Photo printers

[chandab]

Saw the post about cameras, so...

I'm looking for a decent, but affordable photo printer. I have a cheap, crappy one now that prints very grainy pics and its not compatible with my new Windows 7 computer, but I've been using up the ink printing directly off the memory card (so no editing). [About done with the ink, so about ready to toss the printer.]

I was looking at the little portable printers (I think they are called compact printers), but don't know if they are very good or not. I mostly print pics for registration, sharing with friends/family that don't have computers (so no e-mailing them) and I guess that's about all I print. Otherwise the pics just stay on hte computer or saved on thumb drive.

I'm looking for a photo printer specifically, I have an all-in-one printer attached to my computer for printing regular text pages and such, so just looking for a decent photo printer. [Which is part of the reason I was looking at the compact varieties, as they are small, so need less space.]

 

[Riverrose28]

I had a HP PHotosmart 3210, love it so much, I still use it for copy machine, but it is not compatable with the new version of windows. So I bought a HP Photosmart Premium, I hate it, don't buy it. It eats ink, jams up and drives me crazy, when it does print out a picture the image is clear, but takes forever with all the bad stuff. I was also looking at printers in Walmart a couple of weeks ago, and saw one for $89. I think it was a AOC brand that I've never heard of, you may want to go there and have a look.

 

[chandab]

Anyone else with suggestions for a decent photo printer that doesn't cost a fortune?

Anyone try the compact printers and like them? Or dislike them?

 

[AngC]

Since you already have a printer that can do documents, have you thought of the ‘no new printer’ option, i.e., photo printing services? I knew about digital printing but didn’t think much about actually using them, until...

I was thinking of buying a photo printer when I got my camera. I don’t know what you consider affordable; I have a taste for professional level (which I really don’t need) that are too expensive, run up huge costs in supplies, and then go obsolete in a few years, leaving me with a big expensive paperweight without drivers or OS compatibility. So I dinked around trying to make up my mind without buying anything.

Meanwhile, I had edited some horsey photos for my husband’s phone. I cropped and resampled some huge 20 Meg RAW files down to 100 K file size that would fit on a tiny iphone screen. I would of figured that I squished out most of the image data. Well, he decided to surprise me; took them to a UPS store kiosk and made some 8 x 10 prints. He handed me the envelope, while I dropped my head, mumbled Thank you dear (all the while thinking, great these are going to look like doo-doo.) I was really surprised at the quality from those mangled image files enlarged back up to 8 x 10.

Anyway, if you’re not familiar with them, there’s a slew of those services out there. You can either go to a local kiosk, most of which seem to have a higher per print cost. OR you can upload on-line and pick up at various major stores (costs you some fuel if you have to drive far; don’t know what you have out there in NE MT.) OR you can upload online and have photos shipped. Some of them offer free shipping, with minimum orders.

Anyway, not quite what you asked, but it’s just a thought.

 

[chandab]

Last time I tried to upload pics to a company to have them printed, it didn't work out too well, I got a lot of pics with cut off tops and bottoms (mostly my fault, as I asked for specific sizes and hadn't edited to those sizes first, seems cameras don't take pics in standard sizes, so if you convert without editing it crops badly). But, I may have to try again, now that I know better.