digital photography printers

[zed3]

Has anyone any ideas about printers for digital photography? I am thinking about purchasing the small Hewlett Packard P130 printer purely for 6x4 photos. Anyone any experience or other advice please?

[What_does_this_button_do?]

I have an Epson 870 and no complaints.........

[simonjwhite]

I don't know specifically about the P130 but if has good colour depth and a high resolution you should be OK.

[Squiddley]

I'm still using an Epson 750 Photo printer, having been an HP user previously, and am extremely happy with the results. In general I'd say that Epson are the better of the two brands, for aesthetics and software. However, more often than not the quality of the result is more to do with the paper type and ink (real or knock-off) than the hardware itself.

Don't be taken in too much by the card slot models either. It's all well and good, but if you're going to the expense of printing a digital picture, you'll surely want to preview/enhance/crop it etc. - for which you'll be printing through software.

Good luck.

[Background Noise]

Personal opinion: - my experience of HP and Epson is that HP prints better on plain paper but that the Epsons print better pictures on glossy paper.

HP P130 I believe is really a digital photo printer only. It probably prints great photos but only takes small paper, and is much lower res when used direct from a PC.

Whereas something like the Epson Stylus Photo 810 is a full size, 2880 dpi, 6 colour printer which is cheaper than the HP and probably pretty darn good - it can also do borderless printing on 4x6 and A4 paper.

I am still using an Epson 600 which is about 5 years old. Its capable of 1440 dpi with only 3 colours but its results are like photos (on the proper paper).

There are a couple of reviews here:

http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/product/172456.html

[henry crun]

A friend who is a long time amateur photographer is very happy with his Epsom 1270.

I asked him if he had thought of replacing it and he said" if this one fell over I would only look as far as a later version of the same printer"

[innuendo]

www.steves-digicams com has a pretty rave review on the Canon 900 and 9000.

[gofer]

Decided a little while back that a Fax was needed and a printer and a scanner and a color printer .... so I got an HP Officejet K80

Not perfect for pic's - but with the old eyes not getting any younger - probably plenty good enough for most of what I want.

For specials - go to a pro. Cost US$ 375 in HK a little over a year ago.:p

[Mishandled]

When I bought my digital camera, as usual I then when out to buy all the additional "essential" items that I "need", when I buy techno gadgets. However, when confronted with the cost of a photo printer, added to the cost of the consumables, I decided to investigate othermethods of getting hard copies. I now use www.colormailer.com This is a company that you upload your photos to via the web, and they print them and send them out A-post (the equivalent of 1st Class). The quality is excellent and the prints work out cheaper than 35mm. Just a thought before you splash out. (Mind you I still cant take a good photograph to save my life!):D

[fobotcso]

I was always pleased with my Epson Stylus Photo 750 but the prints do not have lasting quality. After three years on the mantlepiece they fade badly. That printer has been superseded a couple of times.

This is an ink problem, not the printer per se.

So I read the journals and the latest model - Epson Stylus Photo 950 was coming out tops. Epson have had the edge on HP in recent years and have addressed the problem of colour fade.

(I too had an HP 870 and was pleased with that until the Epson 750 came along...)

So I now have the 950 and am very pleased indeed. It still has a parallel output (for my network) as well as USB and the ink system is quite new. There are seven cartridges now! Two black and five colours. For the moment I'm taking Epson's word for the colour fastness. It does a couple of fancy things I've not tried yet; eg, printing directly onto a CD, printing on roll paper, printing right to the edge of the paper. It's quiet and quick, of course, but it is huge for an A4 printer.

Cost in UK on the Internet? £330 from Simply after a bit of a wait because of the delay caused by high demand for a brand new product.

[BayAreaLondoner]

I have a Canon S800. Six different colour ink cartridges and they are separate, which potentially reduces running costs.
One thing that is nice is that Canon have released new EXIF drivers for it, so that theoretically the colour matching between the camera and the printer will be better.
Some Canon cameras, plug directly into the S820 and more recent Canon printers, meaning that you can print without going through your PC.
Yes consumables are expensive, but you only print what you actually want.