now the sales are on i`m looking for a photo printer, you know, the stand alone jobs ive relised i`m taking pics but only storeing them on my pc:crazy: so my new years resolotion is to get printing(y) thing is im not sure whats what. Price isnt an issue so any hints or what to look for would be a big help:thumbs:

Having been through several printers of various makes and quality over the past several years, unless you're particularly dedicated, get yourself a 50 quid Epson, Canon or HP for occasional work and get the bulk done online by foto, pixum, photobox etc etc etc. MUCH cheaper in the long run when you factor in decent paper and decent ink, great service from most and there is nothing quite like flicking an album or a stack of prints.

If you do want a decent one of your own, number of inks is king, eight will get much better results than three, couple of blacks is good (pigment is nice).

I would have to agree. Forget printing your own. Have them done by photobox. When you way up the price>quality>longevity of both home printing and pro printing, IMO the pro printing comes out on top every time.

For example, if you buy a middle of the range £250 printer and want 100 A4 prints
Decent paper is what? £7 per 10 sheets? so you would have spent another £70 on paper.
And ink....... Printer ink is the fifth most expensive liquid in the world! So total guess here, but I'd reckon that 100 prints is gonna run you what, £200 worth of ink?
so all in that's £520 on 100 A4 prints.

100 A4 prints from photobox......£220. Less than half the price:thumb:

Here's a link for some price info Photobox Prices (http://www.photobox.co.uk/services.html)

thanks guys for some very good tips i hadnt thought of it that way, but it makes sence

Photobox prices look good. In terms of colour calibration how do they fare? I suppose trial prints are in order.

Photobox are ok and quick but if you want good inexpensive enlargements and can wait a couple of days, give the european ones I mentioned above a go.
Photobox 8x12 - 2.50 for 1, 1.99 each for up to 5, 1.40 after that
Foto 8x12 - 33p (.50 euro) each

I've had hundreds from them no problems.

Having a decent printer at home is fine but what would pee me off was when the relatives came round (I do a lot of family stuff) and they would see a couple they liked and they'd ask for one of those, a big one of those, a couple of those and 30 quid of consumables later they're off happy. Now I just point them at web storage and they order (AND PAY :D) for their own!
I can still do the odd thing for me (Canon 4300) but that's a convenience thing for me.

From a financial point of view, home printing is a mug's game - but I get a lot of pleasure from it. On line is cheapest, but I also use Kodak kiosks in Boots for friends etc. Their dye-subs process is very good quality, if you have a good original. They also have a 10x15in service.

If going for a home printer, anything with 6 or 8 inks will give very high quality.

Richard.

I would have to agree. Forget printing your own. Have them done by photobox. When you way up the price>quality>longevity of both home printing and pro printing, IMO the pro printing comes out on top every time.

For example, if you buy a middle of the range £250 printer and want 100 A4 prints
Decent paper is what? £7 per 10 sheets? so you would have spent another £70 on paper.
And ink....... Printer ink is the fifth most expensive liquid in the world! So total guess here, but I'd reckon that 100 prints is gonna run you what, £200 worth of ink?
so all in that's £520 on 100 A4 prints.

100 A4 prints from photobox......£220. Less than half the price:thumb:

Here's a link for some price info Photobox Prices (http://www.photobox.co.uk/services.html)

Depends if you have to have ultimate quality though. I've just printed 42 A4 calendars, ie 13 pages each. I fitted a continous ink system, which works out about 1/3 of cheap refills, and is good quality ink, and shopped around for the cheapest silk paper which would still give a top quality print. I got 100 pages for about £16.
granted I could have spent far more on paper, but I was doing this for charity, so margin was important. Given that I got through about £15 of ink, I worked it out at about £2 per calendar.
This was cheaper and far better quality than a colour copier I tried - though it did take 50+ hours to print...

I'd be interested (as I expect the poster would) to know what the running costs of the little 6x4 die-sub printer are. I suspect they make their money on refills

P.S. Photobox's hardback books are pretty good, though you don't have much control over photo placement.

Have a look at the Canon ip4300 PCWorld online are doing this for under £60 and its a cracking printer. Have printed 50 or so pictures and hardly used any ink apart from the black. Has an Epson R220 which was good but the Canon seems to have the edge and certainly used far less ink, the Epson printers are prone to the print heads clogging and the cleaning cycles wastes a lot of ink. I was on my third now tried Canon and am very happy with this.

I also had a CIS system fitted to the R220, bought form ebay, and it was very good, print quality was now worse and the whole system cost me about £40 in all. However someone didn't fit it propely and it came loose flooding the printer ! Eeek !



AllanB

Photobox prices look good. In terms of colour calibration how do they fare? I suppose trial prints are in order.

So long as your monitor is properly calibrated, what you see on the screen is what you get back from photobox. I've never been disappointed, and all of my friends also into their photography have the same opinion:thumb:
The only other place that I've tried is Jessops, and they seemed to whack up the contrast before printing. What I got back deffo wasn't what I sent anyway!

