For run-of-the-mill photos that you want to print and carry, most inkjet photoprinters work well. But for display in a frame or give to someone who will not have access to the digital source (so longevity is important), how do the various printing options compare?
Will a print from CVS or an online photolab be significantly more durable than one printed from and Epson 1280 (or other consumer-level photo printer)?
Do the DPI, ink, paper, and other quality-affecting factors of home printers match those of the commercial models?
What about cost?
Of course there are lots of variables to consider, but is there any way to make the determination?
Inkjet printers are much, much higher quality than toner-based laser printers.
No professional printer uses laser printers for photos (at least not for high-quality prints, maybe for short-run flyers).
The prints from CVS and other services will usually be as good or better than what you can do at home, even with a high-quality Inkjet, but you may need to make several passes to get their color settings to match yours.
Inkjet printers are much better then laser printers for photographs and color work, but the prints can still have some fade-over-time issues depending on the inks used. For the absolute best ‘home’ printers, take a look at some of the low to medium end solid ink printers, such as the Xerox Phaser series printers.
The solid inks aren’t mechanically stable (that is, they can be scratched), but they are extremely color stable, and generally give a much higher quality of print then a normal inkjet. They are considerably more expensive though.
Inkjet printers are expensive, but capable of producing quite good results, on the right kind of paper stock. The prints are not particularly durable, however - despite claims of being water resistant, most inkjet inks will spread or run if they get damp/wet - and may fade on exposure to light (some colours more than others - so you end up with a pink-tinted photo, for example). Also, areas of heavy colour may result in the glossy surface of the paper being overloaded with ink to the point that the glossy finish is spoiled.
Laser printers aren’t all that good at printing high-saturation photos, because of the way they layer the component toners - one primary colour will often tend to dominate,
Dye sublimation printers are the type usually used by print shops/booths/machines to print digital photos and for good reason - they produce well-saturated images - and the pigments are suffused into the surface of the print - making them more durable and making them look exactly like photographic prints.
I prefer the prints I make at home with my Epson R1800 to anything but the most professional (and freakin’ expensive) labs. It does take some know-how to get the color workflow properly calibrated. The 1280 is an okay printer, but I chose the R1800 because I use it for professional purposes, and the inks available for that printer are pigment-based inks, rated to last 100+ years without fading, depending on the paper used. The lightfastness of the 1280 inks is about 25 years or less.
If you don’t know much about color calibration and don’t want to deal with learning it, you’re better off printing at the local photofinisher. I’ve never been happy with any printer’s “easy print” settings, where the printer handles color and density correction for you. There is a significant learning curve to printing well, getting all the proper color profiles for your monitor and printer, etc. For the vast majority of people, it’s not going to be worth it. But if you do invest the time and effort into it, you can produce photographs at home better than most photo labs.
The 1280 is actually a better than average (though old) photo printer. I just replaced my 870 (which is essentially a smaller format 1270, or 1280) with the R1400, becaue I wanted to print larger than 8" wide. The epson inks are supposed to be much longer lasting than others. For any amateur, a good printer with good paper should be all you need.
You’ll want keep your photos out of the sunlight, and in a frame if possible.
IMHO, photo labs are a pretty good way to go. The prints are long term stable, and cheaper than inkjets (not sure about lasers). I made a bunch of calenders for Christmas cards after my around the world trip and it was real cheap to get the photos from Costco. Of course, it took a bunch of time to assemble the calenders, but I’m a cheap bastard with all kinds of time on my hands.
We got the 1280 several years ago to print design proofs and whatnot, but I don’t believe it ever came to that. We do graphic design and editorial work here, and got it right around the time PDFs and other output files were sufficient to send to printers. We use it a handful of times a year, mostly when a bid requires hard-copy samples.
Since Mrs. Devil does the design side of things, whatever format heads to the printer (here or there) will be cleaned and set as needed – any advantage in doing color separations or whatnot for a lab printer?
I couldn’t tell, every high-end lab I deal with insists on RGB files, not CMYK separations. I haven’t worked with CMYK since the early 2000s. You would have to ask the lab itself. When I dealt with CMYK and newsprint, yes, there were definitely advantages to doing the separation yourself, especially when it came to the black plate and giving yourself more control staying within your ink limits. I don’t know of anyone who does individual color separations themselves for photo printing, though. There are posters here much more knowledgeable about this end of things. I’m thinking cmyk may be one of them.
There are photo printers for home which are dye sublimation - you can get one for home for about $100 and the prints are comparable to lab printed to my amateur eye. Ink Jet does not compare IMHO.
From my understanding, dye-subs fade rapidly in comparison with high-quality inkjet. I personally prefer inkjet print–they tend to look sharper and have better color than the dye-sub prints I’ve seen. The other process that works really well goes by various names (Lightejet, Lambda). That involves using RGB lasers, exposing it onto a conventional film print surface, and developing it in RA-4 (color print) chemistry. I still prefer a good inkjet print to this.