best printer in 2019 for under $300

[Bob Michaels]

For grins, I created a custom profile for my 4-color Canon Selphy and it works great! Its color gamut cannot match that of the Pixma Pro-10, but within its limitations, I've gotten some very pleasing color prints from it. Now if only Canon would produce a quad tone b&w cart for it.

Jeff: about 12-14 years ago, those of us on the old ContaxG discussion group would do print exchanges. This was back when many of us were trying to figure out quality inkjet printing. But in those print exchanges, you would submit the appropriate number of the same print to the organizer. On the designated day, he would rearrange the prints so everybody got one print from everyone else in the group.

Those different prints were made on a variety of different printers, some never acknowledged to be suitable for photo printing. But just about everybody had figured out how to make decent prints from whatever printer they had. Most of us concluded it was possible to get pretty good prints both b&w or color from just about any printer. Some were just much easier to figure out than others.

 

[iridium7777]

actually it does... i'm gonna try going this route.

i bought a monitor calibrator and will try having these guys print a few of my photos. their prices seem reasonable, i rarely print anything above 8x10.

thanks for your suggestion.

My thoughts.

I’m retired. When I had my business, I made the decision to link up with a quality lab and have them make the prints.

WHCC is located here in Minneapolis. If I had files sent to them by 10 AM, the prints were at my door the next day. They had me use sRGB color space and that’s what I gave them. They made a few very large prints for me as well as panos for wedding albums and they turned out great.

The cost of the printer is one time but ink cost is another subject.

Now, for the few prints I make for my family I use Walgreens and Shutterfly.

Having someone else make the prints gives me more time with my camera making the photographs I like.

Hope this helps you!

 

[iridium7777]

it could very likely be operator error, on color, although i highly doubt that green hue in B&W is my fault and not a real limitation of the printer.

i am following bill's advice and will re-cal my monitor and download the lab's profiles and will let them print a few photos for me.

I hate to say it but if you aren't getting good prints out of your printer it is operator error.

If you are printing pictures of your kids you might want to consider a pigment printer. A few more bucks now and they will be able to show them to their grandchildren.

My advice though is to have someone else make your prints for you. You won't have to learn how to print and you won't spend money on something you are barely going to use. Like Bill mentioned above, use someone good. I've used Adorama and Aspen Creek in the past for metallic prints. You can choose whatever paper you want of course. If you are on a budget, just wait for a sale. Aspen Creek is generally the one I recommend to people who ask me. I'm sure there are a lot of others out there too. You might even find one locally.

Hope that helps you.