I found prints from Jessops came back with the saturation on the high side, and despite them being only 6x4 they weren't as sharp as they should have been.

I do need some poster sized enlargements doing soon - might have to try some of Hank's suggestions (thanks mate!)

Just been sent this from the Moneysavers website

Quick Intro Note from Martin
As the photo market is changing, many of the old processing companies are
now desperate to attract customers from the digital market. To do this, they
often include introductory offers. The aims simple; to show you how much
better their professional prints are than your printer. Whether or not this
is true, I'll leave for you to decide; yet it does mean you can become a
'photo processing tart' and get lots of prints for free by utilising
different introductory offers.
This is why I wanted to write this note and thank MoneySaver GoofyGAT for
spending time to help everyone and compiling a list of all the current
offers!
Now on to the compilation...

A list of online photo websites that are offering FREE photo prints at the
moment:
[List last updated on 20 December 2006]
There are more than 500 free prints to be had, though sometimes you need to
pay package and postage (its detailed below).
All photo dimensions are in inches unless stated otherwise. Some details are
a bit vague, hence the ??s - will fill in the missing/uncertain info as I
find it or anyone lets me know. If you find any incorrect information in
this post please reply to this thread (or send me a pm) - thanks!
To get the maximum benefit please do read the Notes below before taking the
plunge.
* PhotoBox Amazon: 60x 6x4 (or 6x4.5) = £1.50 P+P {thanks Lesley045 &
lily the pink} [see Note 2]
* Snapfish Sun: 50x 6x4 = £0.99 P+P {thanks davodedthomas} - ??expired
on 30.09.06?? [see Note 2 & 3]
* Lumix (by Panasonic): 50x 6x4 = £1.50 P+P
* DirectFoto (1): 50x 6x4 = £1.60 P+P {using code posted here by
alchemista} - may have expired, but worth a try - you may get free P+P too
* Snapfish Truprint (1): 40x 6x4 = £0.99 P+P {thanks MSE Martin} -
??expired on 10.11.06?? [see Note 2 & 3]
* Snapfish CD-Wow: 30x 6x4 = £0.99 P+P - expires on 31.12.06 [see Note 2
& 3]
* Snapfish Dabs: 30x 6x4 = £0.99 P+P [see Note 2 & 3]
* Klick: 30x 6x4 = 1.00 P+P [choose 2nd class]
* Kodak Gallery (1): 30x 6x4 = £1.39 P+P {thanks biddy79uk} - expires on
01/01/07 [see Note 2]
* PhotoBox: 30x 6x4 (or 6x4.5) = £1.50 P+P [see Note 2] / Also, BOGOF on
10x8, A4 prints, A5 deluxe cards & mugs - expires on 31.12.06
* PhotoBox Sony: 30x 6x4 (or 6x4.5) = £1.50 P+P [see Note 2]
* Snapfish: 20x 6x4 = £0.99 P+P [see Note 2 & 3]
* Snapfish GMTV: 20x 6x4 = £0.99 P+P [see Note 2 & 3]
* Snapfish Jessops Picture House: 20x 6x4 = £0.99 P+P [see Note 2 & 3]
* Snapfish Sky Photo: 20x 6x4 = £0.99 P+P {thanks dbrooks19} [see Note 2
& 3]
* Snapfish Truprint (2): 20x 6x4 = £0.99 P+P [Apparently a different
email address will work {thanks --Tony--}, or see Note 2 & 3]
* Pixum: 20x 6x4 = £1.90 P+P
* ExtraFilm: 20x 6x4 = £1.99 P+P
* Confetti Photo centre: 20x 6x4 (or 5.3x4) = ?? P+P {thanks wkdlass} -
expires on 14.01.07
* PhotoDeal: 15x 6x4(?) = £1.50 P+P
* Digital-Lab: 10x 6x4 = £1.00 [Free P+P with £1.00+ order]
* Kodak Gallery (2): 10x 6x4 = £1.39 P+P / Kodak Gallery (3): 5x 12x10 =
£1.39 P+P {thanks sindy} - expires on 01/01/07 [see Note 2]
* Tesco: 10x 6x4 = £1.50 P+P [Free collect in store service]
* Asda: 10x 6x4 = £1.50 P+P
* Boots: 10x 6x4 = £1.50 P+P [10 free prints show up here after
registering] {thanks Ellie}
* Currys: 10x 6x4 = £1.50 P+P
* Dixons: 10x 6x4 = £1.50 P+P
* PhotoBox LXDirect: 10x 6x4 (or 6x4.5) = £1.50 P+P [see Note 2]
* PhotoBox Orange: 10x 6x4 (or 6x4.5) = £1.50 P+P [see Note 2]
* PhotoBox Tiscali: 10x 6x4 (or 6x4.5) = £1.50 P+P [see Note 2]
* PhotoBox Unbeatable: 10x 6x4 (or 6x4.5) = £1.50 P+P [see Note 2]
* ColourMailer: 5x 13x17 cm (or 13x19) = £1.99 P+P
* PosterXXL*: 1x 40x30 cm 'poster print' (worth £3.99) = £5.99 P+P
{thanks mbailey}
* MyPixMania*: 45x 6x4.5 = £3.10 P+P [1.40+1.70 D&H]
-----------------------------------------------------------
For Free PASSPORT PHOTOS see this thread by jelly123
-----------------------------------------------------------
NOTES:
1. MOST (if not all) the above offers are for first time customers only. But
definitely worth checking the latest posts in this thread as most may be
offers for existing customers, &/or offers with free P+P as well. Free P+P
offers/codes are sometimes posted at the Discount Codes 'n Vouchers board.
2. For some of the 'similar' sites using a different email address for each
may work. (When navigating from one 'similar' site to the next, if you find
that exactly the same webpage is being displayed each time, make sure to
delete all your Internet cache & try again.)
3. Anything Snapfish, is now eligible for FREE pickup from your nearest
Jessops store (click here for details), thus making your first order
completely free if you're able to do this. The option to choose Jessops
instore collection will be available before you complete your order.
Snapfish now also offer free unlimited online photo storage & sharing.
4. Some of the offers expire a short time after registration, so make sure
to use them while still valid!
5. Going thro' Quidco, RPoints, MutualPoints, TopCashBack, PigsBack,
MrsCashBack, etc could earn cashback/redeemable points - so worth checking
out.
6. Offers are likely to change without notice, so keep checking the above
sites for the latest.
7. Please thank the Original Poster (OP) where applicable.
I'll keep posting updates as I find them.
Enjoy G

