printer

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Name
George
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:bang::bang::bang:Hello, have spent hours browsing t'internet and forums and cannot for the life of me find a definitive answer to the following question...

What is the best A4 printer I can buy? Not bothered about any bells and whistles, just want quality photos. (Oh, and in the region of 100-200 pounds although would consider more if necessary.)

Have had Epsons; problems with print heads clogging and photos too dark despite attempts at calibrating, screen brightness adjustments etc. Another problem with the Epsons being that they are deviously good at detecting when I am not using a "genuine" ink cartridge. I accept some say one should always go genuine, but can't say I've noticed much of a difference in quality betwixt the two (and savour the prospect of sticking it to the man in the face of absurd ink prices).

Also want something that will just print well! Spending hours trying to adjust +1 +2 etc etc did my nut.

When it comes to home printing, I'm starting to lose the will to live, and indeed would have printed my will in anticipation of an untimely death if only my printer would allow it...

At the moment I conclude the Canon ip4700 to be the best option. I gather it should be good for black and white as it has two black cartridges and colour casts irritate me.

Please, someone give me a definitive answer, tell me what I should buy so I can do so and get back to enjoying my photos...

Apologies for my irritated tirade, and in anticipation of advice to get my photos printed professionally, part of the buzz for me is getting the instant gratifacation of a print of a recently taken/edited pic.

Cheers.:ty:
 
When I was looking, the cheap and cheerful Epson P50 kept cropping up all over the place (or is it P90?)...

Either way, it's cheap and gets ACE reviews.

Gary.
 
I gather it should be good for black and white as it has two black cartridges and colour casts irritate me.
One for text the other for photos.

If you dont use the correct paper and profiling you could be susceptible in getting colour castings, although read this review HERE

I find Canon, Ilford Classic or Fuji papers give me the best results with my Canons


Dave
 
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Cool, fairly conclusive review, think I might have found the printer I've been looking for...
 
I got fed up with trying different printers and could feel the same frustration in your post - I gave up in the end, mostly because of the cost of those inks etc, now I only send stuff for printing and stockpile it until there is enough or a decent special offer.
 
Can def recomend the Canon iP range, I used to have an Epson and was very disappointed with it, swopped to the Canon range and getting very good results (y)
 
Canon IP4600. Great and good value to run. bout £80
 
Maybe you can let us know what you buy in the end George, I am sure we are all intrigued to know now!
 
I've got an R800. It's really good quality and they can be had second hand now for next to nothing. Only problem is that the ink has started to go up in price.
 
Maybe you can let us know what you buy in the end George, I am sure we are all intrigued to know now!

Thanks for the advice peeps. I reckon I'll go for the Canon IP 4700. From all I've heard, seems to be the best unless I was to go A3 and I don't think I could justify the extra cost of that - can always get the odd large print elsewhere if necessary.

One of you - sorry can't access the screen to get your name now - said IP 4700 works well with third party paper. What about third party inks? Anyone used them in IP 4700? Is there problems with the printer rejecting them? I had a canon in the past and don't think it was as bad at that as my Epsons have been. An important point I think with the price difference in mind...plan to try original ink and paper first then compare to third party to see if it's worth the extra cost but then again if someone's already done it would be great to hear!

Cheers.:exit:
 
"Have had Epsons; problems...and photos too dark..."

Tell me about it.

I couldn't recommend my Epson or their tech support to anyone unless they fancy going postal with an axe one day. :bonk: :bang: :razz: :bat:
 
:shrug:

Yeah, given up with my epson (s20). Not worth the hassle. And then when I thought about it I've spent hundreds of pounds on lenses and yet I'm sitting with a crappy printer that won't even print photos that do my pictures justice - particularly anything dark. Tried editing photos to brighten them to overcompesate but it's a guessing game and a waste of time I'd rather spend on other aspects of photography...have ordered the Canon IP4700 which seems to be the best option and also a CISS system from city ink express on ebay. They seem to know what they are talking about and get good reviews on here. So in total about £150 for what I hope will give me good prints at low cost with no more ####ing about with cartridges and chips...here's hoping...if this printer doesn't give me good quality I am going to photograph my #rse and send it to someone.:boxer:
 
Yet again, I really can't fault my Kodak printer.
SO SO SO cheap to run and the quality is superb.
Certainly not everyones cup of tea but seeing the quality of prints I'm producing for camera club competitions I certainly won't be going back to Epson or Canon in a hurry.
 
