(I waffled about whether to put this in IMHO or General Questions, so mods, feel free to move it if I guessed wrong. Thanks.)
In the next week or so I’m planning to replace my cheap digital camera with something nicer, and would also like to buy a photo printer to go with it. After doing some research, I see that they come in two major categories: dye-sublimation and inkjet, and that inkjets are further subdivided by the number of ink tanks they include (some have four, some have six, etc.) They both seem to produce nice output, but there are a lot of variables and I’d like to get some input from folks who know what they’re talking about regarding real-world issues with these two types and which one might be best for me. My parameters:
I’d like to spend no more than about $400 (quite a bit less if I can find decent quality at a lower price, obviously).
I’d like one that can accept CompactFlash media directly, so I don’t have to hook it up to a computer.
If it plays particularly well with the camera I’m planning to buy (the Canon EOS Digital Rebel) that would be a plus.
I’d like (obviously) as high-quality an image as possible. It doesn’t need to be super-fast.
Size is nice but not paramount–if it can print borderless on 8.5 x 11 that would be great, but realistically 4x6 is probably what I’ll be doing most of.
What are the real differences between dye-sub printers and inkjet printers? Does the dye-sub have better print quality? Would a cheap dye-sub and a more expensive inkjet have similar print quality? What about time? Is one significantly cheaper to operate than the other (ink tanks vs. whatever dye-subs take)? Do both print to the same type of paper? How does cropping work? (I notice that some printers have little screens and others don’t–how important is this?)
Any recommendations or help would be appreciated. Thanks!
I’d vote for inkjet. I have a Canon S800 and I love it. 8X10’s made on photo paper look exactly like photographs to me. (I have a 3 megapixel camera, BTW). You have to use photo paper to get the best results. High resolution paper is still pretty good. Photos printed on standard paper look bad.
Ink is pretty expensive, but I’m pretty sure the dye-sub is even more expensive to operate. And I don’t think you’ll find a dye-sub printer that will print 8X10s in that price range.
Unless cost of consumables and print size are unimportant, go with an inkjet!
The Epson PHOTO Stylus series are very good, although the newer HPs are supposed to be good also. I currently use an Epson Photo Stylus 960. It handles sheet paper of various sizes as well as roll paper in both 4" and 8 1/2" widths. Can even print directly on CDs.
Individual ink tanks are best as you never use all the colors equaly. So individual tanks eliminate tossing a tank with a lot of one or two colors left.
I can’t comment on dye-sub vs. inkjet, but I just bought an inkjet printer and found that the cost of ink refills is significantly cheaper for Canon printers than for other models. Black and white cartridges are about $8, color about $16. Our last printer (a Compaq, I think) was roughly $20-$25 for each.
I really don’t know much about the difference between these types of printers, but i do have what i think is a relevant comment:
If you’re going to spend such good money on a nice digital camera and a printer, i’m not sure why it’s so important that you be able to put the Compact Flash card straight into the printer, because you will almost never get the best possible results that way. Nearly all digital camera pictures benefit from some post-processing in image software like Photoshop or Pain Shop Pro, in order to achieve optimum colour balance and, perhaps most importantly, sharpness.
Funnily enough, it is often the more expensive, higher-end cameras (like your Canon Eos) that benefit most from such after-shot processing, because their firmware and compression algorithms are designed on the assumption that the photographer wants more creative control over the final product than someone who buys a $200 point-and-shoot. Even the highest quality jpeg settings on my Minolta Dimage 7Hi benefit considerably from some Photoshop processing, and if you ever decide to shoot in your camera’s RAW mode, you will definitely need to do some manipulation.
That’s a very good point to raise. I rarely make a print without adjusting levels in PhotoShop. My printer does not have a card reader so I don’t know if the card reader on the printer allows transferring to the PC or only allows printing. If it’s only printing, I wouldn’t bother. Buy a USB reader for $20 and use it. All the cameras can connect to your PC via USB, but I always remove the card and use a reader.
I’m one of the few who have owned and used a dye-sub printer within the price range you’re talking about. I had an NEC SuperScript 3000 for a few years in the late 90s and early 00s. It also did thermal-wax printing which was totally unimpressive and I never used it.
Actually it cost me more like $700 but they really don’t come any cheaper than that AFAIK. A more typical dye-sub price would probably be $7000.
I got some really terrific prints. I had to buy special paper which cost as much for about 24 sheets as 4 500-ct reams of standard all-purpose paper, and I had to buy the spools of 3-color dye film which tended to run a bit more expensive than inkjet cartridges (which are a long long way from cheap themselves). This particular model of dye-sub was CMY only and created black from blending other others (no dedicated black dye).
About 1 in every 5 prints would go haywire – midway through one of the color passes it would start with the blinking lights and I’d be out that sheet of expensive paper and an 8.5 x 11 area of dyesub film in all three colors on the dye roll.
I’d also be out the time – it took maybe 15 minutes to print a single 8.5 x 11 page and the computer was totally tied up for the duration. So to have it croak 9 minutes in was expensive in a lot of ways.
At some point around 2000 or 2001, the printer became very glitchy about pulling in the paper – it would roll it in partway and then start with the blinking lights every time. I called NEC and they said they’d discontinued the printer and my options were to upgrade (at full price) to another printer or to toss it in the trash. They did not repair them or work on them, period.
In short: a low-end el cheapo dye-sub printer is likely to be a disappointment in speed, support, and reliability, and the great prints that you get from it when you can get it to work won’t outweigh that. Of course technology moves on and this could have changed – read up on other users’ experiences and see if the word looks good. But I’m somewhat inclined to think that the mechanisms don’t lend themselves to a steadily decreasing price so you may still find that that good dye-subs are still bearing a price tag that would dwarf what you paid for your computer and might approach what you paid for your car.
