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Just posted: Printer Primer Part 1: Choosing a new printer

Jul 25, 2011 at 23:54:48 GMT

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Just Posted: Printer Primer part 1: Choosing a new printer. Over the coming months we will be expanding our printing content to include reviews and technique articles. As part of that process we're also taking the opportunity to update some of our existing content. Part one of our updated printer primer replaces an earlier guide to photo printers and explains the different types of models available, the technologies they use, and how you should determine which is right for you.

Click here to read Part 1 of our Printer Primer: Choosing a New Printer

Comments

Total comments: 29

This is great! I'd also love to see a section for reviewing companies that print photos (e.g., - Walgreens, Mpix, KodakGallery, etc.).

0 upvotes

The primer righty mentions pigment and dye inks as an important factor, but the first group test makes no mention of whether the printers are pigment or dye, and the side-by-side comparisons do not include this factor.

1 upvote

We have just added ink type as a part of each printer's specs in our product database. By next week ink type should be available as a search criteria option as well.

1 upvote

Great thanks very much!

0 upvotes

Please!
Say at least a little about Xerox/Tektronic Phaser solid ink (wax) technology.
I've been using Phaser 8500 in my previous office. The results even on ordinary photo-copy paper are astonishing!
Maybe u should compare one of them with 6-7 ink's inkjet beasts.

2 upvotes

Hear! Hear!

0 upvotes

I'd be happy if peoples from DpReview/Amazon can 'Hear! Hear!' my voice too. But Amazon is quite big company, so I don't have much hope.
Still Phaser's solid ink can do a miracles. The prints are glossy, full of color and wonderful. It have his downsides of course. Quite big price per photo and you should not try to scratch your high quality prints :)
I'm not working for Xerox. I'd just would like to see little comparison between wax print and photo inkjet.

0 upvotes

The right printer to choose is none at all*.

Ink-jet printers suck and you'll get better quality and a lower price letting someone else handle your copies so why bother?

(Choosing a laser printer is another option but in those cases the Kindle may be a better choice.)

0 upvotes

Not always so.
I have seen some shocking lab printers that are worse than my Canon Multifunction.
There are so many variables, chemicals, operator, maintainence, calibration, age.
If you want the most accurate result you print it yourself.

1 upvote

Too short, I could have read more. Nothing new but nice.

By the way, it is not necessary to pay large sums for a high quality A4 printer. I got mine at 100€

0 upvotes

I've used Canon printers for years and never had a print head clogg. The pring quality is exceptional and printing is cheap and fast. IP4000 since it came out and the IP4700 for the last two years.

0 upvotes

I bought the 365 or whatever it was called and it clogged and I never got that many prints out of it.

Ordering from a company is cheaper and results would be better so ..

Imho canon inkjet and ink suck, total waste of money.

0 upvotes

I cannot for the life of me understand why any home user would subject themselves to the horror or frustration of working with these horrible printing technologies.

Buy yourself 5 or even 10 LCD monitors for the price you will end up paying for these ink guzzling, clogging money sucking printers.

Epson ..... clean clog clean clog ..... then throw away the printer
HP .... clean spend clean spend .... but at least you don't need to throw away the printer when a nozzle get perminently clogged.

The inks are way way overpriced and the generics can seem to ever get the colour right.

The only thing that makes sense is when you hack your printer for continuous feed of generic ink ..... but then you need to have a volume that makes no sense for a home user.

4 upvotes

Great article, could have done with it a few months ago when I was researching printers! I decided on a Canon Pro9000 mk2, and I seriously love it. And in the UK they're doing a £100 cash back offer so it's a bargain.
I am trying to find a paper I equally love tho. I'm using the Canon Semi-gloss and the pro platinum glossy ones at the moment, but I'm looking for something with a bit more texture then the SG. I've tried using ilford paper, but their profiles give me terrible colour - I actually get better colour results using a canon ICC profile than the ilford one. Anyone else found this? Does anyone have any paper recommendations? I'm looking for a semi gloss surface with some texture - I like the fujifilm achival paper they do, but it's not an inkjet paper :-(
Cheers!
p.s. I'm getting married on Friday and will be visiting California and Hawaii for my honeymoon shorty! Wish me luck...

0 upvotes

I have a Canon MP990 which I think is the predecessor of the MG8150. Terrific printer, reliable and makes fantastic photos. I have no problem with the price of Canon papers which are of excellent quality but the ink cartridges are small and very expensive.

