Looking for a cheapish printer. Suggestions?

[dave_bass5]

Although we have a large colour printer at home its rubbish for photos and rather too large.
We have decided to get something smaller, no more than £100 (less is even better) so i thought i would ask around, to get users thoughts rather than just reviews.
I would like to print out a few good quality 5x7's, maybe even the odd 10x8 every now and then so i guess this is the most important part. Otherwise its just for word docs. powerpoint stuff etc so almost anything will do for those.
I dont want A3 or duplex prints either.
The Canon Pixma's look good.

Thoughts?

[senu]

Canon Pixma range .. I have the older ip 4300 and later on pointed a friend towards the ip4500
We are both pleased
They both cost less than £80 at the time but as with all, inks are where the manufacturers recoup . This is universal to al the brands

[dave_bass5]

Thanks.
Yes, the Pixma range seem ideal. Its just what one to go for.
Even the 2600 is only £32

[dave_bass5]

Right.
My Canon Pixma I2600 arrived, set it up and all works fine for general printing.

Im having a hard time getting good photo prints though.

My screen is calibrated and im using LR 2.3. In the past ive sent images off to Photobox and the prints look great. The same images looks fine on three PC's so i know the monitor and my PP is good. But from the test prints i did last night on some 4x6 photo paper the prints are quite washed out, although colours aren't too bad.
Ive tried letting LR control the CM and have switched CM off in the printer driver but there does seem to be a lot of settings both in LR and the driver so im sure its me and not the printer.
This is my first photo printer so im sure im doing something wrong but any tips would really help save some money on wasted paper/ink.

Cheers.

[dazza74]

You've approached it from the right angle Dave letting lightroom handle colour management and switching off colour management at the printer end. I have similar issues at times I'm basically far to conversative with the colours I have to force myself to over saturate in my eyes an image slighty to compensate for the printers flatter interpretation. That would be my advice just produce a version just slightly more saturated using say the vibrance tool and print that, doesn't need to be much but it will give it that pop. Sharpening is another thing that suffers with this, what looks a bit overdone on screen is fine in print.

[dave_bass5]

Originally Posted by dazza74

You've approached it from the right angle Dave letting lightroom handle colour management and switching off colour management at the printer end. I have similar issues at times I'm basically far to conversative with the colours I have to force myself to over saturate in my eyes an image slighty to compensate for the printers flatter interpretation. That would be my advice just produce a version just slightly more saturated using say the vibrance tool and print that, doesn't need to be much but it will give it that pop. Sharpening is another thing that suffers with this, what looks a bit overdone on screen is fine in print.

Thanks.
I sort of already do that when sending off images to Photobox and i guess once i get used to my printer ill be able to get it right.
Its not just the saturation though, its like the whole image is washed out so i want to look in to it a bit more. A si said, the colours seem fine, certainly reds and blues are as they should be so i dont really want to mess with the saturation slider but maybe the contrast needs upping a bit.
I must admit i find it all a bit confusing at the moment. Im ok with LR, its just all the options in the printer driver are a bit off putting.
The first print i tried, just on normal paper was a pretty close match, and that was letting the printer do all the CM with all the default settings on other than the image adjustment "gimmicks" so maybe that's the way to go.

[dazza74]

I've been using Rendering intent "Perceptual" and unchecking "Black Point Compensation" in all my printing recently, I've always used "Perceptual" but recently read it was worth unchecking "Black Point Compensation", I like the new gamut warning you get in CS4 print preview I find that useful for predicting what colours the printer will struggle to produce. It's a minefield though all this, I think one of the biggest problems is having a printer profile that's exactly tailored to the media you use.

[dave_bass5]

Thanks again.
I dont have the black point setting in LR2. I do have PSCS4 but to be honest i never find a need for it as LR does all i want.
Im sure i do have the correct ICC profile loaded for the photo paper than came with the printer, the way canon names them seems to be quite cryptic though.
Ill do a lot more testing over the weekend. Best order some more ink i guess.
Believe it or not i work for a printers so i really should know what im doing. We have very large digital copiers here and i have no trouble working with these although they are CYMK.
I know the i2600 isnt a great printer but i do expect better from it. Im happy with the print quality though so i know ill sort this out somehow.

[vulkan75]

What about the paper....Ive a canon pixma printer and have has terrible results with certain papers(branded).

Have you tried Tesco finest " super glossy inkjet paper".Its about £8 for 50 sheets, ive been very impressed with the prints on it... ..Thats what I use for family snaps etc

[dave_bass5]

Thanks.
At the moment im just using the Canon photo paper that came with the printer. I would expect to get good results with this as i believe i have the correct ICC profiles for it as well.
At least, im hoping i do. They do seem to have funny names but im pretty certain i have the correct one loaded.

[dazza74]

Originally Posted by dave_bass5

Thanks.
At the moment im just using the Canon photo paper that came with the printer. I would expect to get good results with this as i believe i have the correct ICC profiles for it as well.
At least, im hoping i do. They do seem to have funny names but im pretty certain i have the correct one loaded.

I know I had to search on the epson website for a definition of what the acornyms meant, well worth double checking I did some printing for a friend and accidentally selected a double weight instead of a single weight paper profile and the difference in colour was beyond belief.