This printer review will give you some great printer buying tips to get you started. Now that you have merrily clicked digital pictures of the people we’re most thankful for, it's time to make some prints. But once we’ve captured those memories, how should we share and preserve our favorite images? Most people want prints they can hold in their hands, and many wonder whether they get the best quality and value by printing at retail via a photo kiosk or over the counter, or by using an inkjet at home. Well, savvy consumers do both. You can use the new breed of All-in-One (AiO) printers to get an incredible array of creative and home-office functions at very affordable prices. And kiosks at your nearby retailer can transform images into a cornucopia of personalized photo gifts.
Retail Printing and the Wow! Factor
Whether you want a batch of photos in standard sizes or blowups, retail printing is convenient and affordable. Today’s photo kiosk is much more than a print dispenser. Kiosks (plus their behind-the-curtain wizardry) now transport you to a brave new world of creative fun and nearly instant gratification. In addition to prints up to poster size, they let you create photo books, calendars, DVDs, MLB trading cards, magnets, mugs, T-shirts, totes, puzzles, personalized footballs, photo-in-crystal paperweights, well, you get the idea. And knowledgeable staff can answer any questions.
“Most people aren’t aware of the really cool stuff you can do with digital printing in a retail environment,” says Rowan Lawson, director, Worldwide Retail Solutions, Kodak. “Whenever I show someone a Picture Movie DVD, for example, the response is three letters: WOW!” To create a Picture-Movie DVD at a kiosk, you simply select the images, arrange them in sequence, and choose original-artist music to accompany them. Then Kodak software takes over, doing things like facial detection, analyzing the scenes, and panning or zooming in on the subject, making use of the powerful techniques Ken Burns pioneered in his documentaries. The cost is around $15, and the process takes about 10 minutes.
“Consumers don’t realize how quickly and effortlessly you can create these gifts,” says Lawson. “You can step into a store near you and create an 8x10 photo collage and have it in hand in three minutes for around three dollars. You can put collages together on different pages, bind them in a really nice cover and have a very professional-looking photo book—in under 10 minutes.”
Kodak’s are just one of many kiosks to offer personalized photo products. Custom photo gifts will also be featured this holiday season at FedEx Kinkos and other retailers nationwide, because simply put, photo gifts have high emotional impact at a very reasonable cost.
All in Ones: More for Less
The main reasons for printing photos on a home inkjet are speed, convenience, and cost. Without getting dressed, standing in line, or letting busybodies peek over your shoulder, you can start printing in the time it takes to pop a memory card into your printer. Most AiOs have a touch panel and LCD menus that let you preview and select images, adjust exposure, and remove red-eye, crop, resize, and select paper types. Manufacturers insist that print quality and durability rival retail.
AiOs also address gripes about ease of printing and cost of ink. “We’ve been tasked to really streamline the process, to reduce the number of steps necessary to print or scan a photo,” says Tom Bentz, Future Products Manager, Kodak. “We’ve seen the comparisons of the cost of an inkjet cartridge to a bottle of fine champagne. So we’ve offered some solutions that make it far less expensive to print.”
To lower the cost of ink, manufacturers boast high-capacity cartridges, ink and paper value packs, and more efficient technology—all good things for you. But the fact remains, you’ll eventually spend more for inkjet consumables than to buy your printer. The industry leaders in home inkjets are charging into this holiday season with feature-rich, multifunction printers designed to offer more creativity and productivity for your hard-earned bucks. With printers featuring Wi-Fi for wireless transfer, print, copy, and scan functions at very competitive prices, you’ve never been able to get so much for so little money. Here’s our preview of the latest AiOs from companies with wraparound imaging expertise.
Epson Artisan 800 (Wi-Fi, print, copy, scan, fax)
Epson’s flagship Artisan AiO is geared for households where users share a printer and want workhorse performance in a stylish package. A true photo/office hybrid, the Artisan 800 has business functions like Wi-Fi fax with 4,800-dpi resolution and a 30-page automatic document feeder. For photographers, it features Ultra Hi-Definition photo printing with six fade-resistant inks said to last four times longer than photo lab prints. The printer includes memory card slots, direct-to-camera connection, and a touch panel with a 3.5-inch LCD that lets you select, enlarge, rotate, crop, correct, and print photos—all PC free. Bundled software helps you create personalized CDs/DVDs, greeting cards, photo calendars, and photo books. $299. epson.com
Canon Pixma MP980 (Wi-Fi, print, copy, scan)
Packed with features that simplify common photo printing and office tasks, Canon’s Pixma MP980 AiO is optimized for photo enthusiasts. It’s the first AiO to include separate gray and photo black inks, for truly neutral black-and-white photos. And Canon’s auto photo fix reduces the steps needed to print a beautiful photo. It detects the type of photo being printed (portrait or scenery) and corrects red-eye, facial tones, brightness, contrast, and color saturation. When you insert a memory card, the unit automatically displays menus to preview images and print.
Also included is Canon’s auto scan mode, trimming the steps necessary to scan and save a file from eight to two: It recognizes the type of document being scanned (a photo, business card, text) and automatically crops and saves files to PDF or JPEG based on the image type. The MP980 produces long-lasting lab-quality prints with enhanced fade resistance. $299. usa.canon.com
Kodak ESP 9 (Wi-Fi, print, copy, scan, fax)
Kodak is the inkjet upstart, challenging the leaders with its consumer-friendly AiOs that compete not only on features and style but also attack the high cost of ink. Kodak claims its sleek “printers allow consumers to print up to twice as many photos and documents for their money, saving an average of $110 a year on ink.” Meanwhile, Wilhelm Imaging Research stated, “The Kodak printers and pigment-based inks have achieved the highest level of overall print permanence of any current consumer desktop printer system.” Tests also show their prints are resistant to damage, and even plain paper prints are water resistant and won’t smear when marked with highlighters.
The ESP 9 has fax capabilities, an auto-document feeder, built-in duplexer for two-sided printing, and a large one-touch panel for printing, copying, scanning, and faxing. It prints from memory cards and includes Kodak’s Home Center software with facial retouch, which automatically reduces blemishes and enhances facial features. $299. kodak.com
HP Photosmart C6380 (Wi-Fi, print, copy, scan)
Engineered to offer lab-quality photos and laser-quality documents, HP’s wireless Photosmart AiO offers print, scan, and copy solutions. It prints from memory cards and includes software to enhance, personalize, and organize images and documents. A “smart” Web printing function saves ink and paper when printing from the Web, which accounts for most home printing. HP says its high-capacity ink cartridges deliver “three times more black pages and 2.5 times more color pages.”
The Photosmart C6380 provides auto sense technology that avoids common printing mistakes that waste ink and paper. It’s also environmentally friendly with a printhead comprised of 55 percent recycled plastics. And an automated paper tray lets you produce up to 5x7-inch prints without swapping paper. $179. hp.com