Picture Quality Printer

[ewayne53]

We do all this work to enhance our pictures but then have to take them somewhere for prints. Can someone recommend a reasonable priced home printer for quality pictures?

Thanks in advanced

[Ofnuts]

IMHO there is none. Doing even decent, not even speaking of good, photo printing requires a very expensive inkjet printer.

I used to have a not so cheap inkjet. I eventually ditched it, bought a color laser printer for documents, and use self-service print machines or online print services. This costs less than using an inkjet, given the price of ink cartridges. The current prices on good machines:

• 0.35€ for 10 x 15cm (4"*6")
  
• 0.70€ for 13 x 18cm
  
• 2.50€ for 20 x 30cm
  

(and decreasing prices for volume printing).

If you don't print often, you end up spending a good chunk of your precious ink cleaning up the print heads (which is mostly done by blasting ink through the print jets).

Avoid HP like the plague and especially their ink subscription scheme.

I'm very happy with my Brother laser printer, because it works with standard drivers (so works very nicely with Linux) and you don't need all these proprietary applications.

[rich2005]

I have to agree with Ofnuts about inkjets. Also there seems to be a correlation between cost of printer / cost of inks. Cheap price of printer = high price of inks. More expensive printers might have a tank system which reduces the running costs.

Of the three main contenders Epson / HP / Canon Probably Epson as a possible. About 25 years since I had a HP that used big ink cartridges. Then a Canon which was a disaster if you use linux.

I currently have a Brother inkjet, reasonable linux support, ink is not too expensive. Good enough for run-of-the-mill prints. Having said that, ordered a 12"x16" Giclee fine art print yesterday from a local printer. At great expense

[Ofnuts]

(08-22-2023, 10:01 AM)rich2005 Wrote: I have to agree with Ofnuts about inkjets. Also there seems to be a correlation between cost of printer / cost of inks. Cheap price of printer = high price of inks. More expensive printers might have a tank system which reduces the running costs.

Of the three main contenders Epson / HP / Canon Probably Epson as a possible. About 25 years since I had a HP that used big ink cartridges. Then a Canon which was a disaster if you use linux.

I currently have a Brother inkjet, reasonable linux support, ink is not too expensive. Good enough for run-of-the-mill prints.  Having said that, ordered a 12"x16" Giclee fine art print yesterday from a local printer. At great expense

"Giclee" ? That's "squirt" in French. Good name for an inkjet printer (and other things... )

[rich2005]

Yeah, its from the French https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gicl%C3%A9e

They do not say what printer they use, only ten colour printers with UV resistant, archival inks so I suspect an epson-seiko printer.

It is one of my photos, for a birthday present.