Do you really need 6 or 8 colors???

My old canon i560 printer just died and now I need a new one.Seems like all the photo printers I look at use 6 or 8 different colors and are expensive to replace. My old canon used 3 colors and black. I could get the 3 color cartridges at sams club for$28 which made for really cheap printing. With just 3 colors I was amazed at how good my prints looked. So do you really gain that much by going to 6 or 8 different colors and is worth the extra price?....Bob

That depends on what you want to accomplish. Most 4 color printers can do an excellent job of color reproduction but there are tradeoffs. The printer you described uses dye based inks and while they generally yield nice gamuts, dye ink longevity is limited. Pigment based printers offer greater longevity but generally their gamuts are smaller. Manufacturers add additional color inks to expand the gamut range. Additional cartridges targeting B&W offer improved image tonalities. The added profit from selling extra cartridges doesn't hurt either.

Robertj_298 said:

My old canon i560 printer just died and now I need a new one.Seems
like all the photo printers I look at use 6 or 8 different colors and
are expensive to replace. My old canon used 3 colors and black. I
could get the 3 color cartridges at sams club for$28 which made for
really cheap printing. With just 3 colors I was amazed at how good my
prints looked. So do you really gain that much by going to 6 or 8
different colors and is worth the extra price?....Bob

Click to expand...

I had the i560 and did some photo printing with it. It made decent looking prints, but the inks certainly are not very long lasting. Some of the 4x6 prints i made with it had the ink start disappearing after 12 to 18 months when it was just lying around my desk.

If all you want are 4x6 snapshot prints and don't really care about high quality high accuracy prints, a low end printer will probably make you happy.

Just about every printer maker is calling their inks, even in low end printer, to be some sort of archival/long lasting ink. Although if you're mainly printing 4x6s you're cheapest method would be to outsource them to a place that does high volume where you can sometimes get a 4x6 print for the same price you'd pay for a 4x6 piece of photo paper. And you'll most often be getting a print made through a better process than inkjet for long lasting purposes.

The HP9180 has 8 inks, and I think the Canon 9500 has 10 inks. I think this is rediciulous. However, the HP9180 and the Canon 9500 are good quality photo printers that can do 13 x 19 prints (large Formats). Both of these printers have the capability to print high quality prints.

I had a Canon IP4200 printer (2.5 years ago) that had three color inks for photos and a black ink for photos. It also had a large black ink tank for text. But basically it used four colors for the pictures. The prints from this printer were as good as the 8 and 10 tank printers, and in some cases better.

There was also a Canon IP4300 and Ip4500 printer that has the same technology as my old Ip4200 printer. The Ip4200, Ip4300 and the Ip 4500 Canon printers all print outstanding prints using 4 colors. The Canon Pro 9500 actually uses the very same technology as the Ip4200 but uses 10 inks instead of four.

The more tanks the more money the ink manufacturer make. So it is sort of an Ink Shell game. I don't want a printer that hss 8 or 10 tanks. 4 to 6 is plenty. More than that is a complete waste. In most cases it is almost impossible for someone to tell the difference between an 6 tank and an 8 tank printer, but it does make the manufactutrer richer.

I really want to the Hp9180 or Canon Pro 9500 but have not because i don't want all my money going for expensive 8 and 10 ink tanks.

I think the differences are subtle. More cartridges should widen the gamut (red,green,blue etc) or print better lighter tones (light magenta and cyan). You'll probably have to look close to see the difference. I currently have a Pixma 4000 that does surprisingly good photo printing with 4 colors (CMYK).

I do not see a disadvantage in having more cartridges. OK, a complete inkset costs more, but you'll also get more ink for that money. What really matters is the price per ml ink and the amount of ink per given surface that a printer uses.

and you will find that printing with one of the newer, multi-ink printers not only gives better colour but is also cheaper / print

I can only talk about the 9180 from direct experience but as I sell my prints via galleries and craft-markets so have customer feedback on quality as well.

With the significantly larger tanks (27ml for the 9180 and around 5 - 10ml or less for most of the older 3 tank systems) the cost / sq inch is down below 1 uk penny (for the older printers I owned it was typically from 1.5 - 3p / sq inch)

The customer feedback confirms my eyesight which tells me the quality is significantly better, "the difference between a "Snapshot" and professional print" and the colour stability is such that you need never worry about it ever again

Don't stand on the sidelines worrying whether you will be ripped off - you can't go wrong with printers from any of the major manufacturers these days.

If on the other hand you just want snapshot output - go to your highstreet print stations and get them done there - they are great value for money

JHaagsma said:

I do not see a disadvantage in having more cartridges. OK, a complete
inkset costs more, but you'll also get more ink for that money.

Click to expand...

Things don't "even out" when you have more colours. Here's a comparison between the page yield figures of the Canon MP830 and MP970 Multi-function printers, averaged over all the cartridges:

MP830 (5 cartridge) - 86 4x6 photos
MP970 (7 cartridge) - 58 4x6 photos
(Source: http://www.canon.co.uk/ink/yield/finder/ )

The two printers use the same cartridges, except that the MP970 has additionally a Photo Magenta cartrige and a Photo Cyan cartridge. The Photo Colour cartridges use a disproportionate amount of ink.

JHaagsma said:

What
really matters is the price per ml ink and the amount of ink per
given surface that a printer uses.

Click to expand...

Correct, and on that basis, a 6-colour printer will always use more ink than a similar 4-colour printer, other things being equal.

In actuality for photo level output, yes, you need more than 6 inks. What you get is better transitions between colors, in my experience much better very light transitions, and very dark shadow transitions. I printed professionally with a 6 ink 44 inch printer, every once in a while I hit a transition that would posterize, have yet to see this with my 8 ink HpB9180 at work and my 12 ink iPF5000 Canon at home. Early on I was using an old Epson 3000 (4 ink) and 20% of the prints I did with this printer had some transition that the printer couldn't handle, with my Epson Stylus 9000 it was down to 5% with 6 inks. With the HP and Canon printer I am now using I am getting better prints than I was getting from the professional Chromira printer I was having do my prints. With my 6 ink printer I had to work hard to get to chemical photo equality.

Tom

Not such an easy question to answer! You did not really give much to work with: how much do you print? what do you do with the prints? etc...

For starts, IF you get into color management some and use quality paper with proper profiles, working from TIFF in argb or better, the difference between a 4 color printer and an 8+ color printer will be obvious and outstanding.

If you pay no mind to color management and work strictly with JPEG, the difference will be harder to notice in many instances.

The ink replacement cost is not so simple either: the printers which use 8+ colors let you replace each color as it runs out, no need to do all at once, though there will still be somewhat more ink usage.

If you print alot, we can talk about 1 of the several excellent CIS units available...

In all probability, since you do use this forum, you will be happier with an 8+ color printer after a bit of learning ...

do good billb

If I were to get one of the Canon ip4000 you just mentioned (4200, 4300, 4500) does it matter which, picture quality wise?