Printer Reccomendation

rmjranch

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I shoot 120 and 35mm only, no digital. My film goes out to a professional lab for developing & scanning. Need a printer for 4x6, 5x5 and up to 8x10 prints. Want to spend as little time as possible in front of the computer. These are only proof prints. Final prints go back to the lab. Budget open. Thanking you in advance. Not sure where to post this.
 

bdial

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Unless you mean an enlarger, this is actually a dpug.org question OT for here.
http://www.dpug.org/forums/home.php
Soon the forums will be integrated which will make things easier, but for now it's a separate site.

That said, Epson is classically the king of the heap. If you get an enlarger, you won't need to spend any time in front of the computer
 

tedr1

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Not sure where you are located? If in the USA dare I suggest a trip to your local Staples branch, they have selections from all the big brands and also carry ink and paper, the cost of which is a significant factor. Unfortunately discovering information on the usage rates of ink per print is tricky it depends on the image. My Canon Pixma inkjet will print high quality images on glossy paper. A sheet of Canon glossy paper 8.5x11 is a little less than $1 and ink carts are about $50 a set, black and color. The Canon software is painless and has choices for pretty much everything to do with brightness contrast and color balance without going into Photoshop If your definition of "proof" is strict there may need to be some test printing and "calibration" of the results for control of color matching brightness and contrast.
 

mweintraub

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I use Miller's Lab for my processing and for 120 I choose the "proof special" which includes a disc of scanned photos and 4x5 or 5x5 prints for proofing. love it! It's about $8-9 for a roll of 120 depending on format. I use them for 35mm processing too, but their proof print prices are a little high.
 

MattKing

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Costco.
 

TSSPro

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I work at a camera shop in CO and my customers complain about Costco, Walgreens, and other places b/c they keep the negs and don't return them to the customers when having film developed- I'd be weary about outsourcing to a big box place and not an actual lab.
 

Chadinko

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Costco keeps negs? I've never seen Costco keep negatives. That seems illegal to me. I don't have film prints done at Costco -- I do them myself -- but for the Digital or digitized stuff I've had good luck with Costco. For my pro stuff I use another lab but Costco for quick and dirty printing.
 

TSSPro

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Yeah, I think that the camera shop where I work is the only place here that won't keep your negs unless you go to a dedicated camera store. Can't speak on personal experience with Costco, don't have a membership, but I do get complaints from my customers.
 

MattKing

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I'm talking about Costco doing RA4 prints from the scans. In my jurisdiction they recently upgraded their RA4 machinery.
Costco doesn't develop film here any more, and I don't believe they send out film, but from digital files, they do really competent prints on real photographic paper.
 

TSSPro

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Thanks for the update. I hope that they are able to produce quality prints for their customers. I can only relay what I've heard, no Costco membership.
 

Neal

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Dear rmjranch,

I used to have a nice ink jet printer but in the end I didn't use it often enough to keep things working properly. Now, as the others have suggested, I simply use the local Target or Costco depending on which is more convenient that day. Operating this way has saved me a lot of money, frustration and desk space.

Good luck,

Neal Wydra
 

RichardJack

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None. Send your scanned files (sized @ 300dpi & TIFF) to a professional photolab. But even Price Club and Walmart will make a decent print. Unless your running your own lab it does not pay, you'll constantly be buying inks and your printer will be obsolete in months. The quality of prints on conventional photographic paper cannot be matched by an inkjet. If your taking about snapshots for the family, go with the cheapest Epson or Canon.
 

removed account4

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hi there
last week i got an epson 640 it cost about 75$ and has cmyk inks and prints essays, and text very well. the off chance i need
a imagea printed on copy paper to illustrate the text, it does a nice job with that too.
that said, i have a mini lab down the street from me and
she charges something like 30-50¢ or something like that for a small proof print, and i often times just give her film or the electronic likeness
and she gives me back prints " pronto ! " as jeff spicoli would say ... i have found the prints from the lab are a better way to proof things.
i'd look into rite aid pharmacy if you have one near you too. of all the pharma chains and box / department store chains &c that have "send out" service
they are ( or were as of last year ? ) the only one that still got the negatives back. the other stores, while they also send out to fuji labs, don't wan to pay
the freight to have film returned, so fuji gets rid of the negatives and beams the files into something like a local and connected dye sub printer.
good luck !
john
 

wiltw

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I have had a Canon photo inkjet since about 2002 when my wife gave me my first digital P&S. One of the nice things about Canon, unlike Epson or HP, is that its use of color dyes rather than pigment ink means that I have NEVER had to deal with clogged jets even if the printer has been idle for a very long time.
In fact, when my original iP4000 was long in tooth and ink cartridges were not so readily available, I purchased a used iP4300 at a great price. But then I still needed to deplete my inventory of ink cartridges for the iP4000, so it delayed the switchover and that took a couple of years! Finally, the iP4000 ink absorber became full, and I was forced to change to the iP4300. In spite of the fact that the iP4300 printer had been sitting in a box with ink cartridges installed (by the seller for testing the printer prior to selling) for more than a year, it came out of the box fully functioning. Try that with an Epson or HP printer.
Finally, the Canon photo inkjets have 'picoliter' ink usage, which is fairly miserly with ink usage. That compared with the HP printer which I had in my office at work, which seemed to need new color cartridges all too frequently.
 
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trythis

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I started using diversified labs in st louis, mo. Its a pro print shop that prints proofs for .22 or so in 4x6. I quit buying inkjet ink after one look at their work. Its not enlarger/darkroom, so its not really an APUG approved approach but I have no darkroom as of now. If I want prints, I use them.
 
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