HP PhotoSmart Pro B8850

...I debated between a Canon, HP and Epson wide format printer. I have had HP's and always got excellent results from it. I needed to upgrade to the wide format for photo scrapbooking. I took the chance on the HP because it was a mid-priced unit. I really wanted the networked version, but in all reality, if I'm printing 12x12 and larger prints, I'm going to be sitting at my desk anyhow. Maybe if you have multiple computers that want to use it, the network ...
...Easy set up out of the box. Gave it a 4 due to the noise and how expensive the ink tanks are to buy. I spend almost $300 on HP ink. 8 separate colors, so you don't replace three colors when one runs out. I like that. It's fast too.  ... more

Excellent printer. I read a lot of reviews before I settled on this printer. I debated between a Canon, HP and Epson wide format printer. I have had HP's and always got excellent results from it. I needed to upgrade to the wide format for photo scrapbooking. I took the chance on the HP because it was a mid-priced unit. I really wanted the networked version, but in all reality, if I'm printing 12x12 and larger prints, I'm going to be sitting at my desk anyhow. Maybe if you have multiple computers that want to use it, the network is a nice feature. And I have three other networked printers, so I LOVE networked stuff.

I had to work through the color selection a bit. I use Photoshop Elements 7 and a lot of people complained about poor prints. I'll admit, I tried every combo of color scheme. The highly recommened style of letting my program set the colors didn't work. I finally settled on letting my printer control the colors and used the Adobe color option. After that I got great prints. I tried printing on matte, gloss and semi-gloss. I get the best results with the gloss, even though it's not my favorite. I printed probably 40 letter size calendar photo pages (full page photos, basically) and several 12x12 prints for holiday gifts. I also printed a 13x19 full page print and the clarity is excellent. My photo needs tweaked but straight from camera to printer, it still looked fantastic, in my opinion. I'm not a professional photographer, but any means, but I've spent well over $4000 on 3 Sony digital cameras, accessories and 2 Sony video cameras. The printer cleans the print heads everyday and it's fairly noisy when it does this and is noisy when it prints. It could be a bit quieter. Very large footprint, but it's a wide-format printer, so I don't really have a choice. Easy set up out of the box. Gave it a 4 due to the noise and how expensive the ink tanks are to buy. I spend almost $300 on HP ink. 8 separate colors, so you don't replace three colors when one runs out. I like that. It's fast too. 

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