What printer do you use?
 

Okay, we are retiring our old printer and are looking for the best one out there for printing photos and graphics (like WB art replacements for cases, etc.). I can't afford a $900 laser printer so what is your opinion on the best inkjet out there for a price range in the low hundreds. I also want it to be easy to operate. Thanks in advance for your suggestions and sharing your knowledge! :)

Maybe the title of your thread should be "What printer do you recommend?"

I use a 6 year old HP 722C! And I'm still happy with it!

Ric

mine...
 

I use the HP 7760..works great for me

I use an HP 3520, and it works pretty good (as in, most of my friends can't tell the difference between my custom and regular covers). :)

HP PSC 2210

Ric,

I use an HP 722C and I don't really think anything is any better as far as print quality goes, but how in the world do you get your entire cover to print and not crop off part of it, since the 722C won't print borderless 8.5x11?

Also, since you do so many box set size covers, how in the world do you manage those? I would love any help you could provide, since I have a lot of your covers that I have, thus far, been unable to print.

Thanks.

Three words for ya, Admiral7: Epson Legal Paper.

Buy it online.

Do I have to change my Printer Setup or anything? Do they make glossy photo Legal paper? I tried the little trick of taping a three inch strip to the end of my 8/5 x 11 paper in order to "fool" my printer, but my printer was too smart and it still wouldn't print the last 1/2 inch of the paper. Somebody help me PLEASE!

canon i950 with canon photo paper

I use Epson photo printers for all my covers. Nothing else on the market matches their color reproduction and they use a cold ink system so photos print dry (no dry time, no accidental smearing if you jump the gun and have at it too quickly). Many other printers can take days to properly dry prints with a high level of black in them; many folks complain that anything less than a day causes the cover to "stick" to the plastic on the case - Epsons are imune from this problem. Their inks and printing process also boast an unmatched standard for lightfastness and anti-fading, so your prints will hold up well over the long run and will not fade or lose their vibrancy anywhere near as quickly as other company's. Quite frankly, I've had covers printed on some very expensive laser printers and none of them have matched the quality of a cover printed on either of my Stylus Photo model printers on Epson heavyweight glossy photo paper. The only problem is, I wouldn't recommend Epson as a good workhorse printer. They are something like a high performance sports car: they require more frequent maintenance (head cleaning, nozzle check, etc.) than HP's (which are, by contrast, great workhorse printers) and are serious ink guzzlers. They also have a very low tolerance for any generic inks, so you pretty much have to stick with the real deal (which can get expensive if you print as many covers as I do). If your new printer needs to be your all-in-one, and will be in constant daily use for all ranks of projects, I would recommend picking up an HP photo printer instead. If it's feasible for you to have two different printers - one for all the photo prints and high-end jobs, and one for all the regular everyday stuff - or you won't be putting the printer through a daily barrage of printing tasks, then I would say definitely pick up an Epson Stylus Photo. Your DVD collection will thank you.

One other thing Kimiakane: Whatever printer you wind up chosing, making sure it does borderless printing. It's essential for DVD cover printing.

I was surprised that no one had mentioned the Epson Photo Stylus line of printers yet. I completely agree with joliom's review. They are great printers, but as he put it, they are not to be used as "workhorse" printers.

Just recently I brought the Epson Stylus Photo R200.

This is mostly used for printing to printable dvd-r's. I record a lot of korean dramas to dvd-r and was looking for a cd/dvd printer to print the custom labels I create for these dvd-r's. Can't beat the price .... $99.

I guess no one is going to answer my questions. :-(

Ric, where are you when I need you?

I'm not Ric, Admiral7, but I answered your question about paper. You MUST use legal-sized paper (and change your printer setting in Photoshop to "Legal Paper" in the Printer Properties dialog box) to properly print DVD art. I own an Epson 1280, which is no slouch, and an HP 5555. I print all of my DVD covers on Epson paper legal paper (about $11/100 sheets online +shipping) using the HP. Pretty sure this is the same paper that DVDcoverart uses. I use this paper for printing singles and box set art.