Pixum did a couple of this one for me in 20x30 (inches) and it is spectacular. The guy who's car it is has a copy in his office and loves it.
Less than a tenner each as well.

http://www.hankscorpio.net/forumpics/compo.jpg

Foto are currently doing them at 4.89 but haven't had any at that size from them.

Don't you need to calibrate all your devices, input , monitor and output to get consistant colour from point of photo or scan to screen and then to output. You would normally create an ICC or Coloursync profile for you devices.

Thats why some people choose to do the printing themselves so from start to finish all the settings are bang on with no variation in colour.


AllanB

I,m lucky, i have a phaser printer, i tried a test print of my nipper under normal settings, and it was grainy and not to good. (more akin to a inkjet) i went into the settings and found the photo quality settings, and its like looking at a picture, smooth skin tones, and total A4 printing size.

I also have the pantone set which i can use, so what i see on the monitor is replicated at the printer.

downside.

the printer needs to be on all the time to be cost effective, and the replacement waxes are bloody expensive, as are the toner drums.


but considering i got 3 foc i cant complain


Mart

so following on from this, what is the best way to callibrate my setup to get quality pritns from these online services?

regards

Stu

I just got a wee xmas pressy from my wife. I am not a big user of blow ups but wanted just to print occasional snap shot from my cam phone, digi camara, memory stik or computer at the time to give away to family or friends when I am there.

It is the Canon Selphy ES1.

I have now used it by linking with computer on old pics, the software was easy peesy and gave good results, I used the infra red wireless on my W850i Sony Ericsson mobile/Samsung (daughters), quick and easy. I then connected my Digi Cam Canon 400D to the retractable USB cable, again good and quick. I found no issues at all with any of above, prints take seconds and take three passes over the printers and are dry to touch as soon as ejected.

As for paper size I used 100x148 & 89x119 and the quality was good and no smudging, with the best results from the Digi cam and my computer but thats more to do with pixels and software retouched. I am still to try my Sony Cybershot through the USB or memory stik.

As for price on paper and ink as it comes as a catridge all loaded I still wait to see as i got 150 sheets free. But as not a big user, only to give away to family and fiends so to speak I find its quickness and just then availability very appealing. If I wanted to blow up pics I would still use the shops I currently use.

I've got the Canon iP8500 and it gives excellent results:thumb:, but does drink the ink and need decent paper to get the best results. Guess the likes of Photobox are defo the way to go for volume stuff, but I only print out a few shots.

so following on from this, what is the best way to callibrate my setup to get quality pritns from these online services?

regards

Stu

If you're using a CRT, and have Adobe Photoshop CS2 then there's a monitor calibration tool supplied with that. I've found it to be very accurate.

If it isn't in your control panel, it can be found here
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Calibration\Adobe Gamma

But as not a big user, only to give away to family and friends so to speak I find its quickness and just then availability very appealing. If I wanted to blow up pics I would still use the shops I currently use.

Totally agree. Online printing is far cheaper, but nothing beats the immediacy of family and friends getting a photo in their hands 90 seconds after posing for it...

I got a Canon Selphy CP720 for Christmas, for small 6x4 prints you can't go wrong (quality is amazing too).