In terms of mostly photo-printing, what are people using for a printer these days? I have been reviewing printers, colour inkjet mostly for simple document printing (low volume) and for high quality photo printing up to A4. The HP Envy 110 is reviewing well, anyone have one? Photo subjects will vary, obviously between weather & home stuff. The trade-off is of course cartridge cost too, printers generally are inexpensive at a consumer level, but the big bucks are in the cartridges.

Depending on how many photos you will print, it would possibly me more cost effective to use a photo printing place which have the professional high quality printers and let you have a whole range of photo sizes. Of course if the photos are of a confidential nature this option would not be so feasable.

You also have to think of the etra money for photo paper because you need the special stuff so it doesn't soak through.Also the cartridges you mentioned because photos eat through them a lot faster than normal printing.

Totally agree with Roadkill....
I'd try 'Stallards' or 'Foto+Frames' in Launceston David... Save a lot of money printing professionally rather than at home... plus the quality is better.

I also agree, chucked the colour printer (still working) to the rubbish bin a few months ago. I felt mugged every time I had to buy ink.

i know for people that live on the southside of brisbane, 'Fix-A-Frame', and many other framing shops, are a great place to get your photos printed (photo paper/canvas), and framed too if you want....i know their quality is great too!

OK don't laugh. But Big W does a pretty good job of printing photos, albums and also photo printing on canvas. They use decenct quality photo printing equipment and the costs are not to bad either.

Ink cart ripoffs can be um reduced by using a variety of self filling options, some of which will void warranty but what the hell, you probably paid less than a 1/4 of what the 4 or 5 ink carts cost in the first place.

http://www.rihac.com.au/ is one such system.

I use dual printers. A cheap Brother mono laser for day to day work and a Canon inkjet for customer reports, photos etc. The mono laser saves me around 90% of the ink I used to chew through with just an inkjet for everything.

hehe I almost fell off my chair Sir... okay you must have come across a really good Big W....

Since my days as a Fletchers Fotos, I just love Epson, you want at least 6 or 7 colour cartridges, pigment lasts longer than dye based inks. Use quality paper etc.

I still use my A3+ Epson from the shop (Epson 2700) and love it's output.

The more you pay the better it is when you get to quality levels you would want.

As to Big W, my experience is that they don't really calibrate, don't try to assess the photo to ensure it will print well etc. At least a true photo store will generally try to ensure you get the best print quality possible.

If you have your own printer you can really start to work out some consistent colour etc. Every printer will print a different print of the same file. Once you do a few of your own you will work out the best set up before each print.

You have high quality photos DS - get a good printer, use proper inks and paper for longevity.

Willhelm Institute (google it) does industry accepted reviews and is well worth checking out - some of their findings are a surprise. Not many people know of them but they are accepted as pretty much THE authority by all major industry players.

As I have suggested on FB, I really can't fault my Epson Stylus R1800.

http://www.epson.com.au/products/inkjet/stylusphotor1800.asp

I've had it for about 5 years and love it to bits. It is pricey, and so are the inks, which is it's one downfall, but the print quality is outstanding. It does require a bit of tweaking in Photoshop to get the best results out of an uncalibrated monitor (and has been the cause of a few frustrations!), but once rectified, it is brilliant. 8 ink carts, A3 borderless prints, CD/DVD tray and can do rolls of paper for panos. I've always used genuine inks and Epson paper for the best results.

It is now discontinued, and been replaced with the R1900.

http://www.epson.com.au/products/inkjet/stylusPhotor1900.asp

However, if you don't want to part with the money and endure a few frustrations getting it right, then find a reliable professional photo lab and get them to do it for you! Oh, and after seeing the print quality of mine, compared to friends photos from any of those 'cheap' kiosk places...I know which I would rather have!! There is NO comparison!

Willows Big W in Townsville is pretty good even for a kiosk. The operators actually know what they are doing and take a great deal of care with the finished products. It is maybe the only one in Australia that does but my family has used them since they opened including our daughters wedding photos (our pictures not the pro's) and they came out perfectly. Yes we have had the occasional hiccup but over all I am very impressed with their work.

If I could afford a $2000.00 printer I probably still wouldn't buy one as the results I am happy with comes from a supermarket chain or from what I print myself without having to resort to software to fix anything.

I guess I'm pretty much old school in that respect. I take photos to please myself, not earn a living or anything. Occasionally I get a good shot but I don't feel the need to work too hard to get it or beat myself up if I miss the 'perfect' shot either. Of course having a decent camera also makes a huge diffrence and the step up from the old Fuji Finepix to the new Nikon D5100 has made a huge difference in what I can now do.

Yep I can vouch for their canvas work, friendly, helpful also!

Alot of my friends from the Nerdy Club have A3 Epson printers and highly recommend Epson. I can find out what models they have and let you know.
I get a heap of prints done at Digital Works and my customers are blown away when they see the quality and they are in Hallam and post world wide including that little island off Australia called Tasmania

Great feerdback guys, very comprehensive and of course, informative. Getting the pics printed outside is an attractive option and I have done this in the past, but not quite as satisfying as producing your own. An interesting discussion, I for one actually don't print many phgotos, which surprises many of my friends.

