Fall 2005 Photo Printer Buyers Guide

lfescalante writes "DesignTechnica has some great tips on what to look for when buying a Photo Printer. From the article: 'Some of the best printers offer 9600 x 2400 DPI and over 50 levels of gradation. Another important specification for inkjet printers is ink drop size, typically measured in picoliters. The smaller the number, the more ink per square inch can be placed on the paper. The more ink, the more accurate and lifelike the color of the print.'"

Comments

Re:Why pay for your own?

[RandoX]

Because some places refuse to print your work if it looks too good.

Longetivity?

[russianspy]

I am amazed that nobody mentioned anything about how long the prints are expected to last. That beautiful photo you're printing as a gift - will is still look the same 5 years from now? 10 years? 20 years?

Article downplays superiority of dysub over inkjet

[rolfwind]

From TFA:

No matter if you choose inkjet or "dye sub" printers, crisp detail and smooth color gradation are the keys to good prints. When you get your photos back from the lab, they're shiny and smooth (without lines or dots). Getting this quality at home depends on several factors including printer resolution, i.e., how many dots per inch (DPI) of ink the printer lays on the paper as well as paper quality......

But I would never use inkjet, well anywhere. On photos because it would always smear and generally give out crappy results (you can see the intermittent lines). Plus it looks god-awful on regular paper and that ink cartridge dries out if you don't tend to regularly use it every few weeks.

Except for the cheap paper bit, dye-sub doesn't have these problems and even a lower resolution looks better because it' more blended in. My dye-sub puts on a clear coat too so it has that professional look from the photo lab, not the cheapo inkjet look. And I can only print on photo paper with my dye-sub so the quality is kinda always forced on me:) but I don't mind. The cartridges aren't with ink so it can't dry out (the color layers are on a plastic and heat transferred to the paper).

I use a Hiti printer (Hi-touch Imaging) which only focuses on these printers but they are good. I don't know if it supports linux but it's stand-alone anyway. Plus I find the price of consumables reasonable - fifty 4x6s and a dyesub cartridge bundled together for under 20 bucks.

But whatever company somebody goes with, avoid inkjet! Plus my photos have a life of 99 years - I don't think the same can be said for inkjet (imagine that stored in someplace moderately humid).

Re: DPI IS Meaningless

[mpapet]

As a former product manager at an imaging OEM I can confirm that everyone should completely ignore "DPI" specs.

What they also fail to mention is the paper requirements in order to produce a photo-quality image. It's got to hold a heck of a lot of ink, so there's very few papers capable of holding/controlling that much ink.

A better predictor of "photo quality" is the number of inks.

The other thing to watch out on is what the borderless performance really is. I work with a Canon that won't do borderless on plain paper, so if I have a document with tiny margins, it generally screws it up.

At this point, I don't see a reason why it's really necessary when most photo processors do it arguably better, but on real photo paper that is much less resistant to fading.