"Cost Effective" Printer Recommendations

Hello People!

Can anyone recommend a solid inkjet photo printer that isn't too expensive?

I took a shot at printing some images to my HP Office-jet Pro L7580, with mixed results. It handles color, light and mid-range tones pretty well, but blacks come out lacking depth. Another way to put that would be, blacks aren't very black; there's usually a tone away from black that kills the illusion of depth....

Are there any workarounds for this issue?

Any suggestions / recommendations will be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

Tags: blacks, printing

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Permalink Reply by CameraClicker on February 17, 2012 at 7:50pm

I print photos at Blacks where I can upload photos and by the time I get to the store at the local mall, the photos are ready. Sometimes I want to print without going and getting it. Or, I want a specific, usually larger print. So, I also print at home on an Epson which has a 13 inch platen, it is not small and was not as inexpensive as the stuff at Staples. I print documents on HP printers. I still have a G55 and L7600. I could not get the control I wanted when using the HP office printers for photos.

I used a Colormunki to profile my monitor and the printer.

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Permalink Reply by Fred on February 17, 2012 at 11:49pm

I would recommend what others have told you on here. I have placed another discussion on printers below

http://www.picturesocial.com/forum/topics/wide-format-printer-for-u...

have a little read and do some more searches, this subject comes up a lot.

I now do not print indoors, I use a company that I send the file to and it is printed to whatever size I need and posted anywhere in the world but mine printer is in the UK.

Other things to consider

Calibrate your monitor

Calibrate your printer

and if you must purchase a printer go down the route of Epsom or Canon they always come out top in home use desktop printing.

Let us know what route you take

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Permalink Reply by Gary Vernon on February 18, 2012 at 6:16am

Hi Charles,

i think the clue is in the description of the printer you are using ie: "office - jet"?

It would be difficult to get anywhere near a true photographic rendering in print on this machine or anything like it as they basically use only 4 color cartriges..

We are currently leasing one of the Epson 7890 series which has 3 densities of black ink and imho gives better quality than Lab sourced prints because we use a calibrated work flow and proof with profiles through Photoshop..

A good low cost A3+ printer to start off with may be the 'Photo R1900' with comes with 8 individual ink cartridges including gloss optimisers..

As Fred has already mentioned, a calibrated monitor is essential, we did away with third party calibrators a few weeks ago by investing in the Eizo ColorEdge CG275W which takes away any headaches by calibrating itself with internal hardware as opposed to using the system graphic card.

I guess what is "cost effective" depends on the quality and resolution of the output you desire..