Need an education

[misselaineeous]

I have a 4.0MP Kodak EasyShare DX4900 (point and shoot). I use it mostly for everyday picture-taking of my family and family outings/events etc. and I take most of my photos at the highest resolution possible, but occasionally I take them at a lower res to conserve space on my memory card. I am saving my money to buy a digital SLR (to get more into photography), but that probably won't be for a couple of years.

I am looking to buy a printer to print my photos at home and I have been researching what kind of printer to buy. I do want the highest quality prints I can get, but I don't have a huge budget. I have been to some stores to look at examples of printed images from different types of printers. I really like the new Canon i series printers. The i550 seems to be a popular model. But I have also seen great results from HP, Lexmark and Epsons.

My question... what printer do you recommend to get as close as possible to a film print? Which printers do retailers that print digital photos for the consumer use to print their digital photos? I like/want great clarity/detail in my printed photos when it's necessary/appropriate.

Thanks in advance for your replies. I really appreciate your responses.

Kindest regards,
Elaine

[455rocket]

I find if you want really good prints online photo printing services like ofoto are hard to beat. There are a few cheap dye sub printers on the market (although they cost a lot more than the inkjets) that do great jobs. In the inkjets the HP products produce great prints unfortunately they fade very very fast under most lighting conditions especially if not protected by glass or plastic. I don't know much about the Canons (not had one since the 300dpi days) but I have two Epsons and I'm very pleased with their output sharp prints with vivid colors. Epson has long life inks that don't fade noticeably in the short term (they have some printers which use 99 year inks). Even the cheap less than $100 Epson photoprinters produce fantastic prints especially the 6 ink models on photopaper. You can also print from these printers without a computer, straight from the memory card if you wish and you can do borderless printing , and print panoramas using roll photopaper. So I'd go for a cheap Epson825 or similar. Refurbished from Epson $79.
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/cons ... d=31061926
If you subtract the cost of the ink cartridges they are really giving you a deal. Talking of ink I use Pacific ink cartridges most of the time the ink doesn't fade and they are much cheaper than Epson.
Hope this helps.

[gsrunyan]

I recently upgraded to the Canon i950. The results are remarkable.

Canon paper is way over-priced. Believe it or not, Office Depot Premium High Gloss paper does a great job at about 40 cents a sheet for 8 1/2 X 11.

Glenn

[castledude]

In order the best printers right now (IMHO) are:

Canon i9900 .. $500 closest to photo you will get with a reasonably priced print. Fast and probably the first printer that actually surpasses the Die Subs. Prints up to 13x19 prints

Canon i960 ... $150 after rebate Fast and great prints

Epson r200/300 ... $99(r200, higher for r300).. Better quality than the Canon i960. But slower and uses more ink. Advantage is that it will print directly on CDs and DVDs.

Canon i860 .. $120 after rebate Great quality prints (lowest quality of all the above but still darn good). Fast but hast the advantage of being a cheap text printer this works well as an everyday printer where the others are going to be pretty much dedicated photoprinters.


---------------------------------
I have an i860 and R200 and have an i9900 on order. All prices are in USD.

Kodak now has paper that allows any printer to do archival work (100 year life) it works great on Canon.

------------------------------------

All the printers are pretty good EXCEPT FOR LEXMARK. Stay away from Lexmark they will sell you a cheap printer but the quality is the lowest and cartridges will cost you that money you are saving for the DSLR.

[hipolito]

I have an Epson R 800 which prints quite well on Epson paper. However I think that probably there are fine tune tricks to make prefect prints.

What is the best paper \ ink? Should I put any product over the print to improve durability (I have noticed that black areas on the photo do not resist the smallest attrition)?

Is there any other technique better than inkjet but still affordable?