Choosing a printer

[Alis]

Hi everyone,

We may have discussed this here recently but I could not find anything, I have been thinking of buying a good printer to print my pictures myself at home and experiment a little bit with printing and colors (since I have mastered photography and there is nothing more I can learn ). To buy things, I usually go by brand and price. With printers, I have always been disappointed. It is so unpredictable. So, I was wondering if anyone here has any suggestions. I mostly want to know what parameters are important in selelcting a good printer. I will be mostly printing my own, mostly crappy, pictures with it and I like matte finish!

Thanks.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Ali,

This is the updated version of the one I use ... every photographer should have one (unless you need to print bigger!).

http://www.image-acquire.com/Epson%207880.jpg

[Alis]

... every photographer should have one (unless you need to print bigger!).

Until that day, could you come down on the price may be $2000?

I also believe people have good sense of humor here on CiC

I need a desktop printer around $300-400.

[Bill44]

If you only need A4 then I'm finding my Canon MP980 to be great.

[Priapus]

Lately, I was in facing the same problem you have. I researched a lot, first I wanted a laser color printer, but after talking with one of my friends who owns an electronics shops he advised me with Canon Pixma ip 1900 (inkjet printer), it was really cheap around $45, it only print A4 and smaller sizes, I thought from the specification sheet that it was not so much great but after using it I found out that it fills all my needs for printing my photos as if I have sent them to a Lab. I still do not know how many photos its print cartridges are capable of producing, but within the last week I printed 40 photos 4"x6" (10 cm X 15 cm) with the cartridges that were shipped with it and its printer console shows the cartridges are still full.
On the paper Side I use to think that Canon glossy paper is the best, but lately I got some chinese paper that seems to be fine but with 1/4 of the cost of canon paper.
This is a review page for this printer.
Hope that you will find the printer that suites your needs soon.
regards.

[Colin Southern]

first I wanted a laser color printer ...

I'm not sure if colour laser printers have improved much in their ability to reproduce photos, but all the ones I've seen produce a very subdued image; VERY low image quality.

[Dave Humphries]

I agree completely and utterly - and I've always wanted to say that

Laser's are good for "graphics"; e.g. powerpoint pres. slides, etc., but generally not a patch on a half-decent inkjet for photos.

[Davey]

As mentioned I think the tonal range of inkjet cannot be matched by laser for technical reasons until they make wide gamut toners which I doubt they will since inkjet is more suited to that purpose anyway.

My 5 ink (really it's 4, just a pig and dye black) does me but for really good range you may want to consider 6 colour printers (ie. cymk & pale m and pale y) or even the 8 or 10 ink pro printers with green inks etc to extend it further. The pale colours are good for getting good tone without losing resolution and obviously the addition of green makes it even wider. For me my setup is sufficient since I only print my own crappy photos bigger than a4 or pro quality is overkill (print for myself mainly since no-one else would want 'em hehehe).

I think after searching round the best value for money with better than average quality for entry level photo printer IMO is probably the ip4500 but it's hard to find (replaced by the ip4600 which is not as good, I know I have one ). I find my ip4600 is great quality and cheap using quality aftermarket ink (although not simple swap job refill) but using canon oem ink it works out more expensive comparred to the ip4500's cli8/pgi8 carts for same quality due to smaller carts & more cleaning cycles.

Since looking around a lot to solve my initial ink cycle issue I notice the ip4500 seems one of the highest rated entry level photo printers and seems very popular and often the printer hopper stopper (ie. those who changed brands/models a lot seemed content when they used it and stuck with it or bought the same model when that wore out).

Other than budjet which you mentioned already is there any other requirements like max print size, max paper thickness (or canvas printing etc), speed, printer size, ink price, os support etc you can think of.