Peripherals forum: Can you use a color laser printer for photo printing?

Hi thank you for your help. Can you tell me one more thing. Can you really see any differance between the 2400 & 9600 X 600 dpi on laser photo paper? I know that My HP photosmart ink jet when printing some things will leave a white line on paper and my friend's Cannon ink jet don't but I think his was $400 mine was under $100. 2400 dpi I can buy soon, but I got to save for the $700 9600 X 600 if it's better!
And I thoght Konica just made camera!

Again thank you for your help!

OK today I had the time to get to Staple. I looked at all the color laser they had. I got sample from the magicolor 5430 and the OKI C5200 on regular paper. I asked the sale person if I can see the sample in photo paper, but He told me that I won't be happy with it and pushed me towards a ink jet about $300. He told me that the ink cost for the laser too high and the prints are bad, but my friend talked about how he runs out of ink in his $400 ink jet all the time and I got the same problem with my HP. I am not a professional phtographer, but I want a printer that has good prints and smudge proof ink. From what I know about laser printer the ink in the machine last longer than ink jet printer.
Man the two laser printer had great pictuer it's better than my HP on regular paper. I think the laser will work great on photo paper!
Do you know anything about the magicolor 5430? the price was good.
Again thank you for your help everyone!

Photo paper is unsuitable for use in a laser printer. Use it only for inkjet printers. For best quality get 30lb 110+ brightness presentation paper to print photos on a laser printer. Still, the quality from a laser printer, no matter how expensive, will not equal the quality of a good inkjet photo printer. I recommend the Canon PIXMA iP4000 for photos because the cost of ink is lower than many other brands, you can buy good cartridges for that printer from third parties for even less, the printer has two software selectable paper sources, both photo and document quality is excellent and the printer is available for a good price.

I have an HP 1215 photosmart printer. It prints great photos but I do not use it frequently and when I go to use it the ink is dried up. I bought a Konica MagicColor 2400w and was very disappointed with the print outs for photo's. No gloss to them. I sent and email to Konica and they got back to me the next day along with a phone number and name of a tech person. The tech person said that the printouts on glossy paper are actually of lesser quality then non glossy. I tried both and decided to take the printer back. Then I saw the OKI CN5200ne at Staples for $599. The test prints were very glossy on regular paper. Staples also said not to use glossy paper. Well $599 or even $399 is more than I want to spend. I'll wait for the price to come down furhter. I tired of running to the store to buy ink for my photo printer. I can settle for lesser quality laser printing but not poor quality.

If you can find a nearby Staples office supply store, they will usually have an Okidata C5150N and the low-end Minolta color laser printers available for demo. You can look at the demonstration output, which includes photos, to determine if you'd be pleased with the results. I have both an Okidata C5150N color laser printer and a Canon PIXMA iP4000 color inkjet printer on my network. For printing color documents, I prefer the Okidata. For color photos I prefer the Canon which produces lab-quality prints on glossy photo paper. I've never seen photos printed on any color laser printer that actually look like they were printed in a photo lab. Viewed from a distance, laser photo prints can look really good, but they do not yet rival the best of the color inkjet printer results on glossy photo paper.

Black and white laser printers are usually much cheaper to run then their inkjet counterparts. For color though, inkjet is usually much less expensive. Cost per page for a color laser printer runs between 7 and 15c per page, but this is for a brochure/handout type job with about 5% coverage. For a photo, expect much higher costs. Those toner and imaging drum costs add up fast. Another word of warning--cheap color laser printers use multi-pass printing. This means the imaging drum gets used up four times faster for color prints.

Maybe I did something wrong, but the first (and only) time I tried to use photo paper in my Dell color laser (3100CN) it made a mess of the paper and there was color toner over all the moving parts. It took a few runs of regular paper to clean it out.

I haven't dared use photo paper in it since.

The quality on regular paper is pretty good though unlikely to satisfy a photo aficionado.

I've had laser output around several years as we have a laser color copier at work.

We had posted a Fuji Century print in a South facing window and a Color copy.

Guess what Century print is most likely for archival storage in the dark because after a couple years it had altered quite a bit. The Laser print also altered after a couple more years. The yellow in the print fading out.

Inkjet color is much thinner and subject to fading and the 100 year claims are again in archival settings.
ie. probably acid free mounting in a book which is kept closed. Typical guarantees on signs run about 3 years with UV resistant plastic overlay.

Fade resistance can be enhanced by laminating with UV resistant laminate which typically reduces the fading to 1/5 of regular rate of fade. However this is special laminate and not the regular laminate normally available at stationery stores. The store should have some documentation available indicating it is UV resistant.

Regards paper, inkjet paper is specialy coated and laser paper is not and there are good papers available for either. For laser Hammermill Color copy paper and card are pretty good.

Don't forget to properly view the photos a daylight bulb makes a difference for inside. I like 6500 degree. Whereas a cold fluorescent is 4200.

Ken Graham

Print a photo on photo grade paper on the Phaser 8500 or the 8200 and see if you feel the same way. I wouldn't trade you.

I have a great little Epson C80 inkjet that has always done near perfect photos on inkjet photo paper and glossy paper. I still use it for photos that I have done some heavy editing on or for a quick print for a relative that stops by and wants a particular picture.
But what I do now is a lot better and saves me tons of money on ink and high priced paper. I just email my pictures to Costco.com and then go pick them up at my local store in about 2 hours. At 17-25 cents for a 4x6 picture, you simply can not duplicate the quality, speed or ease of this technique. Costco is not the only vendor that will do this, but for someone that has a store nearby, it is as easy as a cheese sandwich.
I am not a shill for Costco, but for other than custom photos that you are preparing (and realistically, how many of those do you do every month?), simple digital pictures or scanned photos out of your albums, the online approach can't be beat for quality or cost.

