printer advice

[island guy]

Being I get such great advice on this thread here goes. My daughter has a digital 5mp point and shoot. She also has many shoeboxes of film photos. She would like to sort thru the film photos and pick out her favorites to enlarge. Is it worth it, quality wise, to get a 3-1 with a scanner to copy her film photos? I've never used a scanner to copy photos and don't know much. She has been looking at a HP 1510. She is also looking at a canon mp 450. The canon doesn't scan. I thought she should go with the canon and just take her favorite film photos in somewhere for enlargement.

Any advice??

THANKS

[Steve Foss]

Several brands of combination scanner/printer/copier are good. My wife uses a Lexmark for scanning for her graphic design and photo retouching business. The lower end ones tend to be better scanners than they are printers. The more money you put into one, the better will be the image quality of the prints. That being said, I think the Lexmark cost under $100. My Epson photo printer, which I use to make all the professional prints I sell up to 8x10, cost about $220 and produces prints as good as or better than any photo lab. When my wife needs professional quality prints of what she scans on the Lexmark for clients, she uses my printer to get them.

I'd check Epson, Canon and HP, because they are the lines that offer some of the best photo printers out there, and you're really looking for a scanner that can both deliver quality scans and quality prints. You may find yourself spending $200 to $300 to get that.

Also, if the scanner you get is set up for it, you're better off scanning her original negatives if you still have them. Scanning a print is not as good, because the print already is a copy of the negative, so you're scanning a copy rather than an original, and you lose color detail and sharpness that way.

You also are about the enter the world of spending money on ink cartridges and photo paper. I use only Epson premium inks with my Epson printer, though it's OK to experiment with different papers. Experimenting with off-brand inks, however, is asking for trouble. Even if the quality is good, they'll render the coloring slightly differently than the inks that came with the printer. So I'd stick with the same brand inks as the printer.

[DTro]

I'll second that Epson/Canon recommendation.

Two reasons,

They are known for their quality and usually are near the top in reviews.

The use the individual color tanks, so you only replace what you use. No wasted ink.

I've tried to refill my own and buying store "refilled" cartridges, but have resigned to the fact that it's just not worth it (Ink quality is questionable, dried out cartridges, leaking ink, etc) If you are using a TON of ink it might be worth the effort.

My advice would be to make sure you spend the money on the printer quality and not the scanner.

When it comes down to it, it's probably not that much more $ to go into Walmart or Target and print them at the kiosks there, and you get good quality.

[island guy]

Thanks guys! She picked up a epson cx4800. It fit her college budget and seems to do the job very well.