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

And ...

[Alranor]

The most important specification for /. readers:

Is it supported on Linux? :)

You can check at linuxprinting.org

So

[Anonymous Coward]

No real news to post then?

Seriously, I would hope most Slashdot readers are capable of finding a good photo printer on their own. Those that need a little help can probably find a better source of information than this dry, four page advert.

Re:So

[mustafap]

Personally, I think the best source of photo printing is at a photo lab. If a photo is worth printing out, do it properly, so it gets printed with inks that wont fade with time. And certainly in my case, it's still cheaper. Home photo printers are a costly gimick.

Re:So

[iangoldby]

When you're out shopping, the higher the resolution, the smaller the dots...

No, higher resolution does not necessarily mean smaller drops. Smaller drop size means smaller drops.

The best way to gauge any printer's photo capabilities is looking at sample prints at the store

Except that these are often highly tweaked images and are sometimes even printed from a demo application that doesn't even use the usual printer driver.

or on printer company websites.

Huh? Am I supposed to judge from an image on the website, or should I download a sample and print it out? (It reminds me of a TV ad trying to demonstrate how much better the colours are on their TV...)

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.

No, the smaller the drop size, the more dots are needed to lay down an equivalent amount of ink.

I stopped reading at this point.

Re:So

[caveat]

Just for the record, a lab print isn't ink-based, at least at the shop I go to - they use one of these suckers (maybe not that exact brand/model, but you get the point) to "paint" the image onto genuine light-sensitive color photo paper that's processed the old-fashioned way with chemicals. $1.99 for an 8x10, $2.99 for an 11x14. They look a hell of a lot better than any photo print I've ever seen, including dyesubs, and they last and last. When I do a print for my small photography side business, I do it this way...the client is almost always amazed with the result, and asks me what kind of printer I use, they just have to get one for themselves. I tell them "trade secret" :)

If you just have to use your printer, I'd suggest Ilford GALERIE Classic paper; it has an encapsulation system that soaks up the ink and mostly protects it from fading, It's pricey (enough so that there's NO economic advantage over a lab print) and takes a full day to dry out, but it is as close to perfect as you're gonna get from an inkjet. When I do prints for my own consumption, I ususally go this route for the convenience.

Smaller? I wan't larger!

[Greger47]

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.

Gimme a printer with a couple of litres per drop and I'll place down some serious ink!

/greger

What to look for: No HP!

[mcgroarty]

The HP printers have three things going for them: First, they're cheap. Second, the printhead is on the cartridge, so a clog means a lost cartridge, not a lost printer or making a flush kit to force Windex through your print head. Third, the HP printers still look great in draft/high-speed mode. Some inkjets look like old color dot matrix printers in high-speed mode.

The big downside is drivers. UGH, HP drivers! They crash at random, require you to be an administrator to run the scanning software, add 20-30 seconds to your login time, and do weird things when other HP software is installed. (For example, installing my HP DVD burner software caused my HP printer driver's launcher to launch an explorer window pointing to the directory with the printer software install every single login. This, on a fresh install with nothing but the HP DVD software installed after XP.)

On the Mac side, people with Tiger and HP printer-scanner-copiers are -still- waiting for a promised update to enable HP-supported scanning, or are giving up and using ports of open source scanning software.

The HP PSCs are comparatively painless with Linux and *BSD, but check out some of the other options if you'll be using Windows or Mac OS on the same machine.

Re:What to look for: No HP!

[Overzeetop]

You obviously have never expeienced the hell that is the Epson Status Monitor which must run in order to use a consumer epson photo printer. If anything should go wrong, the system will hang (print system, not the OS). And if you've ever had to reinstall a driver due to a bug...oh, you're in for some fun. You see, the uninstall doesn't actually uninstall everything, and a full removal requires both manual tracking down of all the epson driver bits (search for E_ in the entire system directory), and editing the registry.

In addition it makes them almost impossible to use with a network print server. Any fault - paper out, ink low, etc - causes the job to hang, and fixing the problem results in the first burst of data getting printed, while the print server stays locked up tight as a drum. To get the system working again generally requires either a reboot or manually killing the entire print spooler service and manually restarting it. Even worse, if you clear the error and do not power down the printserver and the printer, the first burst of information will make it through to the printer, and then the printer will hang. No big deal? Well, since the first few lines of ink get put down, it effectively ruins whatever media you're using. For something on bond it's merely annoying. For an 8x10 glossy print or a printable CD or DVD, you've just thrown away $.25 to $2.00 (or more for a DL DVD) in media. Of course, as a bonus, your required power cycle results in wasting a slug of $$$ ink to the startup cycle.

Sadly, I stick with Epson because the output is just so damned good, and I really like the CD/DVD printing feature. Sort of like having a beautiful but high maintenance girlfriend who's a tiger in the sack - you learn to walk on eggshells, but with every great performance you convice yourself it's worth it.

Why pay for your own?

[LarsWestergren]

Ok, having your own photo printer is conventient, and as geeks we love our tech toys of course, but remember that these days you can have your digital images printed professionally at photo labs VERY cheap.