More of a case of use it quick or lose it quicker. If you use your printer on a regular basis then I can get a decent amount of prints, but f I don't use it for a month or so the ink just seems to vaporise or gets wasted at the next start up in cleaning cycles. I am jut wondering if I could get the same quality prints with compatible non genuine cartridges so I don't have to worry so much about losing expensive ink because I'm not printing a large batch of photos with new cartridges every time.

1 upvote

I'm glad to see this article on printers. It's perhaps nothing new for many of us, but I need a reminder or refresher course, and it's very useful and convenient to have it here.

0 upvotes

Great products, but aren't these destroying photographers businesses?

As a school photographer and administrator of www.schoolphotopro.com, our members are all suffering because of this type of technology as parents can now easily run off copies of their school photos. When they can make copies so easily why would they want buy more than just a single print?

0 upvotes

"Great products, but aren't these destroying photographers businesses?"

Forgive me, but this seems an absurd reaction to an article on printers.

4 upvotes

The comment was aimed more at the recent article on multi-function devices that offer scanning and photo-quality printing, but as most computer packages are sold with a scanner, it amounts to the same.

0 upvotes

Who cares?

As if school photos were important anyway?

0 upvotes

As a former professional photographer, perhaps I am selling out my profession by saying this, but if your business model relies on keeping the customer tied to you for a service that they can do for themselves, then perhaps it's an outdated business model.

In the days of film cameras, negatives and darkrooms, photographers could keep control over the whole process and extract more money from their customers each time the customer wanted something else. Obviously the digital age has changed the power balance, and changed what customers want from a photographer - ie something they can't do for themselves.

Most other graphic professionals (eg graphic designers) have evolved to a more modern business model - photographers seem to be living in the past.

Instead of wishing for technology to disappear, it would seem more sensible to change the way we offer our service to emphasise the value we can really add, rather than saying 'I exist, therefore people should want to pay me'.

0 upvotes

I have to disagree regarding the cost - when we were using 35mm film, the costs were much higher, the cameras today are very capable, memory is so cheap & to print is convenient, flexible and cheap at supermarkets. You can recover pictures that are sub-par with good results. Holidays used to be 2-3 rolls of film (24-26 exposure) now we take '00s of pictures. I can print A3+ to a better standard than 35mm enlargements I have had done for about £5 (paper, ink, stiffener & cello bag). The printer has printed 1000 images so costs about £0-50/print and ink I estimate at £0-75/picture (A3+).

Printing 6x4s costs peanuts; photo paper is just so cheap.

My Minolta SLR with the very spiffy 24-85mm len where I recently filtered out some old 6x4s - '00s were consigned to the bin, so the costs cannot have been good if I chuck 70% of my prints away.

If you consider the total cost of ownership of camera, memory &printing over say the life of a camera today, I belive we are quite fortunate.

0 upvotes

You need to compare against services that offer prints of your photographs. These can be of very high quality and very affordable as well. So I'd like to know how much I'm losing if I choose a printer instead.

3 upvotes

Comparing against the cost of film is irrelevant, unless you run both film and digital cameras and choose one or the other based on cost. More useful is to ask whether I am better off buying a printer, or printing through one of the online services.

0 upvotes

For me a photo is not a photo until it is printed and becomes a tangible physical object. Otherwise it is just date stored on a computer.
Everyone can wow at what modern printers can deliver but at what cost? Since consumable costs such as ink cartridges can be crippling in making home photo printing a viable option I'd like to see an article comparing the use of genuine expensive OEM and vastly cheaper compatible cartridges. The cost differential is huge. Is there any value in using non genuine cartridges for quality photo printing at home or will it remain in the realm of those who can afford it?

0 upvotes

I'm afraid that this new initiative, however helpful it may be to some people, will dilute what's been the main strength of DPR, namely wonderfully complete and reliable information on cameras and lenses. Unless you are able to hire on a bunch of new investigators and writers, how can the result be anything but a lessening, or further delaying, of info on what has made this site what it has been since Phil Askey introduced it.

Isn't this exactly what's happening to many businesses these days? They forget their roots and try to become everything for everyone. For sure, that's what your parent, Amazon, has done, so it's not surprising that DPR is moving in that direction. But /quel dommage/.

3 upvotes

You're right! That's what is happening now.

Fotopixel

0 upvotes

The printer reviews are outsourced so to speak. The DPR camera and lenses staff isn't losing time with these topics.

2 upvotes

nice article

1 upvote

Total comments: 29


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