oems are providing?


I couldn't give an estimate on the longevity of the inks. I'm not in that field. I'm sure the tests have been ran, hell, I KNOW they have, as I've played with the tools, but I just wasn't interested enough to remember. I've got enough on my plate without worrying about those.

Concerning the quality of the inks, I use them personally. But I'm not going to give anything more than my personal impressions. Color matching is very important, but I can't claim 100% perfection. It's 98-99% in my opinion. The ONLY way to get that is to use the exact same formulations as the OEM's... and that is not possible due to patent issues. And you can be certain that they are NOT going to license it to ANYONE. One of the better ways around that that is being explored (as well as getting around the chips on the epson carts) is alternate drivers. Most of the drivers that come with printers get stripped down pretty well. Plus they aren't updated as the newer printers come on line. We've been working with some people that produce a heck of a lot better driver than the older drivers that are out there. That allows for a color matching to PANTONE standards. Plus, based on the early driver I played with, it allows a better print quality on older printers. For example, I've also got an HP 660 that printed 'ok' in photographic mode. With the new driver instead of the HP one, it's ALMOST as good as my 990. With the OEM HP driver, it's not even close. It's in the interests of the OEM to keep you upgrading the equipment.

A cool example in the Linux world is the Turboprint.de guys. Ghostscript and GIMP can give a pretty good image, but when you look at the quality coming out of their print engine, it's a fair amount better.

Have you seen Cafe Press?

No, I hadn't... nice.

Peter

I was considering setting up a deal with printing Empeg t-shirts through Cafe Press and making a small profit off of it. Then I thought you guys might not be happy about it, so I didn't.

An Imation Rainbow Dye-Sub produces excellent prints. How I wish I had a digital camera back when I worked in a pre-press bureau...

I was considering setting up a deal with printing Empeg t-shirts through Cafe Press and making a small profit off of it. Then I thought you guys might not be happy about it, so I didn't.

I'd only be upset if there were no XXL shirts made...

I don't know if you already bought a photo printer or not but the Olympus P400 dye sub printer is really nice. It is fairly expensive ($799) compared to inkjet printers but very stable prints. I own one which I use with a Nikon D-1X, D-1H and 995.

I can print you out a sample and mail it back to you if you've got a image file.

Here's a review.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/p400.html

I haven't bought a photo printer yet, but I intend to step up my research during the next month and come to a decision fairly soon. Thanks for the suggestion.

Anyone else?

Epson Photo 870/1270/880/1280. There really is no other choice.

These printers are used by photographic professionals (instead of the old messy darkrooms) and for good reason: better resolution than most chemical-process photo papers.

Long life inks (10-70 years, depending on the paper), excellent driver software, and the newer models (listed above) are even quiet enough to share a room with.

I have the 1270, and absolutely love it (not that you could tell, eh?).

Cheers

My simple solution with my 1270, is to remember to turn it on one a month, rarely necessary since it gets used for a LOT of photo printing. (and you though hacking empegs was my major hobby.. ha!).

The older epson I had before the 1270 was crap, noisy, clogged up, printed beautiful pics, and noisy as hell.

Things improved considerably with the 1270. An excellent printer.

The 870 is the 8.5x11" version of the 1270 (13"x19"), both are 1440x720.

The 880 and 1280 are the newer 2880x720dpi versions of the same machines.

-ml

Make certain you understand the well documented problems with Epson on the orange color shift.

Here's a link to the problem

http://www.p-o-v-image.com/epson/

Epson heavily marketed the 1270 and 870 as semi-archival printers and shortly after introduction the problem became apparent.

The colour shift was only seen by a small number of users, but was pretty bad when it occured. But it was also very specific to Premium Glossy Photo Paper (PGPP) from Epson, and prints are fine on the other excellent paper choices available.

Cheers

I believe Epson decided the problem was related to certain environmental conditions and paper chemistry. If I recall, they made a reformulated paper but I am unaware of how it fared. You'll see color shift in even lab processed color photos.

Epson has a good reputation for photo printers (inkjet) but the reality of an archival inkjet printer is probably not there yet.

Price not withstanding, dye sub has unbelievable quality. The Olympus dye subs have indistinguishable output from the $5000 Kodak dye sub machines. I've not looked at the Sony printers (Memory stick). I suggest you send an image file to owners of each brand... HP, Epson and if you're interested I'll print out the dye sub print. You can then decide for yourself. There's almost no way to describe the difference except to use the word "continuity" or smoothness.