The paper coating (glossy/matte) doesn't matter, because you're sliding the finished image into your DVD case. If the case has glossy plastic, then you've got a glossy cover, if the the case has matte plastic, then you've got a matte cover.

You haven't tried the heavyweight glossy photo paper then - there's a major difference. The difference in appearance is night and day. Plus the heavyweight photo paper is thick enough that it fits real snugly in the sleeve preventing it from sliding around all over the place.

I don't know of anyone who makes legal-sized glossy photo paper. In fact I don't know of anyone that makes legal-sized photo paper period. You can get legal-sized papers in various weights and brightnesses, though - just not photo papers. I buy glossy photo paper by the roll and cut my own legal-size sheets. The downside to this is that the paper is curled so you have to flatten it out before printing (unless your printer happens to have a roll feeder/dispenser that does the larger size rolls of paper). As for taping on the strip of paper trick, you need to set your printer for legal size (8.5 x 14). And it only works for single-sized DVD covers.

When I set my printer to legal size, it doesn't start printing at the edge like it does when I print for letter size, so even with the strip of paper trick, it doesn't work properly. I guess I'm just going to have to get a new printer that prints borderless.

Um, I've been talking about photo quality legal paper all along. Here's a link, but I'm wondering why I'm bothering...

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_g...668f037eff2f22

Note that it's photo quality paper, not photo paper per se. I've tried that paper myself, and it doesn't compare to real Epson photo paper. I still say stick with the rolls and cut your own, it's a big difference in quality.

I have a Canon i6100 and I use a generic brand gloss photo quality paper 150gsm although 95 gsm is ok.

Q. about sizes, I use A4 210x297mm - dont you yanks have that ? works perfectly for me- gives me about 10mm border on each side.

Well, tired of having to rely on dvdcoverart.com for my printing and the fact that none of the printers at work can print these covers very well I decided to go out and buy a printer. Based on what I have read, the choices were between the Canon i960 and the HP 7760. Quality-wise I was sure that both printers were up to the task of printing covers, but I just hated the way the Canon looked on the outside. I'm sad to say that for this reason I almost went with the HP. In the end I decided I didn't need the media reader of the HP and that I liked the idea of separate ink cartridges for each color that the Canon offered so I went with the Canon.

After printing a few covers (with some Epson glossy photo paper I happened to have) I'm happy with the purchase so far. I'm also happy to see that the covers from the Canon actually looked better than the few covers I had printed from dvdcoverart.com.

So...if anyone is looking for a printer I can vouche for the Canon so far.

I just wanted to add a few comments to my, uhm, comments above for the Canon i960. When printing a cover without fiddling with the settings, Photoshop complains that some of the picture will be cropped in order to fit it on the page. Indeed, the cover printed is about 2mm shorter than a standard cover. Not too drastic, but on some covers some text comes close to being chopped off. Also, sometimes it is obvious that the printed cover is smaller when it is finally put in the case.

Now, the printer does have a separate "Borderless Printing" setting that you have to set. In order for the printer to do this, it actually scales the original image slightly in order to extend the image to the full extent of the paper. There is a slider to set the amount of the scaling but even at the lowest setting the printed cover is about 1mm too big. I suppose that isn't that big a deal either. I just hate the fact that you have to fiddle with the settings in order to printer a standard cover on 8.5x11 paper.

I use a template in corel draw that I import the jpg's into after editing in photopaint - and adjust to the correct size of the cover which here is 272x181mm. Although you can go to 185mm and still fit in the std dvd case.
You should have no problem with either 8.5x11" (letter) or A4 paper.

I use a canon i550 at the moment on high res photo paper and the results are awesome. I am looking at going to the i865 in the near future but as I want to do more photo printing since I have the digital camera now.

XR8