Reader's Comments - Index of - Free

Color Printers
work (we're between projects right now). It has been a royal pain to get something
printed that matches the image on the monitor. Yes, I did calibrate my gamma, and
the original image was scanned into Photoshop at 270 dpi.
There were two problems. First, you have to tweak the outputcolors in the
``Advanced Settings'' part of the Printer Setup.(See this link for more information.)
Even after doing this, however, I didn't get anthing close to what I wanted. Too
much magenta, no yellow. The problem was that I had to reset the printer nozzles
by pressing a particular button on the printer. This wasn't very intuitive, but after
doing this and tweaking the color output in the driver settings, I finally got a nice
looking print.
You *can* distinguish the output from a conventional printup close. However, at
normal viewing distances, it really is hard to tell.
-- Mani Varadarajan, July 26, 1999
I have recently purchased an EPSON 1200 wide carriage injet printer, results are
fantastic. Continious tone, great detail & no pixels. Good speed & large size output
are great features of this unit. I had used the Epson Stylus II before which I was
pleased with but the 1200 blows it away. I used a test file I shot with a Kodak 265
among many other printing methods, various inkjets, dyesubs, laser prints & digital
slide. The best was from the Epson 1200. Once I saw this print I immediately
orderd the 1200. I use glossy paper which I purchase at $.30/sheet.
-- Leo Macdonald, September 4, 1999
Regarding the Hewlett-Packard "Photo Smart" printers, they have now been
discontinued and are being offered at very low close out prices, usually through
Office Depot or others at about $100.00. The quality of prints is very high, but
there are two things to consider: 1) as the unit is obsolete, supplies may soon be
hard to find, particularly ink cartridges, and 2) its a rather large, heavy unit by
today's standards so you need a fairly large, strong surface to put it on. But, for top
quality at lowest dollar, its hard to beat!
-- Fred Emmert, September 22, 1999
I just got a new Alps MD-1300. To test it, I printed out one of my wildlife photos at
8x10 (max. size) in dye sub mode on Alps photographic paper. I followed a
suggestion from somebody in this discussion group and set the ink calibration in
Photoshop similar to Textronix II. Printing at 300 dpi took ~25 min. The outcome
was very good. No pixels visible, no streaks, great colors. Unlike many people in
http://www.photo.net/equipment/digital/printers/primer (17 of 36)7/3/2005 2:20:36 AM