[quintinir]

Hi all,
about 2 months ago I posted here asking feedback on a couple of photo printer for home use.
Apparently no one is printing here, because nobody had tested them.
Later on I realised that what I was considering was really new and only now, 2 months later, the first few reviews appears.
I come from a 7-8 years old HP AIO photosmart printer and wanted something better just for photos.
Also my HP ink was expiring too often because I used it so little that almost every time I print I need to replace a cartridge (tp be honest, it prints anyway, but suggests to change it).
So I decided to change and evaluated Epson expression XP-700 and XP-750 photo printers until I run into the annoucement of the Canon Pixma MG6350. At the end I purchased this one for few bucks more than the Epson. The main driver in my choice has been that it has 6 colors including grey for B/W printing and because of the drop size of 1nL instead of 1.5nL. This gives a print resolution of 9600dpi vs 5500+ of Epson, but who knows if this makes the difference... I guess is all marketing because at the end when I print from PS6 or LR4 the default print resolution is 240dpi ( I tested at 300 just to change the defaults) and seems to be enough. The 2 Epson mentioned have either 5 or 6 colors but with the light cyan and magenta, not with the grey. Since I like B/W photo I thought this could make a difference. If you are interested, they are now both (epson and canon) reviewed on digitalversus web site with the same score.
Anyway, back to my experience with the Canon.
First the defects.
The setup is not so easy, and the ink cartridges dropped ink on the flor and my hands when I opened the seals. Never happended with HP.
It install a lot of useles sw stuff for us. Everybody here has PS or LR or picasa or more sw. Another bridge-like sw is useless. I would have preferred to spend 10$ less and no sw.
When I put a sheet of photographic paper in a try containing already normal paper (I put the photo paper on top just when I want to print 1 photo, leaving the normal paper under it), 3 out of 3 times it picked up 2 sheets and printed on the normal paper instead of the photo paper. In this way I wasted a ton of ink. So now if I want to print 1 photo I remove all the paper, put only 1 sheet of photo paper and print.
Finally, after 10 photo or so, I checked the ink level and it is already down 20% of the capacity. Gulp... I hope it is because 99,9% is considered like 80% (the graph is divided into 5 segments and 1 is empty for all inks already). If it really consumed 20% of the ink then it is way much more expensive of my old HP.
Last but not least I first tried to print on my HP hi quality poto paper because I have a ton of it left. The first A4 print I did was terrible, really terrible. Ink everywhere, lines across the page etc. I tested then on 10x15 (A6) paper and the details are not that great. The box included 3 sheet of canon paper, tested with those the same photo was much better with smaller and sharper details.
So I ordered A4 and A6 canon paper.
And here we can move to the good news, finally.
I printed on A4 canon glossy plus II paper and the result is amazing!! the photo is perfect. This is all I wanted from a photo printer and I could not believe that using the same paper brand like the ink could make such a big difference. So now I know that I have to use one sheet only in the try and that ink is consumed very fast, but I can finally print lab quality photo (or better, I think). ALso B/W photo looks perfect, you have to play with the tone a little bit to make it colder but then is exactly like on the screen.
I want finally say that I am playing with the LR4 features of simulating the print on screen. When you are in development module you flag "monitor test" flag under the photo (I am translating in english my italian LR interface, so maybe the button name is different), then select the "create copy for color test" under the istogram and then you can select the printer model and paper in the color profile drop down menu. Your photo will be printed exactly as you see it, so here you will want to adjust lightness and other stuff because you will immediately see that applying the printer profile the photo is very different fromt the prophoto or adobe profile you were probably using before.

I hope this helps in chosing a printer. For me this now works well, I am only concerned about the ink cost but it is too early to say (it is not even in the shop yet!! Canon plese sell ink when you sell printers, not one year later).

Bye
Riccardo

[Ole]

Thanks for sharing and good luck with your new printer!