is it unrealistic to expect good photo prints out of a CMYK digital toner press?

[bcr]

I have a Ricoh C5310 and occasionally will run a few schoolphotos etc off. And i'm always disappointed by the end result which tends to look a bit dull, and often a bit mottled or blotchy.

I'm printing onto Xerox Colortech+ Gloss, and am selecting fiery Coated Glossy output profile.

I'm wondering if my expectations are unrealistic for printing photos with a toner device? Or should I be doing any other processing to the files prior to printing?

The dullness and blotchy issues are not something which I notice when printing other types of documents, but it really seems to show up more on photos.

Thoughts appreciated.

 

[azehnali]

people run yearbooks on Xerox

 

[pippip]

I had a thread on here a while back asking about best press for Photobooks etc and the majority said HP Indigo is the go to, obviously not an impulse buy for a few photos.

Personally if a client asks do I print photos I say no, I've never found photos to be amazing off a digital press and no point disappointing those who might notice.

As you describe, dullness I'd certainly expect but the mottling/blotchy doesn't sound right. Can you adjust the image transfer settings? Try printing a few solids and see if they're ok.
The hardest part of photos is skintones which generally stands out to photographers.
I regularly run landscape and wildlife photos for a photographer and, although not overly bright, they do look well and very sharp. That's on our V280.

When we first got our V80 years ago I spent ages messing with settings to try and get photos looking better but never got anywhere, screen types would be one to try changing.

 

[EdwardB]

We print photos all the time on our Xeroxs (Versant 4100s). I warn people ahead of time that they are not "photo printers" and not to expect "Kodak" quality, but overall the photos do come out well enough.

I find it best practice to print them lighter, at about 95%. Also a good super smooth, high brightness (98+), color copy cover stock (Hammermill, Cougar)

 

[kslight]

I print out personal photos all the time on our Ricoh 7210. I wouldn’t sell it as a photo printer but stick it in a frame and it’s fine. I lighten the image and often turn on the flood clear as well.

 

[namelessentity]

Yearbooks I'd do, but no, I think toner is a terrible device for actual photo printing.

 

[SteveSuffRIT]

The technology for "photo" printer (drugstore kiosk) is dye sublimation (solid>gas>solid, without liquid phase change).
Under a magnifier, it looks similar to photographic continuous-tone, not halftone dots.
Dry toner powder (electrophotographic) has an advantage on uncoated papers because there is no liquid/fluid inkjet to absorb into the paper.
The fused toner surface can look flat/dull in gloss but some machine "calender" that under a heated pressure roller to make it look glossier.

 

[bill kahny]

Can't sell laser prints as photos or "photo quality" but I've produced alot off our ricoh 7210 and Canon c750 before that. playing around with settings like suggested above 95% brightness and I usually raise the magenta and yellow to help the fresh tones. I've learned all files are different but 600 dpi and turn on smoothing help quite often.

 

[realaqu]

The technology for "photo" printer (drugstore kiosk) is dye sublimation (solid>gas>solid, without liquid phase change).
Under a magnifier, it looks similar to photographic continuous-tone, not halftone dots.
Dry toner powder (electrophotographic) has an advantage on uncoated papers because there is no liquid/fluid inkjet to absorb into the paper.
The fused toner surface can look flat/dull in gloss but some machine "calender" that under a heated pressure roller to make it look glossier.

because toner color space is much smaller than inkjet, even less than offset printing, so high end photo printing always go to inkjet especially epson

 

[noelward]

It depends on the device and the quality of the image. I find that small toner devices often do a poor to mediocre job of reproducing full-color images like photos, often regardless of the resolution of the original. This has to do with how the front end of the printer and the print engine handles the file (you may be able to adjust for this). High-end (expensive) digital printers (like iGen 5 or an Indigo) seem to do a better job, but you still need to feed the printer a high res image. Some toner machines simply can't do it well. Photos are not what they are designed for.

I took the same 13MB image from my Nikon and sent it to my Canon MFP and my 6-color Epson. We trashed the Canon output. The toner machine was not designed to print photorealistic images. Fine for general use, presentations and the like,

In contrast, inkjet does a better job for photos, but this is no help for commercial uses. Even my $250 6-color IJ printer produces a 8.5 x 11 photo from 2.2 MB iPhone photo. A printer down the street from me does a lot of large format inkjet. He takes phone photos and prints them 3 feet wide for tourists, who put them in their homes. The printer software does the heavy lifting. They are not perfect but it works and they pay him by the square foot.

Then there's dye-sub, which I have never used.

But IMO it all starts with providing a device with a high quality image.

 

[connerj91]

If you have a Fiery front end…our photo reproductions work best if we leave our photos in RGB, then use AppleRGB simulation profile on the Fiery. Sometimes we do lighten the whole job 85-95%. Also, be sure you’re calibrated. I’ve noticed that toner based printers tend to run hot/high on magenta so we will even drop our magenta curve 5-10 points around 50 percent.

 

[EdwardB]

If you have a Fiery front end…our photo reproductions work best if we leave our photos in RGB, then use AppleRGB simulation profile on the Fiery. Sometimes we do lighten the whole job 85-95%. Also, be sure you’re calibrated. I’ve noticed that toner based printers tend to run hot/high on magenta so we will even drop our magenta curve 5-10 points around 50 percent.

I second leaving them in RGB.

adjusting the toning curve might help as stated, we find our Xeroxs are pretty well balanced.

Fiery also has the ability to "adjust" images at the time of processing... sorta works YMMV

 

[bcr]

Thanks all - you've given me some good suggestions to play around with!