I have used a variety of color lasers with mixed results on a variety of papers. Most of the paper stock you would pick up in the office products store are for deskjets and don't hold laser applied color very well.

The first problem is to remove red eye and other imperfections in some photo fixit software. I use PaintShop Pro mostly for that.

Next is the type of paper you select and the amount of glossy finish it has. As a general rule, I have used a succession of Minoltas, (currently using a DL2300) with good but not superb results and a Dell Dell 3000CN with good enough but not striking results. Again the proof is in the paper.

There are three popular printer types available to USA consumers today that can print photographic art:

1. The Inkjet
#1 Cost to operate
#2 Photo Quality
#3 Speed
#2 Initial Cost
2. Color Laser
#3 Cost to Operate
#3 Photo Quality
#1 Speed
#1 Initial Cost
3. Thermal Dye Sublamination
#2 Cost to Operate
#1 Photo Quality
#2 Speed
#3 Initial Cost

I happen to own one of each. ALL of which will print a photograph, but ''your mileage may vary'', depending on what you expect the output to look like.

The inkjet is one of the most popular as well as EXPENSIVE to operate available. Don't let those cheap prices fool you, I don't know how many 8x10'' glossy photos you can print on yours before you need to replace the cartridges, but mine would last about 20 pages (on a good day) and MUCH LESS if there was a few weeks or months between print outs.

As you already know: modern top of the line inkjets will produce fine looking photographs, but at $60+ for a set of ink cartrages (my printer) my 8.5x11'' photo album sheets were costing me upwards of $3.00 a page!!

Last year I bought a MagiColor 2400DL to replace my inkjet printer. While the printer cost me $500 new, I've gotten 400 color pages out of it so far and still have %40+ toner left to print more. Even if I only got 500 total color pages out of the set of toner cartridges that CAME WITH the printer, total cost per page is roughly $1.25 each. (this is out of the "low yield cartridges" that CAME with the printer!)

Stock toner refills are EXPENSIVE:$472 list for the HIGH yield ones. However, these cartridges come with 2.5x the toner. Using the yield of my current cartridges as an example, I might expect to get 1250 color pages out of the $472 high yield cartridges bringing the cost per page to $0.37!!

Then again, I was able to find a TONER REFILL KIT that has as much toner as the high yield cartridges for $165.00!! I'll let you do the math on how much it would cost per page using the generic toner. <grin>

While the pages FLY out of the laser printer as compaired to the Inkjet, the output is better than a newspaper print, but not as good as a Inkjet or TDS printout. (about as good as magazines)I do notice some grainyness and some color shifting. However, my family can't tell the difference, so what do I care?

An added bonus is that the prints won't fade as bad as injets AND they are water proof!!

I've recently added a TDS [T]hermal [D]ye ublamination printer to my collection. This thing prints WONDERFULL photographs, if you like 4x6'' (postcard) sized photos. The printer cost only $150 and the current list price (can be found cheaper) for the 108print kit is $29.95, which brings the cost per print to about $0.27 each!!

Ok, like I said, your mileage may vary. Most of the color lasers will print a 'demo sheet' and you can see for yourself what each model may or may not do right @ Office Depot or other store which has them setup.

Personally, I don't even use my inkjet anymore. Unreliable and to expensive to operate.

Mark
Technologist

To answer your question, Canon, Kodak, Sony, Panasonic, Xerox and even DELL sells TDS printers, however there is a hitch:

1. ALMOST all models are designed for photos do only that: Print 4x6" (and a little bigger/a little smaller) photos. (excepting ONE model rare discontinued Panasonic and a few strange "off brands")

2. Like inkjet print cartridges, you can only use the supplies that are made for the printer. You can't use Canon's supplies in a Sony printer and vis-versa.

As such, as far as I know, only Canon has a 108 print kit for $29.95 LIST that brings the cost of these 4x6" photos down to less than $0.27 a picture. The others are MUCH more expensive but may follow suit to compete with Canon.

3. The 4x6" prints that my CP400 makes are spill proof (cepting the cardboard/paper they are printed on) and JUST LIKE A POST CARD BOUGHT IN A STORE.

They claim that the prints will last a long time. Maybe I should print the same picture out on a Laser/TDS/Inkjet and sit all three in my southern exposure front window and see what the results are?


Mark

Ok after some quick research:

Kodak Professional 1400 Photo Color Dye Sublimation Printer (301x301 DPI, Color, PC/Mac - SKU: 8116253)
Price Range: $412.85 - $490.12 from 10 Sellers

This places the cost of the printer (dono if this is before or AFTER $100 rebate) right in the range of low-end color laser printers and on-par with the "top of the line" inkjet printers.

So how much do the supplies cost?

Kodak Ektatherm Print Kit Matte for Professional 1400 Digital Photo Printer - 50 A4 Size Paper and Ribbon
(SKU: 8335788) Price Range: $72.50 - $86.94 from 9 Sellers

A4 is pretty much a 8.5x11" (although metric) sheet. Using the cheapest supply cost (without shipping) the cost per page is $1.45 and considering that you COULD print 4 photos per page ($0.36) and cut them out, the cost of operating this printer appears to be simular to the published cost of many of the "photo inkjet" printers today, however with better looking and longer lasting output. Besides NO INJETS TO CLOG!!

An added bonus is that while its not as fast as a laser printer, I know of NO INKJET printer that can produce a 8x10" glossy photo in 45-90 seconds!

I surely would consider this printer instead of a Color Laser printer.

I'm suprised that CNET and the other publications don't give these types of solutions more press.

Mark.