lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

There is really no such thing as cheap in printers especially when you consider the price of the inks. They are all sky high. A very few high end EXPENSIVE commercial printers from Epson and Canon have large refillable ink tanks and the cost per print goes down. But home units all burn thru ink like crazy. I have both a Canon PIXMA PRO - 9000 and 100 Printers (13" wide prints). A full set of 7 or 8 inks costs $125-135. And I'll only get about 5 full sized 13x19" high quality photo prints out of a set of inks. Most people get the Pro-100 for about $200 so yes, a couple sets exceeds the cost of the printer. I bought my Pro-9000 used for $200 and got the Pro-100 free from a friend who had no use for it.

P.S. I gave up on HP products years ago. In ancient times they made good stuff like HP 10c, 11c, 12c, 15c pocket calculators (1980s) and HP LaserJet 4 (something) printers (1994).

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

I'm sure they do. Many are excellent. But I think the Photography quality ones run a bit more than Canon. The commercial Epsons are very good from what I hear but expensive!

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

That works well for Canon and several other brands, but possibly not for HP. Once an HP cartridge reaches a certain age, the printer won't use it. I've had to throw away numerous "expired" HP ink cartridges. That's why, when my old HP died, I didn't even consider HP for its replacement.

fstoprookie Loc: Central Valley of California

Switched to a Epson 7750 from a Cannon pro ink hog and am VERY HAPPY - Don't know what the problem was with others but I'm VERY HAPPY with mine.

fehutch Loc: gulfport, ms

I own a Canon IX6820... second one i’ve Owned. Paid less than $200 new for each. Current price $127.00 on Amazon. Inks are all 3rd party from LD and HI Ink via Amazon prime. Current ink price: $13.00 for 3 sets of cartridges in one box. (Large black, small black, magenta, yellow, cyan each set.) 15 cartridges for less than a buck each. Good shelf life. Great prints up to 13x19”... In gallery quality.

My wife’s printer is smaller Canon with scanner, etc. But it uses same ink set. Always buy a second printer that uses the same inks. It’s a stock thing.

I use Canon paper and specialty stuff from Red River. Krylon UV spray to seal each print. Have framed prints over 10 years old that look like done yesterday. Sales going back longer than that with no complaints. I will reprint anything that fades. And nothing ever has.

Manufacturers OEM inks are WAY overpriced. Now pigment inks are a whole different deal. I don’t go there. And Epson is nowhere in my mind set. The last time I had repeated printer problems, it was a big Epson - maybe before Hurricane Katrina.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

The Canon PIXMA family are nice printers. I have a PIXMA MG5420 (not a current model) that's just a printer and scanner. It does a beautiful job with both. It has five inks....dye cyan, magenta, yellow, black, and pigment black which is a larger cartridge. The printer automatically "knows" how and when to use the two blacks.

Definitely check out the PIXMAs.

unlucky2 Loc: Hemet Ca.

I use the Canon Pro 100 with Precision Color Ink, for the best, lowest cost prints around. Refilling your own cartridges is easy and really lowers the printing cost. I use a Brother laser jet for document printing, fast, duplex and quite inexpensive. Using Canon Photo Glossy paper (GP-701) I print 8.5 x 11 full color for around $.15 a page. The really nice thing about this Canon paper is the back side is printable, a kind of dull matt finish but it is usable. Color print on the glossy side and clean neat document on the back side, great for photo books.

John O.

Laser is the least expensive printer per page. I have an HP black laser printer for most of my work where black and white is needed for general use. I have an HP color laser for general use where color is needed. needed. I take my prints up to Costco or Sams Club to be printed because their prices are so much lower per print than what an inkjet printer would cost. I have a Canon color inkjet printer for prints I must make immediately.

Bill P

[quote=philo]I had an Epson and the ink would run off the paper.

I had that happen once. Later I realized that I had inadvertently turned the sheet over and was printing on the back.

I have two Epson printers and I use their ink, but exclusively Costco and Red River paper. I'm happy.

Amadeus Loc: New York

I have an MX 922 also. I've always owned the Canon MX series. All in one, and does a very nice job on photos. I get my ink from LD Products in Calif. Best third party ink I have seen. $55 for an 11 cartridge set or you can buy them individually for around 5-6 bucks. Amazing customer service and the ink is excellent.

Kozan Loc: Trenton Tennessee

There are no printers that have cheap ink cartridges. I thought of getting refurbished cartridges from an ink supplier like 123Refills. Even those are at least half the cost of a new cartridge.

