I am a printer dummy

[Flats]

Hi

I am thinking of getting a printer to print up to A4 images of various things, mainly birds at A4, mainly my kids at 6x4.

I have been impressed with the reviews of various Canon Pixma iP printers, like the 4600/4700 - though I can only find a 4850 for sale on WHEX. I assume this is simply a newer model than the other two and likely to be very similar?

It looks like these printers take 5 different cartridges, and here is my question.

1) Black PGI
2) Black CLI
3) Cyan CLI
4) Yellow CLI
5) Magenta CLI

Why are there two blacks? The only thing I can think of is that one is for photo printing (presumably the CLI one), and the other is for text (PGI).

Is my assumption correct? And will I be pleased with one of these printers?

And although the cartridges appear cheap at a tenner each, realistically how many prints might I get per cartridge? At 6x4 I expect mainly to be printing pictures of my kids, so a bias towards skin tones and green backgrounds is likely.

Any help appreciated, I am fed up with getting naff prints back from the printers, and I also want to be able to do them "on demand", hence a home printer.

Thanks
Jonathan

 

[scraggs]

Yes you are correct the pgi is mainly used for text
For pages yields go here http://www.canon.co.uk/ink/yield/index.aspx however take them as a very very rough guide.
Being only a 4 colour inkset you will not have a huge colour gamut, they are good printers but do have some limitations in reproducing certain colours.

 

[Flats]

Thanks. Any thoughts on what colours they are bad at?
Being primarily interested in birds, I have a lot of images that contain various shades of white and brown.
Also does anyone know if these printers come with a set of cartridges, or is that on top?
Thanks
Jonathan

 

[scraggs]

The range of tones will be limited, but it will partly depend on the inks and papers being used.
They come with inks, however some come with starter cartridges which will have less ink than the retail sale cartridges.

 

[haggis]

I have both Canon Pixma iP4500 and 4700 printers and have been really pleased with both. I bought the 4700 as the 4500 seemed to be playing up a bit after a lot of use. Guess what after a couple of clean cycles the 4500 is now fine again. Only pity is they use different cartridges.