I thought about it I've spent hundreds of pounds on lenses and yet I'm sitting with a crappy printer that won't even print photos that do my pictures justice - particularly anything dark. Tried editing photos to brighten them to overcompesate but it's a guessing game and a waste of time I'd rather spend on other aspects of photography

To be honest, it sounds like it hasn't been set up and calibrated correctly. Colour management is a complex game, but one you are going to have to get your head around no matter what printer make you use. You may be lucky with the default settings on some printers, but ultimately if you want truly accurate colour you need to understand colour management. First you will need to calibrate your monitor with a hardware calibrator. Then you will need to produce a paper profile for the printer/paper/ink/viewing conditions combo you are using, then you ideally want to control the colour temperature of the viewing conditions to reduce metamerism (and it also affects how you calibrate the screen and produce the paper profile). Once that has all been set up, you will need to print from a colour managed program like photoshop, and understand how colour space affects images.

As I say, it is a bit to read up about, but if you want accurate results from a home printer, then it essential to understand.
 
I use the epson R1800 and get fantastic results. That isn't a recommendation however because you're right. I have a calibrated screen and am using the correct icc profiles, genuine inks and genuine paper and the prints are always too dark if i don't adjust first. The general rule of thumb though is that due to your screen emitting light, your pictures with always look twenty percent lighter on the screen than they do on paper. I read that in an article on printing at home in Digital Photo magazine some years ago. The standard work around for me is to go into curves in photoshop and drag the centre of the curve about a cm off the line to brighten the image. I do the same amount on every print and get consistently good results every time. It is a pain though as I've gone to the trouble of calibrating etc. The other reason for not recommending this printer in particular and epson generally is the silly cost of ink. Ink for my printer, costs 19 to 20 pounds per cartridge and it uses 8. You really don't get many A3 prints out of a set either. Also, for 20 sheets of epson A3 semi gloss paper the cast can be between 32 pounds and 42 pounds per pack. I've heard really good things about the kodak range though. They are certainly by far the cheapest printers to run and they claim to produce excellent professional quality results.
 
The general rule of thumb though is that due to your screen emitting light, your pictures with always look twenty percent lighter on the screen than they do on paper.

Only if it hasn't been calibrated correctly. You don't just calibrate a monitor, you calibrate to a target. If you know the luminance of the viewing conditions, then you can calibrate the monitor to the same luminance. This is why a viewing booth is recommended as it gives you a predetermined colour temperature and luminance to calibrate to.

So in essence, it's not that your prints are too dark, but that your viewing conditions are too dark for the calibration of the screen.
 
To be honest, it sounds like it hasn't been set up and calibrated correctly. Colour management...

Good point, although I did attempt a few things along these lines including adjustments to the printer profile etc and still couldn't seem to replicate the detail in the shadows/dark areas in the prints; printer seemed to have a poor ability to print different shades of black/grey and I did install a utility to try and calibrate the moniter too. Interestingly it performed much better when I let the Epson software control the colour output rather than photoshop, presumably because the epson software would be calibrated to the specific printer whereas the photoshop software wouldn't be?

However, you are right, reading up a bit more on this would likely pay dividends. I'll give the Ip 4700 a whirl when I get it and see how she is on default settings and if necessary look into things further - at least I'll have the confidence that the printer is probably more capable of producing something reasonable compared to the budget s20.

Cheers.
 
explains how you've got your business up and running :|

p-90.jpg


(or is it P90?)...

Either way, it's cheap and gets ACE reviews.

Gary.
 
Just got a Canon Pixma 9000Mk2

First picture out of it is better than any of the Epsons I've owned in the past. Thats without any prifiling at all.

Lidl's A4 glossy paper, just set the printer for A4 glossy and wowzer it's nearly bang on to my screen.

Will probably stick to genuine inks for now, and I'll still keep my old R300 ( the only decent Epson I've owned ) for printing CD's and DVD's.
 
Just saw the Gadget Show today which tested a number of printers.
On top for cost / quality was the Kodak ESP 3250 (about£ 60)
Show said the print quality was very good and print costs were about a quarter of the other printers tested - worked out at 58p for A4 print as against the others of around £1:50 to £2:50.

Anybody using this Kodak printer who could report experiences ?
 
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Only if it hasn't been calibrated correctly. You don't just calibrate a monitor, you calibrate to a target. If you know the luminance of the viewing conditions, then you can calibrate the monitor to the same luminance. This is why a viewing booth is recommended as it gives you a predetermined colour temperature and luminance to calibrate to.

So in essence, it's not that your prints are too dark, but that your viewing conditions are too dark for the calibration of the screen.
You need to tie down variables - is the printer running dark - or is your screen too bright, making you darken your files to look good, then the printer is printing these dark files correctly!

Start with a known file that prints correctly - drycreek have a few - http://www.drycreekphoto.com/

Now this contains many parts within the image that will help you - there are grey ramps to show casts, McBeth chart etc. Now print this using the correct profile for your printer & paper and it should be perfect - then compare how the image looks on the screen...
 
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