Help Required
 

Can anyone help me with a little advise. I really dont want to go through the saga of setting up laptop / computer screens, colour balancing etc I just want to find a Multifuncton type Printer / Scanner into which I can insert either a USB stick or an SD Card and get a reasonable print result at a size of 7x5 8x6 or max 10x8 in some sort of auto mode. I am using a Nikon D50 which at the moment is hooked up to a Canon MP492. I was assured that the auto function of the printer would do what I require. To be honest its rubbish. Even when using high grade canon paper both gloss and matt together with their inks every pic I have printed is flat lifeless but very high in colour. Have tried all the different settings without any success so I am now ready to try again with something else. Can anyone point me in the right direction.

if you can't be bothered to invest in taking the time to make your images the best they can be, you're not going to get the best out of them.

There aren't many images that can't be improved by some often quite simple & short efforts after you've pressed the shutter.

Are you happy assessing your shots on a tiny screen & then printing them out as is? if so you're quite unusual as most people prefer to load them onto a computer to view/assess & then process them.
You can process a shot in as little as 10-20 seconds.

Setting up your screen & printer does not have to be done every time you load some shots.

Any modern printer should be quite capable of printing reasonable prints, I suspect the reason your shots look rubbish is because you're not prepared to put a little bit of work in.

Nobody said photography was easy.

I'm sorry I can't offer you any advice on equipment which will print great shots straight from your camera as I've never done it & probably wouldn't consider doing it; the results would probably be rubbish.

Hello Cathus and thanks for the reply. Perhaps I should have explained in my original posting the reason I am thinking of going down the, let “the printer decided what is best option” is because I have run out of them. I have Paint Shop Pro 5 installed on my HP laptop. It is the only programme I have ever used for image manipulation. I have set the programmes gamma and balanced the screen however, the viewing of images changes each time the screen or indeed I move. I am not working in an area that has a constant and stable light source. The room can be either flooded in daylight or at night by a single ego friendly 100watt equivalent bulb, each of which have their own colour correction to consider so even basic colour editing and manipulation of brightness / contrast can be a problem as when the images are printed what you see is not what you get. I have spent the best part of a year trying to sort this problem so as you can see I have indeed put more than a little bit of work into my efforts but I am still no further forward now than I was when I started. I can’t keep on spending out for Canon paper and inks unless I am getting something back for my investment. Of course the auto print route that I am thinking of is not ideal but a reasonable print is better than no print at all. However I disagree with the comment “Nobody said photography was easy” Film photography is simple to understand its Digital photography that’s a pain in the ***, well for me anyway.

I don't really understand the problem.

I use a laptop for some image manipulation, & I use it in different conditions, yesterday I was using it in a football stadium outdoors, this afternoon I'm using it in a shed with no windows & subdued lighting & later I might use it in the living room with all the lights & TV on.

If your camera is set up Ok then all you would normally need to do to an image is a little boost of contrast & some sharpening & then it should be good to go to your printer. You should be able to manage this in most situations where you use a laptop.

It's not the brightness of the laptop screen which determines how your photo prints out, it's the relationship between the digital image & the printer.
You shouldn't need to colour correct your image depending on where your laptop is. Your image is static, you just need to discover an ideal state in which your laptop screen matches your printout, once you have that you can trust your laptop to reproduce it.

I'm struggling to understand the problem - what are you photographing that you need to colour correct & why aren't you using the camera to do this, if it's required at all?

Film photography is only simpler because the photographer generally is removed from the development & printing process, with digital you do all the processes, they're both difficult if you don't understand the techniques required.

a nice and simple way ( if you don't want to spend money on colour callibration etc ) is to print a test page something like this
[url]http://www.photoanswers.co.uk/upload/4366/TEST%20PRINT.jpeg[/url] ( right click save picture as )
print the picture without adjusting anything hopefully the print should look right if not adjust the printer settings to make the print look right on the printed sheet ie if the print is too light, dark or saturated
once the print looks like it should adjust your monitor / laptop to look as close to the print as you can
hopefully when you have finished whatever you see on the monitor should be the same on paper or as close as you can get

not a perfect way but...

Thanks for the information Cosmicma. I will give it a try just as soon as I can. Thanks again.