Photo printers

[Glen Miyashiro]

My old inkjet printer is on its last legs, and I need a new one. At the same time, I have been accumulating tons of digital photos and it would be nice to be able to print photos at home, too. Should I look for a single printer that can do both 8.5x11 regular paper and 4x6 photos, or should I get separate printers for the two different purposes? Any recommendations?

[pzarquon]

Re: Photo printers

My mom had an Epson Stylus 825 printer that did letter-size, plus took a nifty photo paper "roll." While the built-in memory card reader (and extra add-on monitor) was nifty -- you could get a print from your camera without ever turning on your PC -- it turns out the special roll paper was not worth the trouble. It's now sitting on a shelf, two months old, waiting for me to put it up for sale somewhere.

I have an HP 6110xi, which is a multi-function printer that I got primarily because I wanted a scanner with an ADF. Even though it's strengths are business functions rather than photo printing, I like the photos it puts out quite a bit. In fact, I've gotten so lazy so as to print JPEGs off my memory cards straight from Windows (as XP has a "photo printing wizard"). Select this, click that, choose four or whatever number of photos to a page, and voila. Photo prints at home.

The only time I would get a dedicated photo printer is if (1.) I knew I would do a lot of printing at home, and (2.) the printer was designed for 4x5 or whatever photo prints specifically... like those small, almost cute printers that are about the size of toasters. (You have to cut photos out of letter size sheets, after all.)

As it turns out, though, the cost per print at home is relatively high, and since you can just walk into Costco (at least the Iwilei location) with your memory card, press a few buttons, and have your prints ready by the time you're done shopping for just a few cents more... why not just do it that way?

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Photo printers

because Glen no can print da kine (um you know da illegal kine) photo's he took with his digital camera with da macro settings at Costco. Ho Glen, you get some good mega-pixels eh brah! Can count da hairs on dat bugga.

[Glen Miyashiro]

Re: Photo printers

Shhhh! Supposed to be secret, brah.

Besides, Costco stay too crowded.

[dick]

Re: Photo printers

I'm with pzarquon, I've pretty much given up on printing pix at home. The costco results are just as good, if not better (no need for calibration), and way cheaper. Of course making archival prints is a different story, and requires quite a bit more than pulling a printer out of a box and pressing "print."