Looking for a good solid printer

I am looking for something to just run off some prints at home. Mostly 4x6, 5x7, maybe an 8x10 here and there. I used to have an HP all in one that printed nice sharp colorful prints. When it died I bought an Epson consumer all in one and the prints are terrible. What would be a good printer for decent prints at a good price?

Epson,Canon. I had a Hp that i was really happy with also for just a prints here and there.I found a good local place for me to get prints at and more cost effective than me trying to do my own. Costco is a good place also. Just keep in mind what your really wanting to do. Easy to spend lens money on printers and prints. There is pros and cons to both Epson and Canon printers and ink types. There is a big fan base here for both printers.Costo,Bay photo,Adorama pix, and others do a great job. BTW you got some great photos there love all 3 of them

Canon offers a lot of Pixma Pro-100 bundles (there are a few going on right now). People often buy the bundle and sell the printer. If you are patient you can get one at a very discounted price. They produce excellent prints but I can't really say much about the print cost.

Red River Paper breaks down print costs on their website.

I have long found the Canon PIXMA series to offer excellent photo printing with low ink consumption...they have what Canon says outputs very small drops to make prints...picoliter drops. I have used a Canon PIXMA iP4000 for about a decade and finally I need to retire it because its ink absorbers are full (yes, Epson uses them, too, and fills them up, so you have to retire the printer!)

The iP-100 is the 'pro' printer that does 13x19" prints, whereas most other PIXMA photo printers are limited to 8.5" wide paper. The iX7000 is the current model, but earlier models are still available from a number of sources, with iXnnnn or iPnnnn model designations. I have no experience with the MGnnnn or MXnnnn models.

Unlike Epsons with their pigment ink, the Canon PIXMA generally use dye based inks and I have never, ever in 10 years had a clog of a jet!

If you want a true photo printer (up to 13x19) I'd say look for someone selling off a bundled Pro-100, or similar. You can pick one up for about the cost of the ink. ~$100, give or take a few bucks. The Pixma Pro series all use individual ink tanks, and I've found their inks aren't generally available at department stores, but are usually available at office supply stores (but much more expensive than buying online) just in case you run out and need more quick. They are also rather large and heavy, so you have to have the space to put one.

As far as dye vs pigment based inks, that depends on what you're printing. I've found that for color prints dye works great, but if you want to print black and white images, a pigment based printer is much better IMO. I've got an older dye-based Canon Pixma Pro 9000 Mark II as well as a newer pigment-based Pixma Pro-10, and I can tell a big difference in a monochrome image printed on the two printers. Don't get me wrong, the print looks good from the 9000 Mk II, until you look at the Pro-10 and it's great. Color images are great from both. The newer dye-based Pro-100 is probably better than the 9000 Mk II in this regard since I think they changed a few of the inks around. There is some debate on the longevity of dye vs pigment based inks, but I think either of them are sufficient for the average person printing photos. (The Pro-100 and older Pro-9000 Mk II printers are dye based and the Pro 9500 Mk II, Pro-10, and Pro-1 are pigment based printers.)

You may have already dabbled in color management since you've printed some before, but I'd highly suggest calibrating your monitor and making sure to use appropriate paper profiles when printing. It doesn't take that long, and really does make a big difference in the final print. If you don't want to buy a colorimeter to calibrate your monitor, you can always rent one from Lensrentals, or somewhere like that for a small percentage of the cost to buy one. It always amazes me when I see people with thousands of dollars in camera gear who cheap out on something as simple as color calibration.

A couple of months ago I was just one step from the Pro-100, which would cost me over 500 EUR. But since I plan to stay with the A4 print format I reconsidered that option and ended buying a 6-ink Pixma MG7550 (MG7520 in the US).

Although I'm not a fan of any kind of all-in-ones, I thought that it may be even sharper at A4 than the Pro-100, due to the 1 picoliter droplet size vs. 3 pl of the Pro-100.

It seems that the reduced droplet size and introduction of grey ink made possible to eliminate the Light Cyan and Light Magenta inks that were previously mandatory for serious photo printing and I was also used to have in my retired HP Photosmart.

Bottom line, my relatively short experience with the MG7550 seems to match the good reviews I had come across.

Recently, my model has been replaced by the MG7750 (US=MG7720), which takes a new series of cartridges that will have no compatibles for some time.

Thanks for all the good information. I will do more research and see where I can balance cost and quality. I just need that decent printer that will give me a good print when I don't want to ship things off to a shop. The Canon MG7720 maybe what I'm looking for.

http://shop.usa.canon.​com …20-black-wireless-printer Good deal right now with the paper and such.