Too many choices...

Hello All.

I know I am about to ask a very difficult question, but here goes. I have been shopping around for a photo printer and I am stumped. I would like to spend 500$ CDN max on the printer and the cable and I expect the ink to be included.

The Canons look good, but everyone says you have to use their paper or suffer a noticible loss in quality. Also, I have read that Canon does not have accurate B&W photo printing capability as they use all colours and wind up a greenish hue.

Epson looks good but shy of spending 600$, the 785 model and up have had bad reviews for leaving "tread marks" on the photos and they are not printing in as high a resolution as Canon or HP.

HP looks good, but the prices of the inks has me wondering why they dont offer individual cartridges like Canon.

I would appreciate the benfit of all the knowledge and experience of anyone willing to share.

johnny

Canon can use other papers very well. I use Epson Premium luster, Illford Classic Pearl and Canon PPP. They all work extremly well. However I use custom profiles I got off the web. It simply is not true canon only works well with canon papers. Sorry but I have not tried B&W as I have only been using color...

Jim Allen

The tread marks are all dependent on what type of paper you use; I only notice it on Premium Glossy Photo Paper, and only when holding it in certain directions to fluorescent light. I personally do not notice it at all on matte or semigloss paper (my favourite choices).

As for the resolution, don't get caught up into the resolution game. Epson is calculating their dpi differently than other manufacturers; and besides, the droplet size on the other manufacturers is too big to fit into their dpi grid anyway, so they really can't print at that high dpi.

I do all my printing at 1440dpi on my Epson C80 and 820, and both easily blow anything away that Canon or HP can do, at their "maximum" resolution.

Realistically, though, it's best that you take a look at the final result images from each machine and see which you're most happy with.

Darius

johnny k said:

Epson looks good but shy of spending 600$, the 785 model and up
have had bad reviews for leaving "tread marks" on the photos and
they are not printing in as high a resolution as Canon or HP.

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