So, modern photo-quality printers, how good are they?

[Marcos]

Just thinking, it costs me £1 per A4 photo print at a local copy shop, how much would it average out if i had a printer that could do the same job? Like, how much are cartridges and how many full a4 photo prints would i get out of one average?

[EtheAv8r]

Well this is a complex question to which there is no simple answer, as there are so many different printers and combinations of ink systems.

PC Pro did an excellent Labs on this in their April 2006 (Issue 138) and the ink efficiency/usage varied greatly from model to model, with an ink efficiency from as low as 52% to as high as 95% in their testing.

Cost-wise printing 6*4 photos at home is generally more expensive that at a labs or Jessops, but can be offset by convenience. Printing A4 Photos is cheaper at home. Full costs for for 6*4 Photos varied from 25p to 58p and for A4 Ohotos from £1.06 to £2.39.

Based on this artical, and other research, I purchased an HP PhotoSmart 8450 and have been very pleased with it (40p & £1.36p cost of Photo prints).

[tfboy]

It does depend.

I bought a cheap Epson R200 printer for about £70 which prints very nice photos up to A4 size.

You can get continuous ink supply systems so your ink cost drops dramatically compared to cartridges. Some places you can get very cheap thick photographic paper too. www.svp.co.uk have a special offer at the moment on Kodak paper

[Marcos]

i'm thinking specifically A4 prints, asda do cheap 6x4s so i dont need to do those at home.

i dont know how good refills can be? is it a case of finding the best quality printer and then just finding refill kits?

[tfboy]

I've used "cheap" non-Epson branded cartridges without problem, and guess the same goes for the bottles for CISS.

In my experience, the paper has had a bigger impact on the quality of the photo printout than the ink itself. On the 6x4 and A4 photo printouts I've done, it truly is as good as a professionally developed print IMHO

The only downside with the Epson system is that if you don't use it regularly (at least once a week) and if the printer is in a warm and dry room, the ink can dry a bit which tends to block the nozzles. There are other advantages of CISS too such as there's no where near as much wasted ink because you don't have to re-align print heads and clean print heads all the time which you have to do when you put in a new cartridge.

I haven't got a CISS for my epson just because I haven't been bothered to buy one and set it up. If you ever plan to do a batch of full A4-sized printouts, it may well pay for itself. I've done printouts in the past where I've asked people to pay me say 50p to £1 for A4 printouts to cover the cost and I think that's cheaper than getting your local jessops to print on A4

[Marcos]

This CISS, i've never heard of it before, is it available for any printer? i dont really get how it works

[tfboy]

This CISS, i've never heard of it before, is it available for any printer? i dont really get how it works

Scroll down a bit on this page. You can download an installation PDF too

http://svp.co.uk/products-list.php?bid=0&cid=157

[Stevo]

I use an EPSON CX3200 to print large prints, the quality is surprisingly good although it takes about 30mins to print full quailty A4. Its about two years old now and I've always used compatible cartridges in it. The compatibles are great as long as you don't leave them in sunlight for a long time because they tend to fade.
I can get 6 cartridges for mine from www.choicestationery.com
for £18.99.
If you are going to be printing a lot of prints you cant beat an online service such as http://www.jessops.com/yournewhouse. Works out as little as 8p a print.

[Marcos]

For 6x4s i use asda's 2day service which works out at 5p per print when i do 150 photos

but i'm considering home printing just for A4 shots, for decoration and portraits etc

i found that someone in my house has a HP 1317, which i think does colour a4 photos, looked up ink on ebay

what do you guys think of these ebay refill kits?

LINK

are they a pain?