Color printer for photos

[JbNormandog]

Hi all,

I was going to search on this but the speed that technology advances I think anything past a month could be a watse of time.

I want to purchse a good printer to print touched up photos that I repair in house.

I think the max pic size would be around 8x10 maybe 11x14 but if that throws me into another higher price bracket I can send those out since I don't get too many of them.

I'm looking for a printer that does a good job, not overly expensive (printer or refills) and has a proven track record.

What do you do? What did you purchase?

Thanks all.

 

[JbNormandog]

I should have mentioned it will not be pulling double duty for invoices or work orders. Just a photo printer.

 

[Pat Murphey]

HP has just come out with a new generation of photo printers. It's probably a good time to look at them - technology marches on.

Pat

 

[framah]

Epson 2400 with their K3 pigment inks will give you the best you can get. This printer will take the 220ml ink cartridges which will give you alot more prints before having to change a cartridge.

Forget printers that have a 3 ink cartridge and a black cartridge. If one of the inks runs out you have to change the whole cart, losing alot of the other color inks. The 2400 has individual cartridges.

The printer companies make most of their money on the inks you have to buy so it pays to get the machine who can take the biggest cartridges.

 

[TheDoctah]

I've got an Epson R1800, which is a terrific printer with pigmented (=longlasting) inks. It's available for around $500, and is the wider format version (up to 13" width) of the heralded R800 (up to 8.5" width). With roll paper you can print panoramas on either printer. Print quality is excellent.

The aforementioned R2400 is also a mighty fine printer which is especially well suited for B&W printing, as it has three black inks of varying intensities to faithfully render neutral B&W tones. Its inks are also pigmented, and on the right paper behind glass will outlast our children. I think the R1800 might have a slightly wider gamut for RGB images. This printer is available for around $800. It also prints 13" wide paper.

I understand that HP has some new printers out, some of which may be close in quality to the Epsons, but I have no experience with them. It does seem that Epson is a little easier to deal with in terms of color management, assuming you aren't interested in just letting the printer driver do with your images as it will (in which either printer company will be fine.)

If you aren't going to go wider than 8.5", the R800 is an excellent printer. I had one, but sold it to buy the R1800 (which came out just after I bought my R800.) I liked it so much I couldn't stand not being able to print larger.

That's my one warning. Once you see how nice the output is, you might kick yourself if you didn't buy a wide enough printer.