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Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DWalmsley who wrote (9438)	3/4/2000 7:41:00 AM
From: Ausdauer	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 60323

Doug, Which printers would you recommend for optimal results? I think printing options come down to a choice between HP, Epson, Canon and Lexmark. Each manufacturer has a large selection of printers. For my needs (I have a laser printer available at work should I need one) I selected a color inkjet printer specially designed for photographic applications. The drawback with this arrangement is that these printers are relatively slow when it comes to textual documents. At home we have a fax/photocopier/printer (HP OfficeJet 300) which funtions quite well for printing text. I use my color printer strictly for 4x6 images printed on the best quality photopaper. I narrowed my choice to either the HP C1000 or the Epson PhotoStylus 750. The HP actually has a CF slot on the side and can print a "contact sheet" of all the photos you have taken. I brought in a few retouched digital photos on a CF card and actually asked the HP representative to print out a few photo images on this printer. He gladly gave me some 4x6 photo paper and off we went. You actually can completely bypass a computer if you like. The print quality was excellent. Highly saturated areas tend to have a dark brown color (dark tea or tobacco tinge) which I noticed on a prior HP inkjet I owned a few years ago. I think this problem has to do with droplet size and intermixing. I also tried out an Epson PhotoStylus 740, then bought the printer that is the next step up, the PhotoStylus 750. This is a phenomenal printer. I like the fact that it uses one black and one color cartridge for all applications and no special "photo ink" is required. Prints on glossy photo paper come out totally dry to the touch and are photorealistic. Highly saturated areas are also brownish on this printer, but to a lesser degree. (I think Epson partially compensates by lightening the color intensity of the prints.) It is nearly impossible to see any pixelation or individual color droplets no matter how hard you look. Nearly everone I have spoken to cannot tell the difference between a Epson inkjet print and a real photograph. Having said that, the inkjet prints are perhaps ever-so-slightly undersaturated and skin tones are excellent, but not equally accurate as an emulsion film/standard chemical process. Also, the Epson printers advance the paper with a small (sharp-toothed) metal gear that is visible underneath the front housing. It leads to a trail of small indentations along one side of the photograph. It doesn't bother me anymore, but I noticed it when I printed my first print. If I were in the market I would try to pick up an Epson PhotoStylus 750. I have seen this printer for under $200.00 on-line. Consumables are reasonably priced at $4.50 for 20 glossy photo cards and $12.50 for a color inkjet cartridge capable of printing 40 to 50 photographs of this dimension. Epson PhotoStylus 750 shopper.cnet.com Inkjet Cartridges shopper.cnet.com Photographic Quality Paper shopper.cnet.com Ausdauer