If price is an issue (not just the purchase price but the consumables as well - about the cheapest you can make an 8x10 dye sub print is $1.82), inkjets work well and most people feel Epson is better than HP for photo work. A real advantage to the inkjets is the availability of consumables.

Just having the option of an 8x10 (A4) dye sub now at $729 (near the cost of an empeg tuner on e-bay) is remarkable. I think Epson's current model is the 890 at $289.

Damn, Epson PGPP is what I've got at home. Is the problem in the PAPER, the PRINTER, or the INK? Which would I have to change to fix the problem?

It's mostly in the paper, since the same ink works well on their other papers. Best papers (today) are Epson "Matte Paper Heavyweight" (cheap, too!), and their new semigloss "ColorLife Photo Paper" (more detail, much more expensive).

But the PGPP is usually okay for most people. I still have some here that I reserve for scenes with a lot of tonal detail, like skies. I'm not buying any more of it, though.

Cheers

I've read somewhere it's a pH problem in the paper and only in certain atmospheric environments. That's why Epson recommendsit's use only under glass (framed).

www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/ProductMediaSpec.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0220067955.1015355195@@@@&BV_EngineID=dadcdhefdmljbfdmcfjgckidnf.0&Zoom=Big&oid=-8776

click the link at the bottom for "Choosing the right photo paper"

The matte finishes are purportedly better than the high gloss but you lose high ends (brilliant whites) as in scintillations.

I have printed hundreds and hundreds of 8.5x11" photos (my "snapshot" size..), mostly on Matte Heavyweight, and some on Photo Paper, and some on PGPP.

I have no problem whatsoever with the bright white of the Matte paper. It produces brilliant prints with excellent detail, and is much easier to view than a more reflective glossy paper. But it doesn't do as good a job with large near-continuous tonal shading, as in skys. Other than that, I love the stuff.

Cheers

What did you notice in the continuous sky tones with the matte? Was it a noticable inkjet pattern or a step pattern as the tone changed slightly?

Just having choices is nice and there is no better learning tool for photography than digital - instant feed back.

As an aside. some photographers are exploring the opportunities of luminance that actual luminance (via a CRT) versus reflectivity off a paper can do for an image. You've probably noticed it in your screen versus the paper image from time to time.

If you're interested in some tips for displaying high gloss prints without the reflections send me a message and I'll forward some info to you.

The best way to see the difference in sky tones, is to make a print on both kinds of paper and then compare.

In my experience, the glossy shows a more continuous even tonal transition from horizon to near-field, whereas the matte paper tends to darken some areas more, showing fewer intermediate tones.

Reflections on paper are only an issue for hand-viewed snapshots. Anything that's framed is going to be far more at the mercy of the glass reflectivity than the paper.

Cheers

The darkening is likely related to the lower overall reflectivity of the paper due to the matte finish. Matte finishes by design reflect environmental light from all angles in a diffuse manner rather than directly like a mirror with gloss papers.

In practical terms, that means the blackest blacks of a matte print are lighter than with a gloss paper because environmental light from all angles hit the matte and reflect it to the eye equally from the entire surface area. To compensate when printing you have to lower the overall contrast of the image to raise the blackest blacks enough above the paper threshold reflectivity to still yield image detail in the areas just above black.

If you make two identical prints adjusted perfectly for the glossy finish to matte and glossy paper you will get fewer intermediate tones with the matte finish. Areas could be darker or lighter depending on how a particular paper absorbs the ink from the jet.

It's actually a phenomenon throughout the print but will be more noticable with continuous area like the sky.

Forgot to mention - Hijack is great. Thanks.

Reading the reviews around on this dye-sub ... man it looks right up my alley. My only wish is that it had ethernet rather than usb or parallel, but I can probably get a converter for that.

How is the maintenance on this? I've used some professional dye-sub printers back in the day, but I never had the opportunity to baby-sit one long enough to get a feel for it's maintenance and up-keep. Are there inks or distilled water to refill?

Does it mind if it's unused for a couple of weeks before the next print?

Are the drivers buggy, cranky, cheezy, cheap, or are they well made and invisible? (I'll mostly be using Photoshop as the source).

How does it do for black and whites and faked-sepia photos?

