Folks
Last year I bought an iMac, it came bundled with an HP 880c inkjet
printer. After spending a week reading up on colour management, five
minutes calibrating the monitor I have been so impressed that I've
started making and selling greeting cards. Normal people think they are
offset printed, photographers think they are wet-process.
The HP's output is excellent EXCEPT it cannot quite handle (to my
standards) gradations of tome that range from dark to white -- say a
sunset with the sun in it. The lighter tones tend to go a murky
yellowy-green then dither crudely to paper-white. I could probably spend
time fiddling with Photoshop's levels to get them better, but the other
950f images it prints are photo-realistic and life's too short anyway.
Other annoying things: ink is expensive; driver defaults to US Letter
(like, what civilised country uses anything but A4?). Not much to
complain about really. A very capable printer.
Would I have bought it separately... nope. Only because -- like
Photoshop -- Epson photo printers are the defacto industry standard and
there are so many third party products available. For instance, the
Ink-Jet mailing list is Epson-centric... and Adobe PrintReady has
drivers for some high-end printers, most Epson inkjets, a few Canon but
nothing much else. PrintReady (or is it PressReady?) is a rip that
replaces the standard printer driver and allows complete control over
the amount of ink the printer puts to paper. It also works in CYMK mode
not RBG like most consumer printer drivers.
Vaughan
BTW if the latest version of Photoshop is too expensive for you, get an
older version. Nothing wrong with version 3... or 2.5 for that matter.
Accept no substitutes.
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