Picture this!

Pro

1 April 2005

Digital cameras are a popular technology with consumers these days. Lower prices and an increased range of products mean that consumers have much more to choose from – and are exercising that choice in their thousands.

Although digital cameras have yet to replace the reloadable film camera, the day when they finally do can’t be that far off; Kodak has recently announced that it intends to stop producing the film cameras in Europe and America, concentrating on the digital market instead.

One of the best things about the digital camera is that it allows you to become choosier with your images. Users can pick and choose the images they want on the spot – no need for the ‘wait and see’ approach that film-camera users are forced to adopt. The days of queuing in a photo shop to pick up your prints are fast coming to an end. Although many shops now offer a digital printing service, many digital photo enthusiasts can get great results from the photo printer that sits on their desk at home or in the office.

With such an array of printers on offer, what exactly should you be looking for? Should you plump for the A4-size printer that can also produce documents for school or office use? Or, is it best to by-pass the PC altogether and opt for a dedicated photo printer that will hook up to your camera? For a start, your average colour inkjet printer might be able to produce passable pictures, but if you want to rival the photo lab for quality, remember that photo printers are designed specifically for the job. Some come with internal media card readers that allow you to printer images directly from your media card, such as Compact Flash or Secure Digital. Others go a step further and include an LCD panel to preview the images on the card, with some allowing minor editing functions. If you want to leave your PC switched off, this is probably a good feature to invest in.

Getting back to basics, the ink that you use can be all-important. Look for a photo printer that offers more colours than the usual four; Canon, Epson and Lexmark all offer six-ink technology to give you a more natural looking picture with better tones. Check out the durability of the ink – some manufacturers guarantee their prints will last up to a certain number of years. You don’t want to print your photos only to find out that your perfect picture has faded after only a few years. 

To get that photo lab feeling from your prints, look for something that’s at least 600 dots per inch (dpi) resolution. Most photo printers will surpass this and then some. It’s also worth checking out the speed of the printer. If you have to wait five minutes for a print to appear, maybe it’s not the right machine for you – especially if you are impatient and are tempted to pull the paper out before it’s completely done. Investing a little more money could save you hours of frustration – and a fortune in ruined prints. Good extras include automatic media sensors, like that featured on the Lexmark P707. As the media type is automatically detected by the printer, you wont have to worry about anything as tedious as print settings.

Choosing your consumables is also an important part of producing high quality prints. Often you will find that the manufacturer’s paper works better with their printers than other brands of paper, because they are specially formulated to work with the ink and printer as a complete system. If you want your prints to sparkle, invest in some high quality photo paper.

However, before you invest in a printer, check out the cost of ink. There is no point in bagging yourself a bargain printer only to discover that the cost of frequently replacing the ink could clear the national debt of a small country.
If you can, test the printer in the shop. Not only will it cut through all the confusing talk about resolution and ink technology, but you will also get the chance to see if the printer’s colour reproduction suits you. Skin tones should look realistic, though whether you prefer to opt for a device that produces warmer images is purely a personal choice. Make sure that detailed areas are as sharp as in the original image and that blacks aren’t a muddy grey.

Once you know what you are looking for, you can check out what’s on the market. We’ve lined up some of the best photo printers available to help you make your choice.

Canon i905
The Canon i905 allows you to print images in several sizes. Apart from the standard A4 prints, it comes with a separate attachment to produce perfect 4 by 6in prints without the hassle of trying to line up the paper.
Set aside a few minutes to set up the printer; it works off the Canon six-ink system and needs a couple of reboots to install the drivers and software. The software that comes with the printer includes Zoom Browser, Camera Window and Photo Browser.
The effort it takes to set up is worth it though; the prints it enabled us to produce (on Canon paper) were really high quality. They were pin sharp and looked like they’d come fresh from the photo lab. It’s PictBridge-enabled, so you can use any compatible camera to print images without a PC.
Another option is to go for the memory card slot that allows you to print photos directly from the card. A small colour LCD screen helps you choose the photos, the size paper you want and how many copies of each image you want to print. You can also perform some minor editing functions, such as trimming.

