A Good Photo Printer?

[rexbobcat]

I have (had) an HP printer, which died. I hated it anyways.

So now I'm looking for another printer that is, well, better. The HP was OK, but it was SOOOOO hard to get the colors accurate because I don't think that it had the....color range (?)...color gamut (?) to produce good blacks. They always looked a bit green. It's not my monitor either, because I would send them to a lab without color correcting and it would look just like I want it.

So what is a good Photo printer? I could care less about document quality.

My price range is about $500

 

[bratkinson]

I get very acceptable, non-professional quality results from a pair of Epson RX-380 printers. I bought them as they print directly on CDs that I need to do sometimes. They're out of production by more than a year. I found a new one in the box online and have that as a spare, should I need it. My biggest complaint is the ink is water soluable as, I suspect, are all non-professional photography-grade ink jet inks.

I also have an HP printer/scanner/fax that also prints CDs, but never found the right software to print CDs with. Until I got the Epsons a couple years ago, I always thought that HP had better quality printing. I still do. The problem is their cartridges are wayyyy over the top in cost. So, for 99% of my photo printing, I use the Epsons. The 'better stuff', I use the HP.

Both the Epsons and the HP runs in the $200ish price range. They're all plastic these days, so if you do a lot of printing, you end up replacing them every couple years. Also, Epson has gotten 'smarter' at detecting non-genuine Epson ink cartridges. Some of the cheapos I tried get rejected when I put them in. Others print for 20-30 minutes and then get rejected...go figure. So I find genuine Epson cartridges online in 6-packs (1 each color per pack) at a very good price, and then 'fill in' individual colors that I use the most at an office supply store...at $15 or so each...Obviously, the printer companies learned the Gillette Razor Company marketing method. Give away the razors and make the blades expensive!

Note, too, that I have an HP laser jet printer for all text and miscellaneous from-the-web printing that I do, as well.