Canon S800 as a photo printer?

[n9505605]

Hi All,

Has anyone used the S800 as a photo printer? I'm considering buying either the S800 or the S4500 (A3) but not knowing how capable the S800 as a photo printer, especially printing images off from the digital camera. what are your recommendation guys? I need atleast A4 size printing so 4x6 or even 5x7 photo printer is out of the question. I got a stack of A3 high resolution paper for large portriate print that I wanted to use. I have checked prices for other alternatives such as the more expensive Epson printer but I think the cost vs benefit misses by a margin. So anyone have any ideas or recommendations on what I should get? any comments on advantages or disadvantages are mostly welcome.

Thanks!
Boshala

[chiahead]

Hi,

I purchased a Canon S800 three weeks ago. Printing photos with it is a charm. I've been shopping for a new printer for several weeks and decided to go with the S800. Prints are very close to lab, and it's very very quiet.

If you have any specific question, I am here.

Salutations..

ChiaHead

[Dan ferguson]

I purchased the S800 also a couple months ago. I have been less than satisfied.

First of all it prints extremly slow. It took almost 8 minutes to print a 5x7 in standard mode and a minute for text page.

I tried evrthing in their FAQ page and even talked to a Canon tech. They didn't have any answers.

The color appears to be off. Is there any way to match the color to my screen or a scanned image with burning a lot of paper?

Any and all help appreciated.


Dan
Lynnwood, WA

[runner]

Either you have the s800 hooked up to a printer port, rather than the USB port, or you have the bios setting for, "enable DMA for USB", set to no. With the USB set to not use DMA, the printer is very slow, and so are downloads direct from the G-1. With the correct DMA settings and using a USB port, the s800 will print a full page image at the highest settings in less than 4 minutes, and a 5x7 in about 1.
The color balance issue is a little harder, and it is different depending on the type of connection you are using for the printer. Try printing from Photorecord using the auto correct color and contrast in the program, and the use color management and use ICM boxes checked in the driver. This is a workaround that works very well for printing un-edited files from the Canon cameras. It isn't as good using edited files or files from some of the other cameras. Using the use color correction and choosing the light setting, photo film, and leaving all of the other enhancement options off provides a close print from some of the other programs for the files you edit. A lot depends on the paper you are using. It takes some time and ink to get it balanced right, but the results are worth it. Another program that prints quite well with the s800 is the Fototime Fotoalbum, but it will not accept a file that has been interpolated up. You can edit if you wish, but you can't increase the resolution much, as the Fotoalbum software isn't set up for image files that big.

[Dan ferguson]

Thanks for the info. I had tried both USB and parallel with same poor results. My computer only had a 233 processor so I upgraded to 300 and now the printer works fine. None of the techs at Canon caught that when I gave them all the details. I know, I'm only a couple years behind on computer upgrades but I try and spend as little as possible. I'm only a poor state worker. One of these days I'll get a new board and one of those 1ghz+ machines, then I can launch rockets!

Thanks again.

[runner]

Don't feel too bad about the machine. I build all of mine out of second or third generation back parts myself. I have a P3-500 as the fastest machine, but it is starting to be a little slow for some purposes also. You should find with the DMA set for USB correctly in the bios that the G-1 will download a file in a couple of seconds straight from the camera. When it is set to no, it takes minutes to do what takes seconds with it on.

[Dan ferguson]

I looked thru my cmos settings but didn't notice any DMA setting. The USB is set to on. I don't have a camera yet that use the cards. That is on my list to. I'm still using film. I had more bad luck. I purchased a PrimeFilm negative scanner before Chrisymas and it went bad a couple weeks ago. CompUSA wouldn't exchange it so I had to ship back to the manufacture. Suggestion: Don't shop CompUSA. They take no returns after 14 days, no matter what.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions.

[runner]

I would have to look at the bios settings, as there are so many setups these days. On mine there is a choice to use DMA for USB. If it is off, a 5x7 will take five minutes. When it is set to on, it takes less than a minute. I keep it set to off most of the time because my system is pretty loaded, and I need the resources elsewhere. If I am getting ready for a print run, I switch it back on. Your chipset may not support this, or your bios may not allow you to set it yourself. It may depend on Plug and Pray. If you can't get the USB to function at full speed, then you are better off running it off a printer
port as far as the speed goes. There was a change in the color when I switched from the printer port to the USB port tho. There should not be, but there was.

[mcaldwell]

Have had an S800 for about nine months; no regrets, it does an outstanding job with photos as well as DTP. The big issue for me (having owned the first model of HP PhotoSmart printers) was individual ink cartridges. Just burned me to replace a $40 cartridge because one color ran out. The system works well. I recently had a minor repair done, and the printout said I printed nearly 10K pages.

One thing to recognize about these printers: not only are you committed to their ink cartridges (there are third party suppliers that aren't too bad, but I don't recommend the refill jobs), but the drivers are tuned up for their paper as well. So, the paper options offered at print time by the dialog box are their brand names, and one does not get firmware level controls to tune up for other papers. For example, I get beatiful pictures with Canon Pro paper, but Kodak's finest photo paper looks very bad.

Downsides of this model: won't print edge to edge. Also, 9" wide (a bit over) maximum width.