Best photo printer for home/professional use

as Christmas gift...

[akmac]

I use the ip5000 at work, and have been very pleased with the speed and quality, but I'm wondering if any of you have had an exceptional photo printer. My wife is a photographer, and I'd like to get her something that she could use for small jobs, pictures of our kids, etc.

I remember the laser vs inkjet thread, and I'm not opposed to either. Preferably something in the under $500 range.

Those DS printers look interesting... Anyone have one they can recommend? Expensive to run?

[Syzygy]

Recently I bought an Epson Photo R220 - a six cartridge printer. The quality of photo printing, whether on archival matte or premium glossy, is quite superb.

My only complaint is its warm-up time and time to first copy, which seems unduly long; certainly much longer than my previous Epson.

Other than that, once it gets going its tremendous.

Syzygy

[limbo]

Bought myself an all in one Cannon Pixma MP830 recently - excellent photo results - great resolution for a copier/scanner/fax/printer. I reccomend this for personal use as a cheaper option

[weeks]

I have to say my Epson printer does a very good job for the money. And, they just work. Years ago, when I needed some help, their customer support was breathtakingly good. (You call, someone answers, you ask question, they tell you what to do, it fixes problem. Weird.) If Epson every builds a car, I'm going to buy it.

I'd agree about the warm-up time being slow. Generally, it's a good idea to have something to read, or go empty the trash or something, while printing on an Epson.

From what I read, paper is a very big deal in getting quality prints. But, at the same time, I think some so-called fancy photo papers are mostly marketing.

[Old_Honky]

I use an epson stylus photo 890 at home and two epson stylus photo 1290s at work.

They are so good I never have to buy headed paper or pre-printed envelopes I just have page templates in word excel etc with the company header in place.

We print our own business cards and short run point of sale posters up to A3 size with stunning results.

The media is the key if you use ordinary paper you get ordinary results, but that doesn't mean you have to pay through the nose for manufacturer branded paper and inks.

Another good thing about the epson printers is the straight print path so you can use fairly heavy card with no problems, this year I printed 200 Xmas cards on 220gsm inkjet photo quality card.

I would never go for a printer that picks up and ejects card the same side as this will only take lightweight papers and limits your options considerably.