Laser printer photos

sybarrys

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Hi,

Just wanted to garner opinion from anyone using a laser printer for photo printing. I'm about to replace my colour printer and did not initially consider a colour laser because of the photo printing. Inkjet printers around at the moment are quoting print resolution of anything from 1200dpi up to 4800dpi or more, whereas pretty much all lasers (at least in my price range!) are 600dpi.

But then I realised that during PP I usually crop to 7x5, 300dpi, so surely a laser printer could cope with that, or is that a bad assumption?

For most photos I send them off for processing by a lab - it's really for copies for friends and family or special creations that I print them myself, so we are not talking huge volumes here.

I have read that inkjets generally work better with the glossy paper around today (presumably because it's made to work with inkjets), but would really like to hear from anyone who is actually using a colour laser printer for photos - how happy are you with the quality?

Or should I just stick to a good inkjet photo printer?
 
Forget about colour laser for photoprinting.

OK, you'll get an image, but it won't be something you'll want to put in a frame, or album etc. It'll look just like a colour photocopy of a print.

If you want 6x4's only you can't beat the Canon Selphy printers - really easy to use, good results, and easy to keep track of media use etc.

For larger prints you're going to be stuck with inkjet. Either that or online printers.
 
For Father-in-law has a Selphy 6x4 and I have to say I'm impressed with both the quality and the speed (compared to my old inkjet). Do they do a 7x5 version?
 
I've just bought a colour laser (HP 2600n). I'd be happy to print off a sample for you if you want to e-mail me an image.
 
I've just bought a colour laser (HP 2600n). I'd be happy to print off a sample for you if you want to e-mail me an image.

Thanks for the offer. I've managed to talk my local PC World into printing off some test images from various printers (just need to take a card along).

Out of interest, do you use the 2600 for printing photos?
 
Thanks for the offer. I've managed to talk my local PC World into printing off some test images from various printers (just need to take a card along).

Out of interest, do you use the 2600 for printing photos?
I've only had it since Monday & rarely print photos. I did print off an A4 image on some manky 70 GSM paper the missus bought in Asda. It was (IMO) surprisingly good. Would almost certainly be good enough for your stated requirements. The laser process puts a semi gloss finish on stock matt copier paper. It's also supposed to support heavier, glossy papers but I haven't tried.

The 2600n was £160 delivered from BT's Shop. PC World are supposed to price match + 10% of the difference from selected sites. One of those is Misco where it's around £162 delivered. That should give a price to you of around £151.

I say should because I tried this in the Chelmsford store last week & the dick of a duty manager refused to price match saying that the PC World web site was wrong! Head office have since confirmed that HE was wrong, but be warned.

Beware the 1600. It looks like a good deal at around £110 online but comes with half filled "starter" toners.

Original offer stands if you want to take advantage. ;)
 
I've got a 2600n, had it ages, it's very good. I am thinking of buying another one because a brand new one including 4 full cartridges is £162. To buy 4 new cartridges would be over £200! Shame about the environment :( bizarre!
 
That's because so many printers (both laser and inkjet) are marketed using the "razor sell" technique.
The idea or concept goes back to the 1940's; make the razor cheap (or even free) and make your money on the blades.

Chris Muriel, Manchester
 
I've got an older HP2550 and occasionally use the HP colour laser photo paper. It's OK for occasional prints within documents, but I would never consider framing or putting anything in album from it. IMO on plain paper the prints are better than you'd get on plain paper from a cheapo inkjet, but otherwise the inkjet is streets ahead. That said, for general colour printing I'd always go down the laser route as the running costs are less, and the quality of text is far better than an inkjet.
 
Yes I know that, but most new razors only have 1 or maybe 2 blades with them. It isn't cost effective to keep buying a new razor everytime, a pack of blades is cheaper. With this printer it is £40 cheaper to buy a brand new one and a full 4 blades with it :D
 
another trick they use is to only give a partial fill in the supplied cartridges. i know samsung only used to put about a third of the amount into new machines so you may find you would need to buy 3 printers to get the same amount of toner as if you actually bought new cartidges instead. ymmv....
 

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