Best printer for Canon 5D mark II

<p>I have several Canon Pixima Ink Jet printers. They are all last years models or older. I also have an Olympus P-440 Dye-sublimation 8MP printer. I had stopped using the Olympus beause i upgraded all my computers to Windows Vista but Olympus only makes a Windows XP driver. However, now that I have upgraded to Windows 7 I have learned how to make the Olympus XP driver work in compatiablity mode. Which will be a better printer with my Canon 5D Mark II for printing high end head shots. <br>

I seem to have a lot of inconsistency with colors being accuate on the Ink Jet printers both the wide carriage and the 81/2x11 give different results. Will I loose resolution since the dye-sub is only 8 MP but i am shooting at 21MP? I have not yet ordered a new ribbon and paper for the dye-sub which has been empty for close to a year now. Is it worth it to get this thing back up and running or will I get better results getting the montior and inkjet printers calibrated and fresh cartridges?<br>

Please help seriously confused and disastified with online printing services.</p>

<p>What online printing service have you used? The industry standard for professional ink jet printing is epson. That is what most pro's and amateurs use. I love the velvet paper. But I also use online printing with success. Some companies do auto corrections for you and that is where your disatisfaction might come from. Some companies have a "no auto correction option". I am waiting on prints from clarkphoto.com, yorkphoto.com, snapfish.com, shutterfly.com, adoramapix.com and winkflash.com. I ordered prints in matte and glossy kodak royal, fuji chrystal archive, kokak endura pro paper in metallic, silk, matte, lustre, glossy and true ilford B/W. As soon as I receive, I will post a review on youtube. I have used mpix and whcc. They both do an excellent job. From my ordering process, I like adoramapix the best. They do different jobs for different paper types and ship all in one order. I also love their kodak professional endura paper selection. Clarkphoto, yorkphoto and snapfish seem to be the same website. They use same standard kodak paper in glossy and matte only and use same upload process. Winkflash and shutterfly use fuji paper. I will soon post a detail review of all.</p>

<p>I needed somethig right away and went over to RitzCamera. The problem is that altough I thought I had already croped a perfect 12x18 they still croped it more and chopped my copy right logo off and moved the object to the center when it was supposed to be off centered. Very dissastified. I was going to try MPIX.com next, but I need an at home solution. My portfolio work is 8x10 and I need to verify the colors I see on my screen are exactly what I want when the prints come out. Whenever i send things out they come back looking good, just not exactly as I had seen them on my screen. I have hads the same problem with Ink jets. But again I have what were supposed to be high end Canon Pixima 6+ cartridge printers. However, those cartridges are like $13 bucks each plus pro photo paper. Has anyone had experience with the Dye-Subs with higher than 8 MP camera's?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Do you have your monitor properly calibrated? Mpix has color profiles you can download and they even send you sample prints. You must match the prints they send with the profiles installed in your computer. Once you do that, whatever you see in your monitor is what you get with them. Adoramapix and whcc have similiar procedures for calibrating your monitor. They have different profiles for each of their paper types. And as far as why ritz cropped your image, it may be because their machines are set to auto everything. There was a ritz camera near where I live, but never shopped there, too expensive, poor customer service and their photo printers are poor quality and they use inkjet and dye-sub printer. There is nothing like having a photograph on real photographic paper. Mpix and others expose their photo papers with lasers and develop like they do with film. If you want good quality prints from ink jet, epson printers are the way to go.</p>

<p>If you are having issues with color consistency, I'd recommend that you:</p>

<ol>

<li>Get equipment to calibrate your monitor.</li>

<li>Make sure you are using the right profiles for your printer and paper combination.</li>

<li>Color manage in your software rather than letting the printer color manage.</li>

<li>Get one brand of printer and stick with it. Canon, HP, and Epson all make fine printers.</li>

</ol>

<p>By the way, printer issues are very much not camera specific. Your printer choices would be largely the same regardless of whether you were shooting with a 5D2 or something else. Partly for this reason you might look for a printing or "digital darkroom" forum to post this.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

<p>Angel, there are many who would argue that Epson is the 'industry standard', particularly those who value time and not having to lose money in ink loss when changing from black glossy to black matt, or who simply want freedom from head clogging. Epson makes fine products but their customer service support is off shore and readily surpassed, in my opinion by Canon. HP printers are innovative and also perform very well. I have both Canon and Epson desk tops and I personally prefer my Canon. As for a large, wide format printer, I chose Canon and never looked back to Epson. YMMV.</p>

<p>There are so many choices with photography I wish I had done differently. I wish I had been smart enough to start off buying L-series lenses instead of Sigma and Tamron. I wish I had purchased Epson instead of Canon Ink Jet printers. But, I have what I have and need to make that work before going off and buying something else. I think what I am hearing is correct in that I need to calibrate my monitor whether I am going to print at hoem or send photos out to say MPIX or adorapix. I looked at the spiders for your monitor and they are all very expensive. Is their a lower price way to get monitor and printers calibrated so that colors I see on screen match when I print local or send out to online services?</p>

