Jump to content

Printer advice


Recommended Posts

I currently use a very old Canon IP4200 printer for photo printing sizes from 6x4 up to A4 and have been delighted with the quality of the results using Canon's Yellow, Cyan, Magenta and Photo Black Chroma Life inks and Canon Photo Glossy paper. I particularly like  the photo black ink which provides a great contrast range. But unfortunately this printer is no longer supported by MacOS. My current workaround is to drive it via a Windows 7 Virtual Machine hosted on my Mac using Parallels. But if I upgrade to Ventura I'll need to buy new Parallels licences (£100) and, if I ever swap to Apple Silicon machine, these solutions won't work at all. I've also got a much newer low cost "all in one" HP Envy 4520 which I use for day to day (non-photo) printing. It can print photos but the quality is nowhere near as good as the Canon IP4200.

 

Ideally I'd like to replace both these printers with a single printer that is compatible with Monterey and Ventura OS and Apple Silicon.

Any suggestions on a A4 photo printer which gives good quality results? Ideally it would be an "all in one" so I can scan on it too and it should have Wi-Fi connectivity. I don't print lots of photos (maybe 10/month), but do print quite a bit of other stuff (web-pages, letters etc.) at lower quality. Ideally it would use no more than 5 inks (Y,C,M,PhotoBlack & Black)

 

Mark

Edited by M.Chapman
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Answering my own question here. I went for the Canon TS6350a and am very pleased with it so far.

https://store.canon.co.uk/canon-pixma-ts6350a-wireless-colour-all-in-one-inkjet-photo-printer-black/3774C068/

I got mine from John Lewis where it's currently £20 cheaper.

https://www.johnlewis.com/canon-pixma-ts6350a-three-in-one-wireless-wi-fi-printer-black/p6157902

 

Mark

 

Edited by M.Chapman
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

For anyone else reading the thread who may want another voice, I came here to suggest the Epson XP-8500. I use one and have been very pleased - pop some nice thick glossy photo paper in and it will print beautiful, contrasty and colourful A4 photos, but it does eat (drink?) ink. It may be the case that the 8500 is now superseded slightly by another version number as mine is a few years old.

 

Edit: Checked Amazon. Looks like it's now the XP-8700. £99.

Edited by Cal
more info
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see there's a printer review in this month's Digital Camera Magazine which includes the Canon TS6350 (which I bought) but also includes the Epson XP-970, which looks to be a pretty good value and compact all in one A3 printer, which I could have been tempted by as an alternative.

https://www.epson.co.uk/en_GB/products/printers/inkjet/consumer/expression-photo-xp-970/p/27796

 

Mark 

Edited by M.Chapman
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Printer ink is one of the most expensive liquids readily available to the general public and printers are there to get us hooked on it.

 

Even more expensive than covid vaccines.🙂

 

Allan

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

Even more expensive than covid vaccines.🙂

I'm also hooked on it, but I try to limit my addiction, last time I worked it out it was around £600/litre and that's for big cartridges from a 17" 'wide format' printer. I need eight but the latest printers sometimes need 12!

 

Still small desktop printers like the ones discussed here don't (hopefully) waste a lot of ink on automated cleaning as the ink is on the head itself and moves with it. Wide format printers are beautifully made but need to be used regularly, mainly because the ink is some way from the printer head and flows through long flexible tubes. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Harry Harrison said:

I'm also hooked on it, but I try to limit my addiction, last time I worked it out it was around £600/litre and that's for big cartridges from a 17" 'wide format' printer. I need eight but the latest printers sometimes need 12!

 

Still small desktop printers like the ones discussed here don't (hopefully) waste a lot of ink on automated cleaning as the ink is on the head itself and moves with it. Wide format printers are beautifully made but need to be used regularly, mainly because the ink is some way from the printer head and flows through long flexible tubes. 

 

I thought you were going to say you were hooked on covid vaccines but you quickly qualified the statement.😃

 

Allan

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I stopped doing my own prints years ago. Ink is ridiculously expensive and more so when a print or prints go wrong as happens from time to time.  I have found a local lab that I like and because I use them so often I get a discount so a win win I reckon!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, FOTOLINCS said:

I stopped doing my own prints years ago. Ink is ridiculously expensive and more so when a print or prints go wrong as happens from time to time.  I have found a local lab that I like and because I use them so often I get a discount so a win win I reckon!

 

Hi FOTOLINCS I am in Lincolnshire too, and have done some of my own printing but find it a protracted job which takes up too much of my time, and wondered if you like to let us know the name and address of your print lab. It would help us both by gaining more business for the lab and possibly help reduce costs even further.

