Decent photo printer up to c. £250?

[dr_gn]

All, looking for a decent photo printer to replace my Canon MG7751. It wasn’t cheap, and was great initially, but a few years down the line the colour quality is terrible, and it throws up terminal sounding errors on a regular basis. I’m using genuine Canon cartridges and paper, and have cleaned the nozzles and run through all the maintenance routines many times. Even the page black text printing is shot now.

So what’s a decent wireless photo printer up to about £250? Preferably Epsom or Canon?

Is it still case that genuine Canon or Epson inks are stupidly expensive, and that the price of the printer is the tip of the iceberg?

When it was working well (back in about 2020), the image quality was great, and some stuff I printed with genuine ink and paper still looks as good as the day it was printed, despite being next to a window.

Thanks.

[Russet Grange]

I've always felt that unless you want the photos there and then, an online printer is the way to go.

Places like DS Clour labs offer great quality at very reasonable prices, though of course postage costs add up so you'll want to order a few things at once.

[dr_gn]

Russet Grange said:

I've always felt that unless you want the photos there and then, an online printer is the way to go.

Places like DS Clour labs offer great quality at very reasonable prices, though of course postage costs add up so you'll want to order a few things at once.

I’ve used Cewe in the past. A couple of photobooks and some prints, which were great. Then another smaller Photobook this year, with scanned and processed images. The result looked nothing like on-screen (despite the previous ones also being processed on the same screen). I then used the Boots in-store prints (also through Cewe to my surprise) and they were better for some reason.

So I’m a bit stick as to what to do on that front, hence wanting a printer of my own to check things out.

Also want it for scanning, printing documents and colour engineering drawings, not just photos.

[Simpo Two]

dr_gn said:

So what s a decent wireless photo printer up to about £250? Preferably Epsom or Canon?

You could try googling 'printers in Epsom'

[dr_gn]

Simpo Two said:

dr_gn said:

So what s a decent wireless photo printer up to about £250? Preferably Epsom or Canon?

You could try googling 'printers in Epsom'

Sometimes when it’s getting late, and you’ve un-corrected autocorrect twice, you just think…sod it.

[Mr Pointy]

Ink tank printers are significantly cheaper to run than those that take cartridges. I suspect £250 for a multifunction printer is spending less on the photo print quality & more on the other features but there are a number available:

https://www.printerland.co.uk/Ink-Tank-Printers-C3...

Some of them have six-colour tanks (presumably better for photos?) & look carefully at the deals as some of them offer up to £60 cashback on the listed price.

[miniman]

Unless you have a really compelling need to print on demand precisely when you want to, £250 will buy an awful lot of excellent prints from Photobox.

[JoshSm]

You're going to get screwed on the running costs.

It makes more sense to get a colour laser combo for the bulk stuff and pay for photo prints when you need proper colour glossies.

A photo capable printer for normal printing in any real quantity doesn't really work in my experience.

[tog]

For virtually all my printing I use Simlab. Simlab are excellent quality, well priced, and prints come the next day. Only slight fiddle is that you have to upload correctly sized images for each print size you need, but I have export presets set up in Lightroom so it's pretty simple to do. Upside is excellent quality, good price, and fast delivery (although delivery is expensive for small orders).

I also have an aging Canon ip4850 inkjet for occasional prints if I need to run something off urgently for some reason, and have recently made a Loxley account that plugs into my client galleries so they can order prints and receive them straight from the lab without me having to handle them at all.

[dr_gn]

Thanks all.

So how do I match the prints I get online to what I see on-screen. As I mentioned, the Cewe prints in the photobook were all dark and just a bit naff. I sent them an email and they re-printed them, but tbh we’re not much better.

Previous stuff from them was great quality and looked as it was on-screen. Only difference was they were scanned and processed a bit differently.

[JonnyWhitters]

You typically need to push the exposure up a third of a stop (or more) to account for the darker nature of a print vs a backlit computer screen.

[GetCarter]

I gave up on home printing when it became less than a third of the price to print online. (inc next day postage).

[dr_gn]

GetCarter said:

I gave up on home printing when it became less than a third of the price to print online. (inc next day postage).

Fair enough.

Understood all. It was kind of nice doing it all yourself, but yes it is stupidly expensive and it’s obvious the printers are a means of getting loads more money out of you through genuine inks.

[kestral]

https://www.expertreviews.co.uk/technology/printin...



https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/374885227325

£115

[Simpo Two]

JonnyWhitters said:

You typically need to push the exposure up a third of a stop (or more) to account for the darker nature of a print vs a backlit computer screen.

It also depends massively on how bright you have your screen, which is why for any kind of accuracy you need to calibrate your monitor. Failing that use the histogram to judge exposure when processing (and shooting for that matter!).

[dr_gn]

Simpo Two said:

JonnyWhitters said:

You typically need to push the exposure up a third of a stop (or more) to account for the darker nature of a print vs a backlit computer screen.

It also depends massively on how bright you have your screen, which is why for any kind of accuracy you need to calibrate your monitor. Failing that use the histogram to judge exposure when processing (and shooting for that matter!).

Doesn’t explain the differing print results from visually similar on-screen images?

There must be some processing difference between camera and scanned negatives, even though I process both to give similar results in terms of brightness, contrast, saturation etc.