Inkjet under $300 for portraits

[vatovec]

OK, OK, i know that has been asked many times, but in the past

forums i didn`t found nothing clear.

I want to buy an inkjet printer mostly for printing portraits, so

skin tones are important.

I have this options:

 

EPSON: photo 915, photo 925 and R300

 

HP: 7660

 

The prices are between 200$ (7660) to 280$ (R300) - those are the

prices where i live!

What do U think - i want to print like 75% color and 25% BW since i

make traditional BW prints in the darkroom and aren`t very impressed

by digital BW (though i never saw an 7660 output).

 

I`m concerned if the differences are all that high in the quality of

the output, and what is the expence of inksets (R300/7660/925). I

plan to make cca. 20 20x25 cm (8x10 in) per month. And how is the

mainteinance - the last day at the office we had to send to repair

our EPSON C40UX and it wasn`t broken - our service told us that it

has a print counter and when it reaches a certain number of prints

it stucks (by software means), so U have to pay the service for this

trick. Any such thing on the printers mentioned?

 

And above all which does have the best skin tones?

[cbender]

David-

 

I have 3 epsons (an old 640 for documents, a 820 Photo for color photos, and a 1160 for Quadtones), so I'll address those specifically. I don't know a thing about HP's.

 

About the counter problem you experienced with your epson... All epson printers (at least the relatively modern ones) have counters in them that will shut off the printer after it prints a certain number of pages. This limit is very high, and usually is not reached in the lifetime of the printer. I suppose that if you are using an inkjet for an office printer and printing lots of documents on it, then you could reach this limit. But applications like that are best done on a laser anyway. If you get an epson and use it for photos, you'll never reach the page limit.

 

The inks are expensive and there's just no good way around that. If you're printing color photos, you probably want to use the Epson brand inks, and those cost between $20-$30 per cartridge (except for the 2200 which I think has individual tanks for each color).

 

The 'dual use' that you are proposing (color & B&W photos on the same printer) probably won't work out real well. I'd say if you have a darkroom and don't mind printing B&W that way, then stick with that and use the printer for color. Any B&W prints you try making with color inks will end up with a color cast. To get good digital B&W prints you need to use a quadtone inkset and those are a royal pain.

 

Now for the actual printers... I'll recommend any of the Epson Photo printers (6 color). My only experience with some of the higher end ones is the sample prints available at CompUSA and the like. Honestly, I think all of the Epson Photo's (at least the dye based ones, and excluding the 2200) are comparable in quality, and skin tones are generally not a problem. 20 8x10's per month is not a huge number of prints (less than 1 set of inks per month) and if 8x10 is the largest size you plan to print, then I'll go ahead and recommend the 820. The printers are not as economical with the ink as some of the higher end models. But you can get a refurb from Epson for less than $70 so who cares about a few penny's more per print. If you need larger than 8x10, get the 1280. If you really need B&W, get an old 1160 and retrofit it with quadtone inks.

[thomas_mok]

If you are only printing up to 8x10, why don't you try printing them at a lab?

 

My local Walmart prints them at less than $3 each. They use a Fuji Frontier 390, and print on Fuji Crystal Archive Matte paper. There is even a custom printer profile, which you can download from Dry Creek Photo. The result is excellent.

 

Adorama Pro Lab also has a similar service. They use a Noritsu printer, and print on Kodak Royal (either glossy or matte) paper. Dry Creek Photo has a custom profile for them as well. I like the print, but I don't care for the paper. I wish the paper could be better.

 

As far as quality is concerned, I am sure that today's inkjet is comparable to a Frontier/Noritsu print. However, dye-based ink does not have the longevity. Unless you are using pigment ink, your inkjet prints will look ugly in less than 10 years.

 

Taken into account the cost of the printer, ink, 8x10 size paper, and the need to calibrate your own printer, printing at a lab is probably more economical.

[jordan2240]

David,

 

You probably did not mention them for a reason, but just in case you simply didn't consider them, Canon makes some very nice photo printers, and they typically print the fastest of any of the photo printers available. I have an i950, which has already been superseded by another model, and have been very happy with it.

 

And regarding the Adorama vs Walmart paper, I have the opposite opinion of Thomas. I prefer the Kodak Royal Adorama uses to the thinner Crystal Archive used by Walmart.

 

Bill

[eric_chiu2]

Same question as Bill, why not Canon?? I am not using a S9000 which able to print

13x19 and you may still able to find a new one online for less than $250. I bought it

about 2 months ago. I made some best 8.5x11, stick them on dark board and put

them around my office. I swear nobody in the office know they came out from a

"printer".

 

Anyway, just want to share before i make up my mind buying the S9000, I also did a

long research for different kind of printer. to make it short, this is my opinion:

 

HP, have a nice color balance, however, its slow and large pixel. the picture come out

from it looks good only from far away.

 

Epson, most realistic and accuate color (from my eye), nice details, almost nothing to

complain with. only speed and price can't match with Canon.

 

Canon, little more saturated color (which i like but not as realistic as Epson), pixels

are so fine that even you put the picture right infront of your eye still can't tell its a

print. My buying reason (and may be others also) SPEED! and price.

 

regarding the kodak prints and fuji prints, my opinion is they both good. i had sent

my digital pictures to lots of place and found that:

 

Kodak process: more realistic color, BEST skin tone (i think its what you need)

Fuji Fronter: Color, Color, Color. Very saturated color which make your photo look so

sharps and nice. best for landscape, car shows, products...... anyway, its all my 2

cents.

[vatovec]

I have a lab with Fuji Frontier here, and i use that, but need the inkjet for special surfaces (FB, matte print, watercolour and such for a different feel).

 

I don`t mentioned the Canons because, the only photographic available here is the i905D and it goes for something like $500 so it isn`t in my price range couldn`t even immagine how costly must the S9000 be!

[radellaf]

I would recommend the HP out of those as I have read too much about clogging on the

Epson Stylus Photo printers. I have personally had two 820s that were intractable, they'd

clog every day, so I gave up and got a Canon i560 which has 4 inks but prints as well and

much faster than the 820s. IMO, of course, I know some might think it sacrilige to rate a 3

ink Canon above a 6 ink Epson, but that's what I see.

 

For that much B&W, though, you'd really appreciate the HP 7990 with the tritone black

system. All the prints I've seen from a R300 have greenish greys but if you could also

afford a custom profile or had time to tweak your curves a lot then that might be

avoidable.

[radellaf]

HP site lists "HP 59 Gray Photo Inkjet Print Cartridge (C9359AN)" as an accessory for the

7660 so it may be that printer will do tritone B&W also.