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Olympus Camedia P-400 Digital Color Photo Printer

Olympus Camedia P-400 Digital Color Photo Printer

List Price: $399.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome photographs!
Review: I have had this printer for about a month, and I love it! I use it for printing photographs for my clients, I am now ALL digital (I rencently bought the e-10 also). Everyone is amazed that they are from a dye-sub printer... but they love the results and I love being able to work wih my own photos as well as print a variety of sizes in my own home! Most of my portfolio is now from this printer and the e-10.... I have been waiting a long time for a printer like this and when the price dropped ...and the rebate if you bought a camera too, I just couldn't resist and now I am glad I didn't.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Quality images at home
Review: I have owned this printer for nearly two years. It has been trouble-free and has given me hundreds of beautiful pictures that have the look and feel of high-quality photo prints. I use Photoshop Elements to clean-up my images and to size them for printing. Photoshop elements allows me to place multiple images on a full sheet of paper. I recently showed some travel photos to a friend. He said, "I've seen digital pictures before but never any that looked this beautiful! What kind of a camera do you have?" I told him that it wasn't the camera, it was the printer. The printer, itself, is not hard to set up and use. At first , you must pay attention to how you load the ribbon, but if you look carefully at the instructions, you will be fine. A negative review mentions the micro lesions on the surface of the prints. It is true that there are a few extremely fine scratches on the plastic surface of each page . However, you will never notice them unless you take them to a window and tilt the picture around to catch the light just so. In normal viewing, you will never know they are there. And they are only on the clear, plastic coating that covers the pigments on the paper. (The paper makes four passes over the thermal head. Three passes put the color on, the fourth applies a protective coating of clear plastic.) The drawback to this printer is that it will not print larger than 8X10, and not quite a true 8X10 at that. Personally, that has never bothered me. I don't do a lot of 8X10's, and when I do, I put a border around the print, put it in a frame and it's fine. The quality of the pictures continually amazes everyone I show them to. I think this is a great photo printer.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Great Photo Printer
Review: I have owned this printer for nearly two years. It has been trouble-free and has given me hundreds of beautiful pictures that have the look and feel of high-quality photo prints. I use Photoshop Elements to clean-up my images and to size them for printing. Photoshop elements allows me to place multiple images on a full sheet of paper. I recently showed some travel photos to a friend. He said, "I've seen digital pictures before but never any that looked this beautiful! What kind of a camera do you have?" I told him that it wasn't the camera, it was the printer. The printer, itself, is not hard to set up and use. At first , you must pay attention to how you load the ribbon, but if you look carefully at the instructions, you will be fine. A negative review mentions the micro lesions on the surface of the prints. It is true that there are a few extremely fine scratches on the plastic surface of each page . However, you will never notice them unless you take them to a window and tilt the picture around to catch the light just so. In normal viewing, you will never know they are there. And they are only on the clear, plastic coating that covers the pigments on the paper. (The paper makes four passes over the thermal head. Three passes put the color on, the fourth applies a protective coating of clear plastic.) The drawback to this printer is that it will not print larger than 8X10, and not quite a true 8X10 at that. Personally, that has never bothered me. I don't do a lot of 8X10's, and when I do, I put a border around the print, put it in a frame and it's fine. The quality of the pictures continually amazes everyone I show them to. I think this is a great photo printer.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Available
Review: I purchased this for myself as a Christmas present. The quality is better than ANY inkjet printer available. Several people who have seen the pictures want to know the name of the photo lab where I was able to get such high quality prints developed.

Positives: 1) Best picture available 2) quick results 3) able to make large pictures out of digital images 4) able to make multiple pictures on one page. I also use this in conjunction with an Epson Photo 1650 scanner to make duplicates of pictures. Excellent quality taking a 4x6 and making an 8x10 (scanner is important for that!)

Drawbacks: 1) Manual is poor 2) the "stamps" that are included to put on the picutures are ONLY available if you print from the memory card rather than print through a PC 3) Cost 4) NO paper other than glossy paper. Also, be prepared to use the 5 sheets of paper (plus a few more) to get used to this piece of equipment.

I have owned this for two months and have NO buyers remorse. Next year I plan to use this printer to make those loveable Christmas cards with the family picutre. (It is cheaper than the local store that makes them.)

If you have the money, you won't be disappointed.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Quality images at home
Review: I spent the big bucks when this machine first hit the market. The only problem is through Photoshop -- the ppd doesn't print the picture as you see it on screen. In Mac, I've tweaked through Photoshop, then import into IPhoto then print out for picture perfect images through the computer. Otherwise, dumping them back on to the digital camera media then inserting into the printer was the second best way to go.

Prints faster through IPhoto on Mac than through the digital cards.

