Re: Looking for a good dedicated Photo printer

Basically, there are four inkjet printer brands in the general marketplace:

Dell/Lexmark (very inexpensive printers, often free, use dye inks, thermal printhead as part of the cartridge. Cartridges ar every costly. print quality, build of printer and drivers all mediocre to poor. Not recommended.

HP: HP has a variety of printers and designs. The newer Vireo inks have fairly good permanence, but require swellable polymer papers to do so. They are slow drying, and vulnerable to fingerprints after drying.
Most use thermal heads attached to ink cartridge. Some have separate heads, which tend to last numerous ink cartridges.

They have become fast but not without sacrifice of quality at the fastest rates. Cartridge are costly, and ink amounts small, but the company has improved yield by recycling ink and extracting air from it internal to the printer. They make both 4 color and 6 and more color printers.

Canon, up until very recently used dyes with Microporous papers
and most still do. These are rapid drying and the printers are fast and easy to refill. the two main setbacks are the inks of some inksets is very fugitive. Canon has introduced a new inkset called Chroma 100, claiming 100 years of stable ink images, but looking into the claims you will find the long end of those claims are based upon under glass or dark keeping. The heads typically last about 2 years before requiring replacement. They come in 4, 6 and more colors. Cartridges are easy to refill, generally.

Finally, there is Epson. I suggest staying away for the Durabrite inks sets and printers, until I hear more about the newer models. Durabrite are rapid drying by can tend to clog in the low end printers. The inks have very good permanence. Epson also makes low end dye printers.
The dye ink comes mainly in 6 color theses days. Those printers also allow for CD and DVD print labels direct on the disks. They tend to have good drivers. The best Epson printers are higher end ones, with Ultra chrome pigment inks. They have a reasonable color gamut, don't often clog, have permanent heads, and produce stunning prints, although slower than the current canon models. Epson printers have cartridges that are quite difficult to refill.

I'm not going to make specific suggestions, you need to look at the output and decide your level of "perfection". Some people find 4 color printers good value and reasonably accurate, some people demand at least 6 colors. Look at, or ask for samples form the manufacturer's win.

Art


Kenneth Maultsby wrote:

The prints will be exposed to fingerprints and place in photo albums..
Speed is not too important.
Number of photos depends on event or coming back from vacatios I say about thirty per month.
I will be using ODM ink but if I can find good 3rd party ink or refills for a lower price that will not clog I will use that.
Paper surfaces glossy.
Price range $150-$500 the lower the better.
"Arthur Entlich" <e-printerhelp@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:tvEKf.52918$H%4.45635@xxxxxxxxxxx

More information would be really helpful.

One thing that still somewhat separates the printer brands is the type of inks they use, the type of papers taht work with those inks and the permanence of them.

Do you need archival prints? Will your prints be exposed to air? Humidity, fingerprints?

Is speed important? What type of service duty do you intend for this printer (numebr of prints per month) as that will help determine cartridge size and cost. Will you be using OEM (printer company) ink cartridges or buy either 3rd party, refills or refillables?

What type of paper surfaces do you like to print with?

What is your price range?

Art

Kenneth Maultsby wrote:


I am looking for a good dedicated Photo printer to go with my Mac. I will printing mostly 4x6 and 5x7 also some 8x10 I will be mostly editing the photos using Photoshop Elements or Photoshop CS. I would like to have the capabilities of printing larger photos like 11x14 or larger but I don't know how often I will need to use that large of a size. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.



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