Photo Printer Paper

[LegendKiller]

Any recommendations?

[eSDee]

What kind of printer do you have? I have found that Epson printers make crappy pictures on anything but Epson photo paper.

[LegendKiller]

We just bought a Canon Pixma MP780.

[eSDee]

LK I don't have your specific answer but I thought I would bring up something about color printers in general. A couple of years ago Epson introduced a cheap "archival ink" printer that cost under $100. It was a piece of crap, but the good thing was that the ink would last longer than a couple of weeks after you print the image. I have a picture that I printed on one almost 3 years ago and although they were in storage most of the time they still look excellent.

I do not know what Canon may be using these days, but I would say that if your printer uses "archival ink" then the answer might be finding out which paper looks great and is archival. This might add more confusion to the question, but it's just a thought in case you are brand new to color photo printing and want more background on the subject.

[Grimm]

This is a subject that I actualy know something about.

First rule is that the manufacture is going to make the best photo paper for any given printer. The media and ink are formulated to work together.

Second rule is Epson makes the second best photo paper to use with any given printer (excepting Epson printers where it is still the best to use).

Third rule is go with a quality 3rd party manufacturere like Kodak.

I worked for a major printer manufacturer in R&D. This is what we found to be true.

[Jeffbx]

Go to Costco & see what they have - they're way, way cheaper that anyone else I've found.

Bigger places like Compusa & Best Buy charge up to $1 sheet, but at Costco, I got a 100 pack of Kodak paper for about $20. Works great on my Epson.