<p>The only cheapest option for calibrating your monitor that is better than nothing is using adobe gamma. Its free. Google adobe gamma monitor calibration. Its quite easy and it works for me. I don't have monitor calibrating hardware, although I have read that there is a cheap option under $100 that you can purchase from B&H or adorama. And they say its better than using adobe gamma. Also try to download printing profiles for you particular printer. They may even be included already. You just need to go to control panel(if on PC) open printer properties and right click you printer properties, choose color management tab and select the profile you created with adobe gamma or use one of the included. And just test, print and repeat until you get something you like.</p>

<p>Minute - you should be aware that many monitors (e.g. most Dell LCDs) will not calibrate well as they lack contrast control. I am very happy with the results from my Epson 2880 but the ink is expensive - if you print a lot get one of the larger printers with bigger ink reservoirs. It is essential to have a calibrated workflow from monitor to print - I just use the cheap huey pro but it works fine and is about $100. Before you buy into a calibration system check that your monitor has the necessary controls to make it work as many cheaper LCD's ( I tried a 22 inch Dell) cannot be sucessfully calibrated. the Dell is better but you canbnot adjust it to resolve the rings that are part of the set up.</p>

<p>Minute,<br>

I use a Canon iPF5000 which uses the same pigment inks as the <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/609352-REG/Canon_3298B002_PIXMA_Pro9500_Mark_II.html">Canon PIXMA Pro9500 Mark II printer</a>. I have a Dell 24" LCD calibrated with a Spyder 2 Pro (it is calibrated and matches my prints exactly...maybe user error by others). I use Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl paper. My results are fantastic when printing images I have captured with my Canon 5D Mark II. I use MPIX and they are excellent. I have never had a problem and have run (counting client prints) over 5000 prints in recent months with only 1 reprint...which they shipped overnight no charge. My monitor/printer/paper combination yields prints comparable to the MPIX prints. The MPIX may be a shade better but they have MUCH more expensive equipment as well. I can wholeheartedly recommend the PIXMA Pro9500 Mark II printer and Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl paper combination. I have directly compared my prints to the highest-end Epson printer prints and can say my Canon meets or beats any of them...without having to swap black ink tanks, etc. Just my 2 cents...good luck!</p>

Minute, your questions may be more comprehensively answered in the Digital Darkroom forum, but upon reading your original posting, my tuppence would be to say that the print is only the end result in a long chain of colour management. A fundamental link in that chain is calibration. If you intend to do any serious printing at home, it is crucial that you have got your calibration right, using calibration hardware rather than just software. A print relies on reflected light whereas a monitor consists of lit pixels, so getting the former to look like the latter demands more than just a good printer...

<p>Whow!, I hadn't checked this forum in a while and i am glad I did. Thanks for all of your hepful comments. From what I have learned I am going top hold of on buying any additional printers for now. I have both a Dell monitor and a Dell laptop. When I edit on the laptop and then move it to my desktp the colors are way off. The Dell laptop IMOP can not be used for Photoshop editing because everytime you change the angle of teh display the picture gets darker or brighter. I have been using a friends I-MAC which has a much better display than either of my PC's.<br>

However, for now I am going to work with MPIX.COM since I would have to spend $500+ to get an at home printing configuration that compares to MPIX. Not in the budget right now. I will use their prints as a guide for my monitor calibration and to fine tune my print profiles.<br>

Thanks<br>

For your help.</p>

<p>For me the best "printer" is Costco. Seriously. They use great Noritsu printers that are regularly calibrated by a company called Dry Creek. There's always one nearby where I live. I just download the Dry Creek color profiles for each respective location, and am good to go. By prepping the files myself, and disabling any of their automatic settings, it's like having a at my own personal multithousand dollar printer at my disposal.<br>

They always print same day. Usually in just a few hours.<br>

I used to struggle with dye sub, pro inkjet. You name it. The ink consumables were too expensive to substantiate their continued use. Printer reliability, and printing consistency were always a problem. They always seem to run out of a particular ink or get clogged at the wrong time.<br>

As I grow older I've become slightly wiser in terms of addressing true operating costs of the stuff I buy. I choose to never buy another color printer again. I rock a bw laser printer at home, and use Costco for anything color.<br>

If you want great photos on real archive photo paper for cheap. ($2.99 for an 12x18)<br>

Below is are some helpful links.<br>

Info for calibrating your monitor from Dry Creek themselves.<br>

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/icc/<br>

Tips...<br>

http://www.bermangraphics.com/coolpix/noritsu_tips.htm</p>