recommend a photo printer

[lalvidrez]

I have been doing sports photo collages and was wondering what printer do you all recommend? Do you print your own or use a photo printing business. I currently use a epson r200 and it prints nice quality pictures but curious as to what everyone else uses. Thanx
updated with sample pics down below.

[srn_photo]

i have an hp 8250 photosmart printer. Uses vivera ink, but only prints up to an 8x10. It has a cool photo tray 4x6, and uses 8 seperate ink cartiges. And i got it at a local office depot/electronic store for a pretty good deal. I like it a lot. Prints very well. But for big printing jobs i would not reccomend it. The better the paper, the better the print is what my expiereance has been, and it can get kind of pricey. But it's great to have for instant gratification.

[Croasdail]

I use the canon i9900, and with Iflord galerie papers it is a dream. Fast, quit, no complaints. it does up to 13x19. I would recommend the Epson 1800 too... and it has a dvd printer which is pretty cool. I use a little r320 for that and it come in handy.

[westernminnguy]

This article does not recommend a specific printer but I thought it was interesting and informative.

http://www.pcphotomag.com/content/2006/june/tb_inkjetprinters.shtml

A lot depends on your budget. For the few times I print, I bought an HP 8250 and have been satisfied with the quality of prints I get.

[staereo]

I have an 8250 as well. The color prints are adequate, prints as wide as 8.5 and as long as 22 inches I think. (May be 24", but I think 22)

When I bought it, it was the fastest consumer printer available. I think theyve since released one thats faster. (14 sec 4x6 on 8250, 12 on the new one) Mind you, those times are not what you'll experience, as you'll print at a higher quality than that.

Whats good about the 8250 is that it is quick, quiet, and if you do paperwork, it punches out text at somewhere around 32 or 33 ppm. Youll be amazed at how fast that feels, and is great when I'm printing out a load of order forms on contracts. Make sure its on a stable platform, as it will shake an unstable one easily.

I've found it very easy to reproduce accurate colors, and without even using the printer software, the printer intuitively seems to rescue dark areas, but not intrusively. Your intended blacks stay black. Im not a scientest, but the fact that it magically rescues shadows, without disrupting the areas I mean to be dark is great.

It prints color very nice. If you decide to print above 600dpi, and you print large files, you may end up wanting to buy more memory for it. But I can print 16bit TIF images from my 20d GF upsized to 600dpi @ 8.5x11 (read: overkill) no problem. Just takes a while to start when you push it like that.

The colors are great, and when printing from PS, I prefer to let the printer do the management. The printer software allows you to choose your colorspace, and includes aRGB and sRGB. Does a great job. Very vibrant, and when you use good paper, the prints come out handle-able and dry.

RC paper works well for the most part, but you need to be careful what papers you choose to use with it. It is a dye based ink system, (though someone said somewhere that HP blacks tend to be pigment, oddly enough) so papers like ilfords galerie smooth line arent really the best option. The galerie classic is preferrable.

The 8250 also has a very cool dual-direction pump system. Instead of spaying waste inks out to clean, it actually reverses its pump (or has a seperate pump?) and puts the ink back in the resevoirs. This saves you some hassles, most notably saving you ink.

NOW, the 8250 has a single black cartridge. This clearly means that the black and white images arent the same as you would get with a more greyscale oriented printer. Not to say it can't print black and white nicely, its just not a forte of the printer. I prefer to get my greyscale images ordered than printed off the 8250. Again, not that its terrible, theres just better options out there. So, if you were hoping to print the bulk of your work in black and white, you would get better range and black and white quality from a different printer.

I love the 8250, and will use it for my small work and location work until I can afford an epson 2400. I'm VERY satisfied with my purchase, and have no regrets over my consumer grade photo printer.

Bruce

[98photo]

I love my canon i9100 printer. I know it is a little old but it does a fantastic job!

[bravo]

I am very happy with my Canon i9900

[lalvidrez]

Thanks to all for your suggestion. I have been pleased with the r200 which I mainly use to print dvds but recently been doing more 8x10s. I am looking to get another printer to take over the picture printing and just use the r200 for my dvds. I will do some googling on some of the printers suggested.

[liza]

I'm looking at the Epson 1800. It prints up to 13x19" prints, if memory serves me correctly.

[lalvidrez]

Here are some samples of the kind of pictures I am doing. Your thoughts.

[20DNewbie]

Got the R320 here also. Would have been free if I could ever remember to send in those &%# %$_@ rebates!

I'd love a large format though, imagine the panos you could get off a roll. Or maybe a two foot wide portrait of the Statue of Liberty.http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/1534/icondroolcr0.gif

[staereo]

Here are some samples of the kind of pictures I am doing. Your thoughts.

Epson 2400 if you have 800 to shell out.

[salinas20d]

The i9900 will never let you down . Ilove mine, even large prints are fast .

[MJP]

I love my canon i9100 printer. I know it is a little old but it does a fantastic job!
im still using this printer and IMHO still rated one of the best....