Plain paper photograph prints on a laser printer

  • Thread starter Thread starter Peter.H.M.Brooks
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Peter.H.M.Brooks

I'm looking at a few possible colour laser printers, the HP 1600, the
Dell 3110cn and the Lexmark C510.

They all look fine from the point of view of B&W printing, but the
writeups are a bit coy about photographic printing.

I prefer very matt photographs. I'd be happy to know that I could, if I
wanted to, put in expensive glossy paper from time to time to get
gloss, but I'm actually content to get a print shop to do it.

How good are these (or other colour laser printers) at producing
photographs on ordinary paper? With inkjet technology, I know the
problem, the ink sinks into the paper and produces a smudgy result. I'd
have thought that, with the dry toner, this wouldn't be a problem. Am I
right?

Can these printers produce a borderless A4 photographic print that
looks good?

I'm actually tending towards the Dell, not only do they offer a year
long on-site support as part of the base prices, but they also seem to
supply toner cartridges with 4000 page capacity as standard for colour
and B&W that looks good to me - I'd only have to get new cartridges
every year or so.

Any suggestions?
 
I'm looking at a few possible colour laser printers, the HP 1600,
the
Dell 3110cn and the Lexmark C510.

They all look fine from the point of view of B&W printing, but the
writeups are a bit coy about photographic printing.

I prefer very matt photographs. I'd be happy to know that I could,
if I
Click to expand...

I thought all laser toner looks slightly shiny, or at least is shinier
than plain paper. It's an ok look (I have a Konica Minolta 2450)
though. There is special glossy paper for color lasers; but, I have
not tried it yet (even though I have a couple reams).

My Canon i9900 prints great on Canon Matte Photo paper.
 
The ability to produce a semi-gloss, gloss or matte image on color laser
printers has to do with the toner power formulations, the heat (and
speed) of the fuser, the fuser surface, if it uses fuser oil, etc.

The problem is most laser printers can't do both well. They tend to be
matte, or semi-gloss or maybe glossy but not all.


The problem is, unlike inkjet inks, the toner is not fully influenced by
the paper surface. So if you have a printer that delivers relatively
flat toner on matte paper, it will probably be at best semi-gloss or
eggshell on glossy paper, meaning the areas that have low or no toner
will be of a different surface texture than the areas with higher toner
yield. The reverse also tends to be true, a printer with glossy toner
tends to maintain that gloss on matte paper in areas with higher yield.


In your case, you are looking mainly for a matte surface. I suggest
looking at the Konica-Minolta Magicolor printers. They have quite a
matte surface output, which looks good on matte and semi-matte surfaces.
I do suggest you consider buying a slightly heavier and whiter bond
paper for images. There are specially designed color laser printer
papers out there which aren't much more costly than regular bond.


Art
 
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