Printer Recommendations Sought

I would like to print some of my photos for display and print some scans of some old family photos for preservation purposes. My little HP Photosmart is not the tool for the job, so I've been researching "real" photo printers to replace it. It would be nice to print up to 16x20, but 13-inch wide stock would be sufficient. The sales person at the box store tried to explain to me that an Epson R1800 was a "color" printer while the R2400 was a "black and white" printer. Okay.

So... What printer do you recommend? I'm not locked into Epson by any means. I would like to keep the cost under $1000 unless there is some compelling reason to go above that mark.

Thanks!

Kelly

Kelly, I researched long and hard on this topic and finally decided on the R1800. By the time I bought the printer, a monitor calibration system, a printer calibration system for specific ICCs and more ink and paper I was somewhat over $1000. If I really wanted to do a lot of B & W I would have gone with the R2400. I am very happy with the R1800, but nothing is ever perfect... cant print HUGE photos, ink cartridges are not large enough, etc. There are some in depth printer reviews on the web, I have deleted the links after I made the decision and purchased my printer but you can do a search and find them.
Good hunting!

The 2400 is great for B&W and also for printing on matte paper. It is also excellent for coated papers but you will notice a gloss-differential effect with those (which never bothered me personally).

The 1800 is excellent for coated papers (no gloss differential) but not as good on matte papers or for B&W.

Guy

I have the R2400 and have been very happy with the results so far. I print on matte paper, and roughly 15-20% of what I print is B/W. I chose Moab paper, and use a Chromix custom profile. The custom profile has helped a lot. The resolution of the R2400 has been astounding - provides incredible detail. The best price I found for the R2400 was through Atlex.com ($759). They also have the best ink prices ($11.95/cart) that I've found. Very nice people, quick shipping. Best prices for paper that I've found was inkjetgoodies.com. Also very nice people.

Be prepared for high ink costs regardless of which printer you buy, especially at first. My R2400 is just a couple of months old, and between getting used to it, testing different papers, and establishing a "normal" printing protocol my ink usage/cost has been pretty darn high so far. I think this is probably normal, but it's good to be prepared for it. When I bought my printer I bought a couple of complete sets of extra ink, and that proved to be a good choice. It took most of that to get the bugs worked out, find the paper I like best, get the profile situation remedied.

Hi Kelly,
I recently purchased a Canon i9900 photo printer. It gives top quality prints up to 13" x 19". It uses 8 separate ink tanks. The only possible drawback is that it tends to print the best quality prints on Canon Photo Paper Pro.
I hope this helped.
Gene Steinberg, Andover, NJ

P.S. Canon has announced a new line of Pixma printers to be released in September, 2006. Some of them seem to be even better that the i9900, if you want to wait.

I've been more than happy with my R800, and now R1800. If you're doing serious black and white, step up to the 2400; otherwise, the R1800 is great. Be careful with your paper selection - make sure it supports pigment inks (or says 'UltraChrome', or lists an UltraChrome printer of some sort...).

I have the 4800, the big brother to the 2400. I print on matte papers. The results I get with color and B&W are phenomenol. I love the prints. The biggest downside is the cost in ink to switch from matte black to photo black ink (for glossy paper). I don't do it. I used to be a glossy paper guy, but once I switched to matte papers ( I use Moab Entrada Natural 300), I now strongly prefer it to glossy.

The advantage to the R1800 (and disadvantage I guess) is that both the Matte and Gloss blacks are loaded at the same time. It also has a gloss optimizer that REALLY helps on glossy prints. Its like a clear coat that goes on the white parts to make them have even gloss. However, you loose the light black from the 2200, so with it some of the B&W capabilities.

Other up and downsides:

Bad - R800/1800 yellow is not very saturated. You have to boost this saturation in the driver.
Good - Red and Blue instead of light cyan and light magenta give good saturation in those ranges.
Good - I mentioned the driver. It offers lots of control and I like it.

I really like my R1800. Mostly print Color but the B+W results are more than acceptable. If I was doing a lot of B+W I would have probably gotten the R2400.