Which printer? help.

[cwindle1]

Hi all, I think it's time I purchase my own printer as fed up of having to wait for suppliers to send the images out. I use photobox which are extremely good but having clients wait a week/more (I like to check them over first!) to receive there goods is a bit of a pain. I have a price budget of around £250/300.

 

[CameraClicker]

Either Canon or Epson. They both come in a variety of sizes and prices. Then you get into the whole "What paper?" thing.

 

[jaomul]

I assume your in UK from the pound sign. Printing any shots is expensive and harder to get right than you think.

I am in Ireland and uploaded 90 photos from 6x4 to 12x8 to ds colour labs on Thursday. They arrived yesterday. I'm sure be even faster in UK. They got lots of awards for quality and service.

Check them out and avoid the headache

 

[cwindle1]

Either Canon or Epson. They both come in a variety of sizes and prices. Then you get into the whole "What paper?" thing.

Which model? had a quick look on eBay and found the CANON PIXMA MG5550

Then again, you got it in one, what paper?!

 

[CameraClicker]

As Jaomul pointed out, there is quite a bit that goes into a good print. I use Epson printers and have a whole book full of their paper samples. Papers come in many different materials, textures and formats (sizes of both cut sheet and roll paper).

 

[KmH]

Making high quality prints using an inkjet printer involves acquiring a body of knowledge separate from doing photography.
Understanding the differences between inks and dyes, water based, solvent based, or UV-cured inks/dyes, color fastness, piezoelectric or thermal print heads, paper types, and more.
Post processing a photo for printing is somewhat different than processing the same image for electronic display.

Here are some resources to help acquire that knowledge:

Tutorials on Color Management & Printing
The Digital Print: Preparing Images in Lightroom and Photoshop for Printing
The Digital Negative: Raw Image Processing in Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Photoshop
Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition)
Fine Art Printing for Photographers: Exhibition Quality Prints with Inkjet Printers