Mrs. nrd is looking for a printer for our digital photos. I have seen some ads on TV for the Lexmark, HP and Kodak offerings, but I was hoping for some first hand recommendations.
Here are our requirements: #1) The ability to edit without running the picture through the PC. Therefore, the printer must be able to correct redeye, crop, and control brightness, contrast and hue(?) itself. Basically, we want to set this up and not connect it at all to a PC.
Actually, that pretty much sums up our requirements.
Also, can someone give me a quick update on memory cards? We currently have an approx. 4 year old 3.1 mp camera that uses an IBM Microdrive. (The Microdrive is a fantastic technology that I guess never took off. Its storage capacity is amazing. At 3.1 mp, large size and high quality, it’ll hold several hundred shots. At small size and poor quality, the capacity is over 1000.) My understanding and experience is that, unfortunately, this drive is not compatible with these direct photo printers, there is no slot for our kind of storage. So, I guess we’ll be looking at a new camera as well, and I just want to know what to look for so that it’ll be compatible with the printer I’m envisioning.
One last fact: we also have a Sony TV with a card slot on the front face so that we could take a card from the hypothetical camera and use it for viewing the pics. on the TV. I should factor that into the decision as well so that technology is not wasted.
My photo editing will be done on the PC rather than the printer, so I don’t know how well the Epson printers incorporate those features. For general printing, though, the consensus amongst amateur digital photographers has been that it’s a solid printer with good quality.
For true photo quality, a 6 color printer will do much better than a 4 color. There are excellent models from HP, Canon, and Epson, don’t know about the others.
With PictBridge you can do a lot of editing on your camera directly to the printer, but if the camera doesn’t do red-eye reduction, I’m not sure the printer will be able to do it. Many cameras allow you to crop, not sure about hue/brightness/color correction, without a quality screen to allow you to do things yourself it’ll be hard for any machine to adjust accordingly. You sound like you want a printer like this one which has a screen and controls to edit. This particular model only prints 5x7 so it won’t do for you.
Microdrives are essentially dead technology. They use too much power, they are considerably slower than solid state, they’re too big, and they occasionally crash taking all your images with it. CF and SD cards are now in the multi-gig capacity for lower price without any of the downsides. They’re now all used in iPods where these aren’t so much of a restriction.
CF and SD are the most popular types of memory, and the cheapest. xD and Memory Sticks are used by far fewer manufacturers, Smartmedia and MMC are dead.
Right now you can get the Epson R300 printer from CompUSA’s site for $100.00 after rebates (offer expires 12/31). That’s a very good deal. I’ve got the R200 which is the same printer without the card reader and display, and it does a very nice job printing. And, it appears to have a slot for an IBM microdrive.
Well, I don’t have anything to add except that my favorite photo printers are Epson. I have used HP as well, and I just think Epson rules. If you can find an Epson with your features, it gets my vote.
Lexmarks use a LOT of ink compared to other printers. The price per page to print from a Lexmark printer is substnatially higher than with most of the other mfrs. Dell printers are typically rebranded lexmarks.
Epson printers use a different ink than other printers, called Dura-Brite. It supposedly will last up to 70 years, and is waterproof, blah blah…who cares? I have a photo printer right here! I can just print it again! Also, I have an Epson printer. It has broken down on me twice (clogged print head, broken paper feed) and is REALLY noisy.
Both Epson and HP printers come with RIDICULOUSLY large driver programs for printing. Epsons’s is like 300MB, HP’s is about 400 (700 is you install everything). In a day of 200GB hard drives, this might not seem like a lot, but it’s a TON of data for your computer to have tp process.
Because my Epson printer is broken again, I am looking for a new multifinction printer, so I’ll be doing the research on what gives nice, quality prints.
It’s a 6-color printer like you suggested Telemark, but I also notice that the hp 8450 is an 8-color. Any thoughts? It’s $100 more than the 8150 I linked to. Any noticible difference for a novice?
Finally, these printers are described as “thermal inkjets.” How is this different from my 5 year old regular color inkjet? Also, some of the printers I’ve looked at use dye sublimination. Is this a vastly superior technology?
Pay attention to whether you can replace the print heads separately from the ink cartridges, or at all by yourself. HP’s IIRC are part of the cartridge making the cartidges more expensive. One brand you have to have the printer professionally serviced to replace the print heads. I like my canon i9100, but I edit with photoshop elements 3.0. If I were getting a new printer, I’s probably get an 8 color canon.
I would not get an epson or a lexmark. I know of too many people not happy with their lexmarks or epsons.
Those long lasting inks have problems with ozone exposure fading them.