My wife has been trying to get me back out photographing again, but now that I'm back in school I don't have access to the free slide development and dye-sub printing services my previous jobs had. I tell you, that Fuji Pictrography 4000 is out of site ... but I can't afford the $8000.

I'm hoping that this P400 would deliver me back to my old glory days of photography.

Would you be open to sending me a color and black/white print? I'd gladly use paypal for the paper and shipping.

Greg

The dye sub printers at work are expensive to maintain. They use basically crayons, rectangle shaped crayons of different colors that go in the top. The dye sub process transfers the waxy material onto the paper. The ones at work at Tektronix dye subs and the resolution, color tone and quality is *horrible* compared to an ink jet.

Calvin

f price is an issue (not just the purchase price but the consumables as well - about the cheapest you can make an 8x10 dye sub print is $1.82), inkjets work well

Finally, someone addresses the issue of price.

Inkjet printers are *fantastically* expensive to run compared to laser printers, so much so that the price you pay for the printer itself is completely irrelevant, assuming that you are going to print in any reasonable volume.

I have a color laser printer at work that costs me about 11 cents a page for a 5% coverage full-color 8x10 print. A comparable inkjet print would be about 55 cents (the last time I looked, which admittedly is some time ago).

I can buy a decent ink-jet printer for $300. I can buy my color laser printer for about $1300. The $1300 printer is less expensive at the end of the year if I print more than 2300 pages, and every year after that I save $1000 a year.

I have yet to see an ink-jet print which matches the color quality of my laser printer in terms of brightness and saturation.

tanstaafl.

I have yet to see laser printer output that matches the photographic quality from an Epson 1270. At 13"x19" as well.

Cheers

They use basically crayons, rectangle shaped crayons of different colors that go in the top.

I can see how you might mistake a wax printer for die sub. Tektronix has a range of printers all called Phaser's with different model numbers. IIRC the 450 is a die sub and the 350 is wax.

Dye sub printers are 3 or 4 pass systems (cym or cymk). A donor roll with page size patches of cyan, magenta, yellow and black dyes is used to transfer color to the paper. The dyes build on top of, and merge with, each other. Each pixel renders 16 million color shades. No dithering. The donor roll is single use, and easy to replace. A 600 dpi inkjet is not the equal of a 300dpi die sub printer.

The only bad thing about dye sub is the cost $5-8 bucks per 8.5x11 sheet. (I'm told that inkjets can be high cost too. Depends on saturation and fill). It really makes you cry when you find all the supplies burned off by someone printing emails.

IMHO, Die sub printers are the best for printing photos. Too expensive for most anything else.

Hi Tony

Congratulations with your new camera.

I I were you I would save the money and use the printer you have already.

When you want high quality printout's use some of the online photoservices like www.shutterfly.com instead. They Print on real photo-paper.

Best regards

Ole

This is an interesting alternative which I had not considered.

Does anyone have any experience with these kinds of services? Do the prints last?

Hmm, their drag-and-drop browser plugin is one sweet piece of technology. I just did 7 megs worth of files and it rocked. Totally seamless. Hmmm, nice service, I'll try their sample prints and see how it goes...

These services use a digital minilab, like the ones in the back of many photo-shops.

They print our digital image on ordinary photopaper, just as if it were an image comming from an ordinary analog film/negative. (actully, if you take an analog film to a photo-shop today and ask for prints, ther minilab will most likely:
1) Develop the film
2) Scan the negatives at high resolution
2) Print the digital imagefile)

The best you can do is to try it out for yourself.
Shutterfly currently has 15 free prints to new customers.

best regards

Ole

I'd have to agree with Mark. Having seen the difference between a colour laser printout and a deskjet printout of the same photograph, I'd take the quality of the deskjet anyday about that of the laser.
Of course, if your printout's only 16 colours, nothing can beat a laser printer.
The only alternative that's left then are dye-sublimation wax printer, but I believe those are *really* expensive.

If you want to do your own custom cropping and enlargements, using a remote photolab is about the same as using a film camera versus a digital camera. Which one you choose depends upon how much instant control/feedback/correctibility you want.

Cheers

Something else about wax printers, they take a long time to warm up, and really need some level of constant use, otherwise the print heads tend to clog. Heck even with usage they eventually clog.

You've got it correct except for the cost. $1.82/A4 (roughly 8x10) for the P400. No maintenance on the dye sub except to change out the donor roll every 50 sheets and add paper.

