Photo Lab quality prints from home!

I had done a lot of research on the Sony digital photo printer and some others online and decided to go with the Sony DPP-SV55. I was excited to try it out because the reviews online raved about it but I was totally blown away when I saw the quality of the first few prints I made. The glossy finish dye sublimation richness sharp color and 4x6 borderless prints make them indistinguishable from prints you get from a Photo Lab. We have young kids and do a lot of scrapbooking so the glossy finish images were essential since ink jet images will fade after only two years.

Setup was very easy. In a matter of 10 minutes I was plugged in and making prints. The paper packs make the process even easier because each pack comes with the film cartridge to print all the sheets from the pack. Loading the paper and cartridges is also very easy. The prints come out fast and you don't have to wait for them to dry.

The software setup is easy one quick installation from the included CD. It basically installs the print drivers for the printer. Once the printer is connected with a USB cable (not included) I was immediately able to print directly from the imaging software that came with my Sony D50 Cybershot camera. It also has a built in Creative Print lab program but you have to hook up the printer to a TV to view and work with it. But the images are nice and you can do some cool things like print photo greeting cards and calendars.

There was no graininess in the prints at all and the images came from my above mentioned camera (2.1 megapixels). All of the prints we have made turned out wonderful.

I suppose I should mention a couple of cons but their really not a big deal: The unit does not come with a USB cable for some reason even though it is required to print from a PC (It does include the video cable). Second some of the colors on our prints (particularily reds) we a little off and overly bright but all-in-all we are very thrilled with the prints it makes.More detail ...

Dye-sub printing at home!

You know you've got quality whenever you buy a Sony product. The DPP-EX7 photo printer is no exception. The sample photo this printer comes with will absolutely floor you. I have yet to produce a picture as beautiful as the sample but I'm hardly the expert photographer. I think the trick to stellar prints is stellar photos. I take most of my digital pictures at a low setting (best for email and such) but the prints still come out great. No grain no pixelation nothing that looks even remotely like a home photo printer picture. Even pictures taken at 640x480 come out crisp sharp and beautiful.

The printer is a little noisier than I expected but it's nothing unbearable. The print-time is also not bad. 1.5-2 minutes really feels like nothing mostly because I don't just stand there waiting for the photo to print. It's always a good idea to multitask anyway.

The editing features are nice (basic ones such as cropping lighting saturation etc.) as are the creative print options (calendars cards stickers etc. - all from the LCD screen on the printer). I'm definitely a novice though so these options may not be enough for professional photographers or people with lots of PhotoShop experience.

My only "complaint" would be that the reds in the prints come out REALLY pink sometimes like the bright pink in drugstore lipstick... Ask them to wear neutral shades of lipstick. And for those gals with naturally red/pink lips you're out of luck! You will always look like you're wearing [$$$] lipstick.

If cost is an issue I'd suggest the DPP-SV77 which costs about half of the EX7. The only difference is that the LCD is a teeny bit smaller and the unit is grayish/silver. You'll be happy with either choice especially if you're looking for a stand-alone printer that produces photo lab-quality results. If you have a digital camera that uses memory stick media you'll be even happier.More detail ...

Totally Satisfactory

If you're buying this printer be sure to buy ink and paper too!

This was a perfect gift for my mom a recent grandma who loves taking tons of snaps with her digital camera. She had been spending a lot of time+money on going to the grocery store to have digital photos printed out as she still likes the physical aspect of keeping albums of printed photos. When she opened the girft she was apprehensive about it being beyond her level of techno-ability but within 5 minutes she was competently printing her own photos.

The only irritation is that I unthinkingly bought the recommended package from amazon without looking too closely and ended up with one pack of photo paper that doesn't fit the machine. Do buy ink and paper but be careful it's the right size.



More detail ...

Best All-Around Color Among Portable Dye-Sub Printers

Aside from Sony many other brands make portable dye-sublimation printers these days which makes the choice tougher. I did not consider purchasing the Dell HP Kodak or Olympus ones because they are simply too big - I wanted one that I can comfortably bring with me on my travels so I can print my own postcards to send home.



I tried out the Canon CP-400 (form factor even smaller than the Sony DPP-FP30) in the store and found that the print-outs (direct from my camera not touched up by computer) have a blue cast to them and in a side-by-side comparison the Sony print-outs (of the same pictures) have much prettier colors.



And comparing to Sony's own older model DPP-SV77 which I have at home: The DPP-SV77 is bigger complete with touchscreen LCD and Memory Stick/PC Card slots built-in creativety functions such as printing calendars and has a higher resolution of 403 dpi (the DPP-FP30 reviewed here like the Canon models only has 300 dpi). BUT the little DPP-FP30 actually prints photos with much truer color while the big brother DPP-SV77 tends to exagerate reds and greens and over-sharpen any edges. The lower resolution in the DPP-FP30 is not noticeable at all unless I print fine text to it from a computer which is not this printer's intended purpose anyway.



While I am very happy with the Sony DPP-FP30 I WISH IT COULD HAVE HAD (Sony are you listening):



- A battery option so it's not necessary to carry the AC adapter or to be tethered to a power source when printing.



- A button to toggle between bordered (no cropping) and borderless (cropped).



- More creativety functions in the included software.



- Without increasing the overall size by too much add multi-type card reader slots and a small color LCD to choose pictures (better yet ability to trim/crop them before printing). This would also eliminate the requirement that the digital camera must be PicBridge compatible.



The other obvious shortcomings common to all portable dye-sub printers are that 1) paper/cartridge are prioritery and on the expensive side and 2) print size is limited to a maximum of 4x6 (4x8 in some cases). These I accept for now because I want the quality and durability of dye-sub prints (as opposed to inkjet prints). Hopefully these will improve with time.



As no other printer today has everything I hope for (see above) I am still giving the Sony DPP-FP30 5 stars for its excellent quality prints.More detail ...

First impressions for the Sony DPP-EX50

One of the first things I noticed upon opening up and unpacking the box was that Sony does NOT include any ink (ribbon) or paper for this printer in the box. Not even one sheet. So to avoid disappointment about not being able to immediately start using the printer make sure you buy one of the ink/paper packages too.

The included software is "so-so". Sony's included photo application is rough and I fell into fatal errors with it quite easily. Their photo application works directly with the printer bypassing Window's printer drivers which brings me to my next software comment.

It also includes a printer driver for Windows that allows other applications presumably for photos to print using the DPP-EX50. However while it worked it had a little annoying problem where the image was slightly off centered. This results in "borderless" prints actually getting a thin white border on the bottom and right sides. I found no way around this bug including trying to manual re-size the image slightly larger and trying to move it slightly down/right.

While the DPP-EX50 prints absolutely wonderful pictures I am patiently waiting for Sony to release some software fixes.More detail ...

Excellent Printer

This printer is wonderful and the picture quality is superb and they are so clear. I have a Cybershot T-1 camera and the combination is nice. The printer speed was quick too! I couldn't believe how easy it was to connect the printer to the TV and view the pictures that I had stored on my camera and edit the pictures using a remote control. I would recommend this printer because of the easy setup quick printing speed and excellent quality of the pictures.More detail ...