David - to reiterate from my previous life as you know it in Hobart, most of my fellow shopkeepers used Epson printers for the large prints for customers. As I also mentioned I have a wide Epson (well Super A3 13 inch x 19 inch) and it was my shop printer and it and later versions produce very very high quality prints. A number of customers regularly sold prints we did on it - pro photographers etc.

I know the quality of your photos, they deserve a proper pure photographic printer if you're looking to hang photos.

The joy of producing your own pro quality prints is tremendous. I absolutely loved printing those prints for customers and seeing their faces when they picked them up. Takes a few goes to work out your monitor colours vs print colours but once you work those sorts of things out - it's excellent.

When you get into it, don't hesitate to pm me for help. Cheers from Dave

I went down the road of getting a decent printer to print my photos, printed my first one and was extremely disappointed. Did some research, ended up buying calibrator for my screen, then made sure I sourced the appropriate profiles for my inks AND paper and now I get prints that I am very happy with. It took me ages to get my head around calibration, not only getting the colours right, but 'exposure' as well. I'm glad I've done it now, but it had me gnashing my teeth big time trying to get it right... I have an Epson R2400 (now discontinued) and it is excellent, I haven't heard any bad reports about newer Epson models so have no doubts they would be as good, if not better.

I have a canon mp640 printer, chosen mainly for the mac compatibility, wifi connection and the directprint connector that works with my Nikon D3000. One thing I would mention is that the paper is the other half of the equation - you can have the best printer on the market, but if the paper is substandard, and you are printing proofs, the "feathering" the paper produces won't represent the final images. (Feathering is where the ink soaks the paper and feathers out - sometimes called bleed) I also have a dell color laser printer, which I use for my final prints on synthetic paper, not wood based, and will be getting into framing this year.

For the cost that producing calendars, t-shirts etc equates to on an inkjet or laser, I use vistaprint. Although I haven't captured any serious lightning shots yet, and am working on it, I have been getting landscapes & sunsets that I have used for my family xmas presents at about $12 per calendar, for multiple units.

Peterh - could not agree more - using the absolute best inks & paper is absolutely essential for a quality print THAT WILL LAST.

The upper level Epsons use pigment based instead of dye based inks and they are significantly more photo fast. I always used genuine Epson papers in my shop although a good ilford paper works well too.

Another point to make re Apple is that I have got a couple of large film jobs done by their online ordering system, as well as two hardbound books of weather photos, the cost was a little high, but the result was extraordinary.

DaveM, I agree, the epsons are superior quality for photos, I was working with the stylus pro units back in the late '90s, and, when combined with papers like the inkjet polished papers, was able to produce high quality images on "plain" paper. Conqueror Papers were bringing them to the country, they were bought by spicers and I lost touch with the reps. They also gave me my stock of synthetic paper, which I haven't used up yet.

Another unlikely source of a paper for use is Spotlight - they are now selling magnetic inkjet paper, and my fridge is covered with my early foray into photography. Works really well on both Canon & Epson, never tried it on HP, so can't comment on quality...

Hi,

Problem is, you cannot mess with the company like Epson and Canon in particular. They will be very mean to void your warranty if you are using third party ink while it is still under warranty. So it is at your own risk to do so. I dunno if Epson and Canon knows RIHAC well and see if it is still okay to use those while it is under warranty as long as those two companies accepted that particular Third Party Ink. But I am very tempting to use RIHAC CISS system cos it is a lot cheaper in the long run. But most of time, I am much more prefer to go to photo lab to reduce the cost although not all photo lab can do perfect job as what you expect. So nothing is perfect. If you are not happy with the print, make sure you have receipt with you and return to store and let them know what is wrong and maybe they will be more than happy to print a replacement for you. At home print I have, I have already calibrated it with Spyder2 Print Pro using latest software and it came out a lot better colours close enough to what I see on screen. I have is only A4 Canon Pixma IP4950, that is a high speed general printer, not just photo printer but still does a job for me. I am happy with it. One day when ever I like I might get Canon Pixma A3 Pro printer system. The paper I buy is Ilford Inkjet Professional paper as I recommended it because when I purchase it, it came with ICC profile I can download off the internet to save time getting paper profile done. Please be careful of paper thickness depend what model of printer you got, if you try attempt using thicker than the printer can handle according to the specification, it may do damage to the printer system even permanent damages the roller system in it, it would be very costly to get it fixed. And remember, print one page every day to keep print head in good condition otherwise it will just clog up pretty bad! Its your responsible to look after printer if you want to adhere with warranty policy. Anyway enough from me for today. Cheer Nathan.

My experience with 3rd party inks is that the viscosity is either too low or too high, which results in leakage or the heads gumming up. I buy my ink carts in bulk from officeworks, who are always prepared to do a deal for quantity.

If your photos were used in profiting another person, and nothing for you, there would be complaints about the practice.

This is the same for printer manufacturers. The 3rd party providers pay nothing to them, yet they make money off the back of the technology. No wonder they void warranty for 3rd party ink cart use.