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villain1973uk

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Lee
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I want to start getting some prints of my pictures and was wondering what's a good wireless printer or am I better off getting them from somewhere like photobox?

Cheers
 
Hi Lee.
It is difficult to answer your question without knowing why you want to have printed images.
If they are purely for record purposes to stick in an album or the like then you'll find a service such as that offered by Photobox ideal and the cheapest option.
If on the other hand you are thinking of printing for competition or framing etc. then short of going to a professional photographic printing house (as opposed to a lab), then you are probably better off with your own printer.
Home printing can be an expensive pastime and it is a steep learning curve to get your prints looking like the screen image. If you are prepared to stick at it though it is probably the most rewarding conclusion to the photographic process.
 
Thanks for the reply, it will be mainly for sticking in an album and if I get a real nice pic then possibly framing, I've heard it can be quite expensive doing it yourself, it wouldn't be for competitions or professional as I'm not even close to be being good enough!!.
 
villain1973uk said:
Thanks for the reply, it will be mainly for sticking in an album and if I get a real nice pic then possibly framing, I've heard it can be quite expensive doing it yourself, it wouldn't be for competitions or professional as I'm not even close to be being good enough!!.
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Then I guess you'd be better off with lab processing. If and when you're ready take the plunge. You'll find printing frustrating to start with but very satisfying once you've mastered it.
 
If it's for personal use, the advantage of a home printer is flexibility.

While printing at home is more expensive, when my daughter tells me at 7pm that she needs a picture printed to hand in to school the next day, it's too late to do anything other than print my own, and if I'm going to have the option, I'd rather spend a bit extra and get something reasonable.

I've just replaced my printer after the old one died (I think it was a power supply failure) after several years use, and for me the choice was between the Canon ip7250 (which was a wireless version of my previous A4 ip4700, which I had been very pleased with), or 'going large' and getting the Canon ip8750 (an A3+ model).
In the end I opted for the ip8750, so I had the option of printing larger than A4 (I suspect this may get used by my daughters school projects more than my photos!), and have so far been very pleased with it, though I've not use it to print anything large yet.
 
I've done both.

Using a lab Pros: Easy, quick, painless, relatively cheap. Cons: Quality can be hit & miss, sometimes difficult to "wsiwyg" from screen to print (unless monitor calibrated which costs more for device).
Using home printer Pros: Full control to get perfect results, convenience. Cons: Expense (paper and ink), can be time consuming to get the perfect results.

I'm not going back to lab printing now. I easily achieve far better results (in my eyes) than any lab I've used in the past on the paper I like - rather than what a lab gives me. My printer is an Epson Stylus Pro 4800 and whilst it has huge 220ml tanks at £80 each, it costs 36p/ml compared to (e.g.) Canon iP8750 inks at 85p/ml (7ml cartridges!) The printer was £20 second hand and prints roll paper up to 16" wide (A2). The feeling of taking an image through capture to print is - for me - photography. Have you considered second hand to "have a go" and see whether it's for you?

If you're prepared to (and want to) work at it, home printing can be much more satisfying than a lab. It can also be frustrating, expensive and time consuming though. If you want cheap results with a minimum of effort, a lab is the way to go.
 
Thnx all!!, I can imagine the feeling of printing off your own photos being very satisfying, you would think it would be cheaper doing it yourself.
 
I've just looked on photobox and 10 A4 prints is £20 including delivery, would printing 10 x A4 prints at home really cost that much?
 
villain1973uk said:
I've just looked on photobox and 10 A4 prints is £20 including delivery, would printing 10 x A4 prints at home really cost that much?
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Try DSCL, I got 15 A4 prints Inc around £5 delivery for £15 odd last week.
 
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Just looked on DSCL and 10 A4 prints come to £11.49 unlike the £20.40 photobox was going to charge, are the prints good?
 
DSCL are fine, never had an issue with them. For large quantities of smaller prints I tend to use them. For one offs or if I want high quality and more control, I print them myself.

As well as the purchase cost of the printer, ink is expensive as is paper. Sure, you can use cheap paper, but I've yet to find any good cheap paper and tend to stick to Epson or Fotospeed.
 
villain1973uk said:
Just looked on DSCL and 10 A4 prints come to £11.49 unlike the £20.40 photobox was going to charge, are the prints good?
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DSCL are better than photobox by a long way.

No comparison. I wouldn't use photobox at all, I've had some really s*** images from them.
 
villain1973uk said:
I've just looked on photobox and 10 A4 prints is £20 including delivery, would printing 10 x A4 prints at home really cost that much?
Click to expand...

About the same for me, but my cost per print is very low due to having huge tanks. 10 A4 sheets of Canson Baryta Photographique is about £10 and I'm certain the ink costs for 10 A4 prints would be well under another tenner. The Canson paper is far and away superior to the papers DSCL use (never used Photobox). However, when home printing there are additional costs such as errors between the chair and the keyboard when printing, test prints, printer cost overhead and time. Ten A4 prints might take an hour or two, but uploading to DSCL takes 5 mintues.

DSCL are great. My only gripe is that it used to be £4.99 for postage which makes a single print quite expensive. For 100 holiday snaps though - it's a no brainer.
 
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