The prints will last longer, and cost per page is probably going to be the same or even lower, as the printer manufacturers keep jacking up the price for new ink cartriges and use ever more draconian tech and/or EULA measures to prevent cheap no-name replacements/refills.

Re:Why pay for your own?

[RandoX]

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

Why?

[squoozer]

Unless you are into printing up your home made porn why would you print photographs at home? I always used to think it was a good idea price wise (even when I worked for a online photo printing outfit) as print shops didn't really cater for digital images and prices were stupid. The real print shops quickly got their act together and made home printing totally uneconomical. I admit there is a break even point where very large prints are cheaper to do yourself but only if you don't take into account the thousands spent on buying a large format printer. These printer manufacturer must be laughing all the way to the bank.

DPI is (almost) meaningless

[jcupitt65]

A good tip I heard from a printer designer was to ignore the DPI figure, as long as it's more than about 600. It (usually) means how precisely the printer can place dots. It does not say much about the detail or grain you'll see in the print. For that, you need to know the dot size. Of course there's a trade off: smaller dots means (other factors being equal) longer print times, since you have to squirt more dots to get the same level of ink density.

Higher end printers have several shades of grey ink as well as black. This can add a lot of the apparent smoothness of prints, especially if you are going to be printing any black and white photos.

Metamerism is also very important. Print a black and white photo and look at it under tungsten and in daylight. It should stay looking black and white! You'll find some will look red in tungsten and greenish in daylight.

Finally, look at color management. Does the driver let you use your own profiles, or is it more of a point and shoot thing?

Re:DPI is (almost) meaningless

[Shanep]

A good tip I heard from a printer designer was to ignore the DPI figure, as long as it's more than about 600. It (usually) means how precisely the printer can place dots.

There is another issue, with so called photo printers. I don't know if this still holds true, so it would be good if someone could confirm this.

With older technology printers, dots per inch is actually meaningful. It literally accounted for the number of non overlapping dots, each of which could be considered a pixel. However with these new bubble jet and ink jet type printers, they need to spit many very small ink dots into the area which makes up a printed pixel, so as to build up a single pixel of varying colour through the use of dithering.

Fair enough right? Whatever needs to be done to make those images look great?

Well unfortunately, these photo printer makers are using deceptive marketing. Because a "dot" in their definition of dpi DOES NOT equate in a meaningful manner to a pixel, instead their "dot" refers to each of the smaller dither dots.

This is why for a long time, ink and bubble jets of 600dpi looked like crap against a 300dpi laser print out, where edge smoothness and text mattered.

9600dpi, 2400dpi, whatever. Don't bother telling me because it is now a meaningless figure. You could make a printer with a real dpi of 150, but made up of 9600dpi dither dots and it is still going to look like a 150dpi print out. But the brochure says 9600dpi, not 150dpi. This is an exageration btw, to make the point. The best thing to do is look at actual print outs and decide on quality with your own eyes, because manufacturer quoted numbers in this regard are pretty much useless when the most important metric is undisclosed and remains so because it would hurt sales.

Tin-foil hat brigade criteria

[merc]

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. ... and the better the secretly embedded printer's serial number may be hidden on your document.

*blinks*

This is why.

[OS24Ever]

I need 2 4x6's. Sure, they're $0.14 online, but add $4.95 in shipping and off you go.

I use Mpix.com for all my large printing needs. They are actually exposing the digital exposure to Kodak film paper which can be common among some people. Their price and service can't be beat either. 8x10s for $2.

However if I need a 4x6, or a 8x10, a home printer is a decent deal. I recently picked up the Kodak 1400 dye sub printer for just this reason. There was a $100 rebate so it's a $343 printer, and the paper size of 8x14 lets me print 4 4x6s, 2 5x7s, 2 6x8s, or one 8x10 or 8x12 per page. I won't be printing out a 'major event' like my son's 2nd birthday portrait or the disaster that was the attempt at my daughters 4th birthday portrait because I usually want a ton of wallets, a good amount of 4x6s, and 5x7s and 8x10s for the grandparents, my desk, what not.

But for quick and easy home prints, a decent (but not outrageous) printer works for me. I've got a bad taste in my mouth for inkjet because the Canon S9000 I got when I got my first digital SLR in 2002 fades pretty badly unless you frame it. It doesn't stand up to my 'fridge test' where you print it, take a magnet, and pin it to the fridge for all eternity.

Fotki.com and the Kodak Easyshare Gallery have so far withstood that test rather well. However Kodak keeps making me sign a release form for every order for copyright reasons. Mpix does not, because there is no copyright displayed on my images. Apple has the same issue in iPhoto, but Kodak is their print engine. Fotki has been on the fridge for over a year now with no fading, next to a S9000 4x6 that is about as faded as it gets.

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: great performances.

[CodeShark]

Sort of like having a beautiful but high maintenance girlfriend who's a tiger in the sack - you learn to walk on eggshells, but with every great performance you convice yourself it's worth it.

Um, no, been there done that.

Fact is that with systems, printers, AND girlfriends, it is much better to keep shopping for low-maintenance, great performance.

Oh, and by the way, of the three the third one requires more attention and TLC than the other two and deserves it as well. So get up from /. occasionally and take care of the lady as well...

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.