Photo printer question [shopping]

[Sherlock]

Alright, I'll try to be quick here...

I am thinking of finally buying a photo printer, mainly piqued because of a rebate sale by Epson with some very good deals.

But heading online to do some research I found some rather mixed consumer reviews of Epson printers and some consumer reviews quite scathing (I have owned Epson scanners before and loved them!), specifically I'm considering either the Stylus 1400 or 1900 printer

Have any of you guys had experience with Epson printers? Or in your experience what photo printers have you had success with? My budget range is roughly $250 to $300 (CDN) for reference...

Right now (locally at camera stores) the Epson 1400 is normally $315 and $200 with the rebate, and the 1900 is normally $525 but knocked down to $325 with the rebate, just for reference sake

Anyway... Off to Banff for the day, I'll check back in when I get home tonight, but I'd appreciate your thoughts...

 

[JodyFKerr]

I have an Epson Artisan 810 (multifunction).

I really like it, does great photo printing, regular printing and scanning.

It does eat a lot of ink printing pictures, but I think they all do.

 

[Basil]

I have an <span style="font-weight: bold">Epson Stylus PHOTO RX600</span> multi-function. It prints reasonably good quality pictures, limited to 8 x 10 though. It's an older model that I think is discontinued. The photos I print are really just "snapshot" stuff, so I can't say how it would do on higher-end stuff. But overall, I like it. Good scanner, copy, fax and photo capability. If I was going to get into really high-end stuff I'd probably do what you are doing and do some research.

 

[tomshobby]

When it comes to picture quality color is important but don't forget about the dpi, dots per inch, rating. I am giving my siblings a print of our parents marriage certificate. It is an 12" x 18" document with highly detailed artwork in beautiful color. I was first going to make the prints myself. I have nice HP scanner and scanned it at 1200 dpi resolution. The file produced is about 96mb and my wide format printer is capable of printing that resolution and has a memory of 128mb. The print would have been good for most uses but for this it was just not as good as I wanted. Ended up taking the document to a photo shop where they made a digital photo at more than 5000 dpi and printed them for me. Can't tell the prints from the original without some very close inspection.

You might take a thumb drive with a couple photos with different colors and detail levels and have the store print them so you can see what they look like.

 

[Basil]

You might take a thumb drive with a couple photos with different colors and detail levels and have the store print them so you can see what they look like.

That's an excellent idea!

 

[TR6BILL]

They should <span style="font-style: italic">give</span> you the printer and just charge for the color cartridges.

My son does some professional photography (not his day job) and gets most of his printing done by a shop. Lots cheaper. Too, some of his stuff is done in large format.

www.abrahamkaram.com

 

[NutmegCT]

Bill - your son is quite a talented photographer. Just visited the website you linked. Some really great pictures there.

Tom

 

[TR6BILL]

Thanks, Tom. He works hard at it...

 

[GregW]

But heading online to do some research I found some rather mixed consumer reviews of Epson printers and some consumer reviews quite scathing (I have owned Epson scanners before and loved them!), specifically I'm considering either the Stylus 1400 or 1900 printer

I've had 3 Epson printers, two were wide format. The 1270 and the R1900 which I have now. Both are work horses and I've printed thousands of pages with them. I got the R1900 over the 1400 for a couple reasons. The R1900 can print directly onto DVDs (not labels) which may not be important to you, but if you give disks to customers, it is a professional touch. The R1900 also has a better color pallet for portrait photography with red and orange cartridges. CMYK is so 80's.

Or in your experience what photo printers have you had success with?

I had a Canon i9100 also. The image quality was excellent (I like the R1900 better though). The thing that made me dislike Canon was the self destruct feature built in to it. In the bottom of the printer there is a used ink tank (really just a big piece of jute). When it fills up the printer stops working. Even after a thorough cleaning and trying to find reset codes on the internet, I couldn't get the printer to work again. The local computer shops I went to don't touch printers, so my only option would have been shipping it back to Canon. :madder:

Right now (locally at camera stores) the Epson 1400 is normally $315 and $200 with the rebate, and the 1900 is normally $525 but knocked down to $325 with the rebate, just for reference sake

Buying direct from Epson looks a lot cheaper. Epson
I don't know how Canadian tax laws are. Since I use my printer for work, it is a write-off.

 

[tomshobby]

Bill, Your son's photos are amazing. I really like the Bisbee T-storm one. The lightning focal point and the blue of the storm are incredible.

 

[Sherlock]

Thanks for the responses, I guess I'm just getting tired of depending on stores to print photos, especially when it can be difficult with my current job to even get to a store...

And glad to hear that at least someone likes the Epson printers...

And I wasn't aware that they sold direct through their website... And since I was gone all day, one Santa Claus Parade for you all...