FOAK: Photo-printers

Seriously considering getting a dedicated photo printer, the sort that
does up to A6, has an LCD screen and takes media. First question: what
technology? Inkjets claim 1024 dpi or more these days, dye-sublimation
seems to stuck at 300 dpi. Which is more resilient/cheaper to run/better
quality photos at this size/more stable colours?. Is there a FOAK
recommended model?

 

Dunno about the FOAK, but I'm very impressed with the HP PhotoSmart
C5180 I bought earlier this year.

Quality is as good as I've ever seen - one test I did involved copying
a proper photo print and I honestly couldn't tell the difference
between the original and the copy, even with a magnifying glass. Both
the colour match (with 6 seperate ink cartridges) and pixellation were
indistinguishable.

Speed isn't that great for photos, but I rarely print more than a
couple in one go, so that's OK, and for normal text printing it's only
a few seconds/page. It has the screen you're looking for, and with it
the ability to edit/crop and print directly from various media cards,
as well as via ethernet and USB ports.
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..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
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Pro printing is dye-sub. Our lot makes OEM printers for at least one of
the big photo companies.

 

Yuss but the kit and the consumables are more. Top quality inkjet with the
right paper does for SoHo.

Do you mean A6 or in fact A3 poster size?

If it's smaller format, Epson R360
www.morecomputers.co.uk/extra.asp?pn=C11C658021
and can recommend this supplier

If it's larger format high quality, Epson R1800
www.morecomputers.co.uk/extra.asp?pn=C11C589021CU

 

I really meant A6/6X4. My experience with ones that can do A4 is that
they don't feed smaller sizes very easily or cleanly. Loading is
one-at-a-time and fiddly. Besides, I wanted a small piece of kit. On the
rare occasions I want to do A4 I can swap cartridges on my Deskjet 5150
which does a very nice job.

 

Dad has a C3210 all-in-one photosmart thing - printer/scanner/negative
scanner, reads from usb/all manner of flash cards, usb+network.

My only issue with it is that it seems to need a 100MB+ driver package
installed before you can do anything with it. I've tried installing the
lightweight(!) 50mb package, but that doesn't seem to work. His
computer's slowed down a fair bit since installing it, but it does seem
to be a good printer.

 

The HP 5180 has a dedicated 6x4 (or close sizes) paper tray, as well
as the normal A4/letter tray. Piece of piss.

But as someone else mentioned, there's a hefty driver installation
required - using a generic driver printed OK, but I couldn't control
which tray was used, leading to several wasted sheets. But although it
does leave an app running all the time (which I usually close if I'm
at work) I don't think it slows the machine down appreciably.

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..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
\`\ | /`/ DS#8 BOTAFOT#3 SbS#2 UKRMMA#13 DFV#8 SKA#2 IBB#10
`\\ | //'
`\|/`
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I take it we're talking Windoze here? I'll check out the support linux
before parting with money!

 

You still got the cornwall pictures you took? If so can you send me the
one of me using the firestick, ta.

 

I nearly bought a dye-sub printer (Hi-Touch HiTi 640PS), but when they
sent sample images (including one of my own I emailed) I didn't like
the output - reminded me a bit of the wax printers I used to test).
Ended up with an Epson R1800 (A3 printer) and the output is superb.
I've printed A3 prints from a fairly average 5mp Sony DSC-T100 with
great results.

I don't doubt that dye-sub is best, but there seems to be some
difference between the model I got results from and what they use in
the machines - what do you think that is? Is 300/400dpi the same in
the bigger machines?

 

I have the Epson R1800 and it has never failed to feed anything from
6x4 to A3 correctly. I just stuff a load of whatever paper I'm using
and off it goes - prints CD's nicely as well.

 

Surprisingly enough, it comes with wondows and mac/OS drivers, but
I've no idea if the Mac ones will work on linux. But you really needto
use a driver, as tray selection, resolution, etc. is all
software-controlled.

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..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
\`\ | /`/ DS#8 BOTAFOT#3 SbS#2 UKRMMA#13 DFV#8 SKA#2 IBB#10
`\\ | //'
`\|/`
`

 

Unlikely - they both use CUPS but the Mac is BSD derived.

Phil.

 

more to the point, the executable format is different (mach-o vs. elf).