I have started buying Premium Inkjet Refill Kits. And recently bought Aomya brand refill kit from Amazon. I can say it was pretty easy to put new ink into the black and the color cartridges. I use the HP-61 cartridges. So, I can fill a cartridge up for about $2.00. BTW, the color of photos match the brand new HP inks.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

The key to inexpensive inkjet printing is *not to do it*! Printer ink is like Polaroid film was... They gave away the camera to get you to use the film! (Gillette was the razor company that gave you a razor so they could sell blades, and marketers world-wide copied them.)

That said, for most people, a cheap inkjet printer *for photos* is really a good professional color lab. There are dozens of them all over the USA. No printer to buy, no ink to go bad... for small print quantities, they are a good option. Just calibrate and profile your monitor, and get the lab's printer profile installed in your system.

If inkjet printing of photos isn't cheap, what's it good for?

Privacy
Permanence
Immediacy and Convenience
Color accuracy (if you understand color correction and color management)
Choice of print surfaces (TONS more choices than a lab can offer)
Control over the process

There is a HUGE difference between PHOTO inkjet printers and general purpose SOHO (small office/home office) inkjet printers and multifunction scanner/printer/copier/fax units. Photo inkjet printers use more than four inks, usually six or more, supplied in individual cartridges. When one runs out, you change just that one.

There are dye ink printers and pigment ink printers. Dye inks tend to be capable of greater mid-tone and highlight subtlety, but pigment inks last at least twice as long. (Properly made PHOTO inkjet prints last two to five times longer than conventional silver halide wet process prints made by traditional photo labs.) Smaller photo printers are inexpensive to buy, but more expensive to operate. Larger inkjet printers feature larger ink cartridges. The cartridges cost a lot, but the cost per print is much lower.

SOHO printers come in several flavors. The cheap ones are the most expensive to run if you need any quantity of prints. They use a black cartridge and a separate 3-color (YMC) cartridge. Better ones use four *individual* ink cartridges. Epson makes some EcoTank printers that refill from much larger bottles. They are very economical office printers for documents. Photos are cheap, too, but only so-so quality.

A great bargain in photo printers is the Canon Pro-100. Lots of UHH users have them and swear by them. You can usually find them on sale at ridiculous prices, often bundled with paper or a camera. They print with photo quality dye inks up to 13" by 19". Epson makes pigment photo printers that cost more, but if you want the ultimate print longevity, they are my pick.

You can mitigate the cost of inkjet printing by using third party consumables. HOWEVER, caveat emptor! (Buyer beware.) Some third party inks fade rapidly upon exposure to light, heat, or airborne pollutants. I won't use them, as I've clogged too many printers with them to risk it. Third party inks tend to produce off-color photos, too, so you need custom ICC profiles to work with them.

OEM inks are made for your printer. Epson and Canon and HP all use different print head technologies, so it's important to use ink made for your brand of printer. Some UHH users have had better experiences with certain brand combinations, however.

Third party papers ARE generally a good deal. There are some great papers from Moab, Red River, Harmon Galerie, Hahnemuhle, and others. The key to getting great results with your printer, OEM ink, and a third party paper is to download and install the appropriate ICC profile for THAT exact combination of printer model and paper.

One very important key to getting great prints is to use a hardware/software kit from Datacolor or X-Rite to calibrate your printer and make a custom ICC profile for it. Do that right, and your prints will match your monitor quite closely. THAT makes color adjustment with post-processing software an efficient process! It saves time, ink, paper, and allows you to get what you see.

I think you need to decide what you must have and would like to have in a printer. If your primary goal is great photos, but you need an occasional document, a photo printer will work best. If your primary goal is printing Word documents, and you only print photos on special occasions, get a multi-function unit.

Choose Epson or Canon... But where's HP in all this? I haven't used an HP printer I liked since the late 1990s. That doesn't mean they don't make some good ones, just that I haven't had a good recent history with them.

Good luck!

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

Definitely Canon. Had several they've never disappointed. 9500 series and iP series.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

Before I got an inkjet, my Canon multifunction color laser was my "photo printer" as well as all else. I even bought some glossy laser paper (hard to find).

Photo quality on a laser is poor compared to an inkjet. Laser toner is not glossy on gloss paper. Inkjet ink lets the gloss shine thru. Toner obscures the gloss.

Metis407 Loc: Canada

Canon pixma 8720. Great quality. 19 by 13 size. Very pleased with it!!