Epson Stylus R300
Epson is an expert in the printer field and its expertise has been extended into the realm of photo printers. It was a combination of features and performance that earned the Stylus our Best Buy award in this category. One of its aims appears to be to eliminate the PC from digital photo printing. The Stylus R300 is a flexible device; you can connect a PictBridge compatible camera directly to the device to print photos or grab them from the memory card. You can print directly on to compatible CDs – those with inkjet-printable surfaces – so your CD collection doesn’t disappear in a mass of unmarked discs.
A Zip drive or CD writer can be connected directly to the printer, allowing you to store your images from the card to your chosen backup media without having to involve a PC at any stage. Its 2.5in LCD monitor helps with choosing the right images for your project.
Like the Canon printer, the Epson Stylus uses six-ink technology, which is intended to be more economical than standard colour cartridges, which may not be fully empty when you have to change them.
Of course, technology aside, what users really want to know about, is the finished product. The Epson prints were sharp and clear, with not a grainy picture in sight when we used the proper photo paper. Colour reproduction was excellent, with the skin tones just the right shade. According to the documentation that came with the printer, the R300 reaches a resolution of 5760 optimised dots per inch.
The software bundle wasn’t bad either, with Print Image Framer software and Photo Quicker 3.5 included to help you makes the most of the images you have.

Lexmark P707
The Lexmark produced good quality photo prints on premium photo paper. Its resolution reaches 4800 by 1200 dpi, which gave us a high quality print that rivalled those you would find in a photo lab. Its print speeds weren’t too bad either; it will produce an A6 photo in about a minute.
Despite being an A4 printer, the P707 is quite compact and won’t hog your precious desk space.
Media card slots include support for Compact Flash Type I and II, Smart Media, Memory Stick, Secure Digital, IBM Microdrive and Multimedia Cards.
The Precision Sense technology automatically detects the type of media used, giving you the optimum print. It uses a paper type sensor with a light emitter to determine whether the paper is glossy or matt.
The bundled software includes Lexmark Photo Centre, which allows you to upload, edit and print digital photos. It’s easy to use and you can choose the type of prints you want – borderless A4, A4 or 4 by 6in prints.

HP Photosmart 7960
HP’s experience in the printer field has been applied well to the 7960. This printer only narrowly missed out on our Best Buy award for this category because we preferred the colour reproduction on the Epson model.
Going a step better than the other printers in the review, the 7960 uses eight-ink colour printing and HP’s PhotoRet technology for excellent print quality and colour reproduction. With a resolution of up to 4800 optimised dpi, the prints were very sharp. A colour photo at the highest quality settings will appear in 116 seconds (give or take a second or two) so there isn’t too much hanging around the printer waiting for your images.
Like other photo printers in its class, the 7960 has a small colour display screen to preview your images. Editing is also possible, without altering the original files.

Perfect portable printers
If you want a printer just for printing your images from your digital camera, you could invest in a portable direct printer. These are handy for taking on the move so you can print images on the spot – and they threaten to make the PC redundant when it comes to printing digital images.

Kodak EasyShare Printer Dock 6000
If you have a Kodak 6000 series camera, you could opt for the Kodak EasyShare Printer Dock 6000. This mini printer has a dock that can be changed according to the model of camera you own (as long as it’s in the 6000 series). The camera sits into the dock, which also acts as a recharger for the camera, and you can then choose which photos you wish to print by using the camera’s LCD screen.
The printer makes three passes before it dries the print, laying down each colour separately. The print quality is excellent; the colour reproduction was faithful to the original image and all the images we printed came out sharp and clear. For a printer of its size, we were quite impressed.
It’s fairly portable, so you could take it out on a family trip or on holiday, if you feel the need to have your prints there and then. You can also hook it up to your computer and transfer your images.

Hi-Ti Photo Printer 630PS
The Hi-Ti Photo Printer 630PS doesn’t even look like a printer. It’s a quirky-looking machine, which looks more like a household appliance. So if its appearance is somewhat unusual, what about its prints?
You won’t hear any complaints from us. The print quality is quite impressive, given the size of the printer. We liked the colour reproduction, and detail was reproduced as sharply as on the original image.
You can plug your Smart Media or Compact Flash memory card directly into the printer and print images directly. Teamed with the attachable LCD screen, you can eliminate the need for a PC to print your images. Like others in its class, it works off film rather than ink cartridges.

HP Photosmart 245
The HP Photosmart 245 is a dedicated photo printer that will fit in your camera bag. Prints can be produced by hooking up one of HP’s cameras to the device, and you are ready to go.
Given its size, the resolution it produces is impressive – up to 4800 optimised dpi when you are using premium photo paper, and 1200 by 1200 dpi when printing from a computer. Five memory card slots cover almost all the available media types, so you can print directly from the card.
It produces the prints quite quickly, with a normal quality colour print available in 90 seconds; if you want a higher quality print, that time will increase to 120 seconds.
The 245 has a small colour LCD screen that helps you pick the images and also allows you to edit photos. These are minor editing functions of course, but they can help give your photos that little something extra. You can zoom in, crop or add one of six frames to the photos. Colour editing is also possible, with black and white, sepia and antique.

02/02/04

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