Sally: > Does anybody have a photo printer s/he loves? I need professional quality prints from scans, have a presentation to complete within a couple of weeks. Any of the Canon 6 colour printers. Check www.shopper.cnet.com for prices and user reviews. We put 2 Epson 7600 printers in at the college where I used to work, and a small canon S820. Although the promise of extended image life from ultrachrome inks and the name Epson drew fans amoung the student body, many in frustration turned to the little canon, and once they'd learned how to 'profile' it, they stayed with the canon for it's wide gamut, ease of use, speed of use and apprent sharpness over the Epsons. We're talking about a printer that cost $300 of our local dollars compared to $5000 for the epsons that had many seeing superiority in the $300 printer! While myself a fan of the canon, I did a comparison print on both, an ICC callibrated workflow on the lab Macs through to the Epson, and then an eye colour calibrated print on the canon. Putting the images side by side not one of the lecturing staff could tell which was which on a variety of paper stocks all eye calibrated by me on the canon Vs ICC profiled on the Epsons. I then flat bed scanned a canon and an epson print, enlarged to the point where the dots were discernable and again asked the lecturing staff for their opinions. All picked the canon as the better for the smaller dot size, the clarity of fine detail and accuracy of colour at the dot level. It showed marked regularity in the dots over the epsons and although at this size, lines of dots were visible (not so with the epson) the fine detail was preserved and enhanced. I also had a pair printed on Epson Archival Matte paper hanging in the store room for a little under a year. They both lost a little colour but the pronounced orange shift in the epson image had some of the staff quite worried. Reputations had been staked on the Epsons performance and it was not appreciated that the clearly orange print was challenging their opinions. OK, this environment was a pretty hostile one, but an 8 year old RA4 was looking pretty good after all this time, the canon print was standing up acceptably and there was this ultrachrome print fading away badly! The images got taken down and the matter was not spoken of again. I still have my Canon S800, my boss, the manager of the Graphic Design, Multimedia and Photo departments bought and still has a Canon S820, many of the students bought S820's and a couple of the lecturing staff also bought and still use Canons (those that didn't advocate the epsons!). They're also very popular because of the ink system which doesn't rely on chips, allowing all the ink to be used before each single cart is replaced. my intro to the canon was a bit of story in it's self. I'd used Epson 1280's and 1290's but was not prepared to make a full change to inkjet based on the results from these two models, prefering to stick to using my own Hope RA4 processor, when on one newsgroup I'd read one strong and ardent suporter of Epson for many years telling everyone how he'd sold all his epsons and moved to Canons. I read around and saw many enthusiastic reviews of the canon and so I bought one, site unseen, from a mail order comapany. When it arrived it was with much trepidation that I loaded the first sheet of paper to make a print, fully resolved to sending it back if it didn't perform. The grin on my face when my wife came home was still there two weeks later when I sold the RA4 processor, convinced I had no need for it any more - the output was so close to that of RA4 ! OK, so I was a bit quick with that sale and I'm getting another RA4 processor again as I am not truly convinced digital injet output is superior to RA4, but the canon still managed to outperform any other inkjet i've seen or used to this day, and I still use it to make images that sell and continue to sell. Canon has some new printers on the horizon (here yet?) with 8 colours.. they're adding a red and a green cartridge to extend the gamut further, so I'm very much interested in seeing what those printers can produce but for the time being I'll stick to what I've got. anyway, that's my 2c worth karl