1) zero maintenance except to change the donor roll and add paper
2) It doesn't care if you don't use it for a couple of weeks nor does it care if you come home smelling like someone else's dog.
3) never even noticed the drivers
4) Never printed a black and white with it (understand that I'm prejudiced having done lots of 4x5 sheet film with a view camera for black and white).
5) Never tried the Fuji but seen output from the Kodaks.
I'll do a color and black and white one for you just send me the files and I'll print em out for you - no charge.

B&H has them at a special price of $729. I got mine out of Austin at Precision Camera.

Forgot to add you can get a JetDirect ethernet to parallel. Kind of expensive though. $225?

PM'ed you, thanks Blitz!

Greg

Link doesn't work.. I've PMd you an email address to send the file to.

In reply to:

---

If your budget can stand a $1200 hit, you can shop around and find an HP-4550N color laser printer that will (IMHO) produce better quality pictures at a fraction of the cost per picture of an ink jet printer. (You'll be paying 7--10 cents per page instead of 50--75 cents per page.)

---

Hmm.. you think so? We have one of these at work, and while it's very fast/nice color, it doesn't really compare to the color output that I'm used to from the higher-end HP photo inkjet printers...
-mark

Hmm.. you think so? We have one of these at work, and while it's very fast/nice color, it doesn't really compare to the color output that I'm used to from the higher-end HP photo inkjet printers...

I think I know where the disparity of opinion is coming from, and we may both be right.

All of the color printing that I do is pretty much line-art, with solid colors, as opposed to photographic output. For that kind of printing, the results seem to favor the laser printer as far as saturation, crispness, and sharpness of imaging. And especially cost per page.

tanstaafl.

I am mistaken and stand corrected. FYI. The printer we have at work is a Phaser 850.

Calvin

We have an HP 970cxi and an Epson 870. While color print outs of our digital photographs look good on both, particularly on photo quality heavy matte paper, we rarely use them for that purpose.

In reality we print out very few of the digital pictures we take. Only the best get chosen and only when we can not send them to friends or family as an email attachment. We use www.ofoto.com, a Kodak company. We upload the image, select the size of the print and how many, give them a delivery address and take another hit on our credit card.

The results over the last ten months and some fifty prints have been excellent. I am still not quite sure how they deal with images we upload to them that do not have the same aspect ratio as normal photo stock paper. Perhaps there is cropping going on that we do not recognize but in any case the results look good and the service is good.

The best part is that we no longer fiddle with B&W trial runs and disappointing color prints when we did not get everything set as we should have before hitting "Print."

These two articles review a number of photo printing companies.

Part one: http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06717
Part two: http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06721

Thanks David. Those are interesting articles in Tidbits.

Michael

Thank you for those links, David. I am more confident about trying some of these services.

Got the photo yesterday, looks good! Shadows were kept well. A little greenish but I read that's easily fixable in some technote somewhere.

g

(Bumping this up to the top...)

I almost mentioned this thread on a Slashdot thread on the same basic topic that appeared today.

Then I thought better of it. It's been said before, but it's worth saying again. The signal to noise ratio here is so much better than you find elsewhere. Thank you, everybody.

By the way, since this thread got bumped to the top, I ended up getting the Canon S820 and I'm quite happy with it. It meets all of my criteria.

I take it you're a huge fan of Canons.

Calvin

No, it's the first Canon printer I've ever owned, so I wouldn't say a huge fan. I'm just happy with this particular purchase.

I'm also happy with the Canon camera, but it was purchased on its own merits and I didn't use it as a criteria for the printer purchase (I know the camera and printer divisions are probably completely separate in everything but name).

Saw this bumped back up and thought I'd make a comment. I just got my 15 free 4x6 prints from Shutterfly, and I must say they look REALLY good. I didn't even use full resolution pictures. I'm going to try printing out some 8x10s and see how they look. But, it looks like I might be sticking with them, and not worry about buying my own fancy inkjet.

I ordered a 20x30 print from Ofoto.com of a photo that a guy took of the moon at 3/4 phase through a telescope. Looks really sweet, but I only order prints for stuff I really want ot look nice, or be real BIG.
And of course I take advantage of as many bonus prints for signing up to the different online photo places...

I finally got my camera... I opted for the new S330 and got the waterproof case (good up to 100' underwater). Seems like a keeper to me, small size and I can take it wherever I go this summer and not have to worry about getting it wet.

Later