For 8x10 size photos, still love my P400, even with the cost of film/paper and supplies. Even though prints can be ordered cheaper on some sites through the web, the quality of this printer HANDS DOWN beats anything I've ever gotten back from photo houses on or off line.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great photo printer for the commited digital photographer
Review: I've been printing 3.2 megapixel images on this and they're virtually indistinguishable from a "real" photo, even at the 7.64x10" full size (7.7 megapixel as advertised in the printer information) resolution. Don't believe the inkjet monkeys who tell you that an inkjet can produce comparable prints - they can't.

I chose this printer over the others available because of the size it is capable of printing, the better color-handling (for instance, the sony dye-subs tend to skew towards overly bright and red tones), and the recommendations of hard-core photo people.

Things you should know about this printer: when all is said and done, you can find this printer for under three hundred, and 100 prints are going to run you about a buck sixty five each (for a single 8x10) if you shop around. If you want smaller, cheaper photos, just print two or four up on a sheet, get 4 prints out of it on a sheet for about 40 cents each. Get out the scissors, and enjoy. Horray.

The printer has been having EXTREME difficulty printing directly from a smart media card - I don't like printing two-dollar blank pages - I've only had consistent success printing via USB connection to my 'puter, but it's a lot faster than printing from the smart media card anyway, so no real loss there - just something to keep in mind.

Reviewers have noted that the ink ribbon can be difficult to install. I don't really agree - olumpus' packaging makes this a straight forward procedure - it's just a little more work than the plug-in-the-inkjet-cartridge laziness we've all become accustomed to.

The printer is rather large and heavy, but you have to understand this was really initially intended as a professional's printer. It is solidly built, has a real feeling of quality construction. Just make sure if your living space is small that you've hollowed out a suitably sized location - think of it like a 16" monitor and you're working along the right lines size and space-wise.

For those with a mac (like me - running OS X 10.3), Olympus is seriously lagging on making a compatible driver. I wrote them and got a swift but lackluster response (no deadline for producing a driver). After printing several blank pages directly from my memory card and freaking out, I found the solution: do a google search for "Gimp-print," an open source & free driver bundle for the mac that runs under 10.3, and powers this printer just fine (so far - haven't tested with photoshop yet - only iPhoto, but I suspect it'll do just fine). It's free. Yay. Problem solved, no thanks to Olympus.

For those of you looking at this printer vs the P-440, the newer version of this printer, the differences are relatively minor (though the 440 does do TRUE 8x10 prints). They use the same paper and ink ribbons, so presumably olympus has a vested interest in continuing to make consumeables for this hardware.

Driver bitterness aside, the quality coming out of this printer had me jumping up & down once the photos started coming out. I'm really pleased, and the overall quality of the prints is enough to let me overlook the negatives, which have all been temporary.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Ultimate Photo Printer
Review: I've had this printer for a month.
It installed to a Win95/parallel machine and a winME/USB machine without issues. The output is outstanding. I've printed both scanned pictures and pictures taken with a digital camera and I have been nothing but happy with it.
I think that it prints relatively fast. I get a 20mb photo to print in about a minute.
If you have the money to invest in a high-quality, photo-dedicated printer, then you will not be disappointed with this one.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Will not work with PC card using Sony memory sticks
Review: If you think that you will be able to use the PC card slot for your Sony memory sticks, you're wrong. This printer will only recognize data files that are 100 dcf, not 100 msdcf, meaning memory stick dcf.
I have spent hours on the phone with Sony and Olympus technical support, and this is their conclusion. Do not buy a Sony camera if your sole consideration is the ability to use the Olympus PC card slot, with Sony memory stick, to view pictures thorugh the LCD screen, it won't work!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Professional Quality at a Great Price!
Review: If you want a printer that prints the closest to professional quality as you can get at an affordable price, this printer is for you. The only negative I have is the ink ribbon. I would rather use a cartridge, because it is simpler, but that aside, it prints excellent photos!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Using a SONY digital camera & Memory Stick with the P-400
Review: In December, after some research, I purchased an Olympus P-400 printer and a SONY digital camera (the Cybershot DSC-S85). I decided on the SONY because it had a number of better features. However, I knew about the compatability question of the memory stick being used with the Olympus P-400 printer. Olympus in its literature says it will work and SONY and others make PC card adapters to interface between the two. Contrary to what a previous reviewer said (Michael E. Brown, Sept. 13, 2001) the combination does work and, in fact it works wonderfully!! After purchasing a SONY PC Card Adapter and placing the MSA64A Memory Stick in it(and viewing it on the P-400 LCD screen!!), I was able to print out fantastic prints in minutes. Furthermore, my son-in-law who had called a photo shop and both manufacturers support lines was told that the combination would not work also!! It is a dynamite combination....it works great, with no gliches or drawbacks and I just wanted to clear up any misinformation that may be out there.


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