Dye sub printers produce amazing quality images. They’re generally used for large-scale poster work and really high end smaller prints. Some dye-sub printers are also available to do cdr-prints (for on the disc itself). However, the cost of the dyes (which come in big crayons of coloured wax) is quite high and there’s a higher incidence of bad prints. There’s also the cost of the printer itself… the last time I looked the only consumer-level printer (brand name of Fargo) cost in the neighbourhood of 1000 CAD.
I use an ink-jet myself (epson) and have been more than happy with it. Ink costs a fair amount though, but if you aren’t doing a lot of prints it can last quite a while. You’ll get far better prints if you use epson photo glossy paper, as well. With photo paper remember to wait for the ink to dry before judging how well it printed. I’ve found large colour shifts in the ink after about 10 minutes of drying. Generally for the better, I should add.
Most, if not all, of the HP printers [and I’d assume other manufacturers as well] with a card slot do allow files to be transfered to the PC just like a regular card reader. And that is the cheif advantage of them – it’s what I use mine for. Plus sometimes you just need a quick print of a snapshot.
I must also agree with mhendo…if you want really good prints, don’t print directly from the card. Adjustments in color balance, levels, rotation, cropping, etc, can almost always improve the output of a shot. I take relatively good photos, even with my 2MP point and shoot, and my cheap $150 inkjet HP 5550 prints photo output nearly indistinguishable from film prints. In fact, I’d say I get superior photo output than a point and shoot film camera (still not to the level of SLR film). Your digital Rebel would benefit from a slightly higher end printer, but a $250 ink jet will give you outstanding photo quality for a relatively low cost.
I see no reason to use a dye-sub printer. Inkjets deliver the resolution necessary and you can buy one that uses individual inks. I’ve used HP’s and Epsons but the other injets will have similar features.
If you don’t plan on using your printer for months at a time then you might consider an HP because their print heads are incorporated into their print cartridges. If the head becomes too clogged from non-use then a new ink cartridge will correct that problem. All ink jets need to be used at least once a weak to keep them clean.
If you want archival ink then Epson’s new line of printers offer it. The color is supposed to last 80+ years and it is water stable (you can run an image under water). I’m using an Epson 2200 (wide carriage) to produce black & white images. It uses a 7 ink system (individual) and the 7th color is grey. You can also swap out the black ink for extra control of that color (if you want better shading or darker black).
Any small carriage inkjet that costs $400 will have memory slots so that should not be a problem. You might want to read consumer reports on how well they work without a computer. If you go with a computer then you want a printer with USB-2 capabilities (or better). Also, if a computer is used and you don’t have software, look for printers bundled with good software like Adobe Elements. I’ve made some spectacular digital panoramic shots with it. I have seen printer reps do the same thing to promote their printers.
By the way, Sony just stepped into Canon’s arena with an 8 meg camera for the same money. should be a good year for camera’s.
Like AHunter3, I too used a dye sub printer in the late nineties. It was an Alps 5000s. Made superb 8x10 prints, better than anything the inkjets were doing at the time (IMHO), but it cost $500 and ink and paper cost me about $2 per sheet combined. About half of my prints were destroyed by dust or grit getting under the ink tape as it was transferred to the paper, leaving nasty trails. Expensive, slow and frustrating.
Just as a slight aside having nothing to do with printers, themselves, it appears to be important to match the paper with the company producing the printer. For instance, if you have a Canon printer, use only Canon paper.
The paper is manufactured to meet the specifications of the ink formulation of the printer and you will get better results than if you use, for instance, Office Depot glossy paper.
We’ve got three bubble jet’s. One his high end the other two are really, really not. On the old “really-not” Epson Stylus (a good printer by the way, just not supposed to really be outstanding), I found the perfect paper. Made by Epson. Then I calibrated the printer settings through trial and error until I got great results and saved the settings.
Now the only way you can tell the difference between the actual photographic print and the Epson print is that if you look really carefully you can see extremely faint pinprick traces of where the rollers were. That and the paper I love so much is a lighter weight than most so it feels thinner.
Totally get paper designed for your printer and experiment with the settings. We get phenomenal results with a $175 printer and the cost of the paper is reasonable. Our “high-end” bubble jet designed for photos doesn’t do as well as this cheap one and the right paper.
Thanks, everybody, for the advice–you brought up some things I didn’t even think of, and that helped.
I got my camera this weekend, and ended up buying the Canon i900D photo inkjet printer. It came down to either that or the i9100D (which is similar, with its main differences being more nozzles and the ability to print 13x19") and since the i900D was half the price and I don’t need the speed of extra nozzles or to print things that huge, that made my decision for me.
Now I’ve got another question, though: several posters talk about processing the photos before printing them. I’ve got Photoshop and the printer came with Photoshop Elements. I’m familiar with using Photoshop to do font effects and such, but I’ve never really learned much about processing photos for printing (other than cropping, of course). Can someone recommend a good web page or two, or explain some of the basic things to do to improve photos before printing them?
Thanks very much! I’m getting quite an education here, but I want to do my new photo setup justice. My old Sony Mavica 1.3 megapixel took nice pics for the web and it was good to be able to save them to floppies, but I want to move up now.
Congrats on your new purchases. I actually went out and bought a manual for Photoshop Elements because I wanted to use the full potential of the program. If you’re serious about using your new camera I would suggest the same. The first thing I recommend you try with your camera is to make panoramics. My advise is to find out how to freeze the exposure settings on your camera (or go full manual) so you can match the side-by-side images. If you can take 2 or more pictures with the exact settings then it will be easier to stitch them together. I suggest you start with panoramic pictures because it is fun and you will get the benefit of having high resolution pictures stitched together which effectivly doubles your resolution.