 

Allan

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, FOTOLINCS said:

I stopped doing my own prints years ago. Ink is ridiculously expensive and more so when a print or prints go wrong as happens from time to time.  I have found a local lab that I like and because I use them so often I get a discount so a win win I reckon!

I also have a now idle Canon printer sitting on my desk. Once I discovered a good local lab my own printer ceased to make financial sense. Unfortunately they have since moved from a convenient location that I could easily reach by public transport, or on a sunny day by bicycle, to a remote trading estate, but they do offer a postal service, which works out being a bit  more expensive!  https://www.digitalab.co.uk/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, Bryan said:

I also have a now idle Canon printer sitting on my desk. Once I discovered a good local lab my own printer ceased to make financial sense. Unfortunately they have since moved from a convenient location that I could easily reach by public transport, or on a sunny day by bicycle, to a remote trading estate, but they do offer a postal service, which works out being a bit  more expensive!  https://www.digitalab.co.uk/

 

Thanks for that link Bryan - they look really good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Bryan said:

Once I discovered a good local lab my own printer ceased to make financial sense. Unfortunately they have since moved from a convenient location that I could easily reach by public transport, or on a sunny day by bicycle, to a remote trading estate, but they do offer a postal service, which works out being a bit  more expensive!  https://www.digitalab.co.uk/

Yes, thanks for the recommendation, very good to know of a decent printing company. I'm wondering how strict they are with respect to you having to be a professional photographer, do you have to have an actual registered business?  Presumably they don't want the general public to see what their wedding or portrait photographer actually pays, I see that in order to register you fill in a form and "a member of our team will be in touch". You have to give a website URL but I wonder if it needs to be weddings & portraits.

 

"Please note – this is a professional only service and you must have a relevant business to use the Digitalab service."

 

They have an alternative for non-professionals:

https://riverandcoast.co.uk/

 

 

Edit: Actually just looked at my website and I do have a Wedding section, and Architecture, and Interiors... I should look at it more often.

Edited by Harry Harrison
Link to comment
Share on other sites

37 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

I got as far as checkout without being, er, checked out.

Thanks, I can understand why they do it of course. I'm certainly interested in 'professional' quality, I haven't compared the offerings on the two different websites as yet. When I did do Weddings I used Colab in Birmingham, they were great, long since gone I'm afraid but lovely quality. I happened to do a couple of Weddings pre-Covid but just gave them the edited images on a thumb drive, very unprofessional. If I'd known about this lab things might have been different but it's a lot of hassle unless you're charging the sort of prices some of their quoted clients are doing, they probably have someone on work experience to sort it all out.

 

Edit: I just remembered the feeling I used to get as I put their precious Wedding films in the post, that wasn't so good. Never lost any though, did it for quite a few years.

Edited by Harry Harrison
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

Yes, thanks for the recommendation, very good to know of a decent printing company. I'm wondering how strict they are with respect to you having to be a professional photographer, do you have to have an actual registered business?  Presumably they don't want the general public to see what their wedding or portrait photographer actually pays, I see that in order to register you fill in a form and "a member of our team will be in touch". You have to give a website URL but I wonder if it needs to be weddings & portraits.

 

"Please note – this is a professional only service and you must have a relevant business to use the Digitalab service."

 

 

Never noticed that before, and quite recently bought prints from them for the family, so maybe a new, and unwelcome, development !  I am registered as a sole trader whose business is photography, for tax purposes, so that might be enough ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Bryan said:

I am registered as a sole trader whose business is photography, for tax purposes, so that might be enough ?

Thanks Bryan, I'm sure that would be enough, you are indeed a professional photographer. In fact if I was to use them that would also be for professional reasons so I'm sure that would be OK as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

Thanks, I can understand why they do it of course. I'm certainly interested in 'professional' quality, I haven't compared the offerings on the two different websites as yet. When I did do Weddings I used Colab in Birmingham, they were great, long since gone I'm afraid but lovely quality. I happened to do a couple of Weddings pre-Covid but just gave them the edited images on a thumb drive, very unprofessional. If I'd known about this lab things might have been different but it's a lot of hassle unless you're charging the sort of prices some of their quoted clients are doing, they probably have someone on work experience to sort it all out.

 

Edit: I just remembered the feeling I used to get as I put their precious Wedding films in the post, that wasn't so good. Never lost any though, did it for quite a few years.

I meant I didn't get as far as a  mention of "trade only".

If they just require a VAT number, that would exclude many of us, including me.

Edited by spacecadet
Link to comment
Share on other sites

39 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

I meant I didn't get as far as a  mention of "trade only".

Sorry, I'm confused now, do you mean you weren't allowed to register or you weren't asked if you were trade? Yes VAT number would scupper it, but it would also scupper most professional photographers just starting out, or simply those earning less than 85,000 who choose not to register.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.