Never Doing Inkjet Again
By Jordan
Rated 5 out of 5
Date: 2025-04-08
As a context, I have been using an 8-ink 13x19 photo printer with Macs; I do some semipro work, but printing I do mostly for myself. The printer's head finally could not be cleaned anymore, and I got tired of paying for ink just to keep the head moist and of all the fuss with cleaning the head, so I gave this cheapo Dye-Sub a try, seeing that I mostly print 4x6s, only infrequently 8x12 or larger.
I should have made the switch years ago.
The color is fantastic. Not as fantastic as the 8-ink inkjet, of course, if you are picky about it, but I do not see any serious limitations in gamut or gradation, I do not see any banding, and I am completely satisfied with the output. The printer is fully capable of pro-quality prints, nice solid blacks, vibrant primaries, great gradation. Silvers look like silver; skin tone is skin tone. Flowers look like real flowers, not plastic. The blue is a bit too purple for me, but that happened with the 8-ink, too. I didn't bother playing with the color adjustments or color profiles; it was fine out of the box with some gamma adjustment (see below). The driver works well as soon as it is installed. No observable alignment issues, although the paper has to physically go in and out of the printer a few times, one color per pass.
Side-by-side with old prints from the 8-ink inkjet comes down to preference, rather than one being obviously superior to the other. If you are one of those people who demand that your prints look exactly as what's on your 100%-gamut Monitor, 1) this isn't the printer for you, but 2) you may be able to get pretty close with a lot of fiddling with color profiles--it's just that it ain't perfect out of the box. I don't really care; I just adjust the image and adjust my expectations to compensate for the deviation.
Very, super pleased. If I start to do more larger-format printing, I will consider their larger-format products.
Some minor complaints:
- The fact that it doesn't come with a starter pack of paper and ink is annoying... but it also makes it easy to return the printer if you don't like it. The ink cartridge is super easy to load, but the arrow is hard to see, and you have to be careful not to touch/damage the film, which is a bit too exposed. THe paper can be inserted into the tray without removing the tray. I read somewhere that the paper is in packs of 5 or something; not true, the whole pack comes in one bag.
- The printer driver defaults to gamma of 1.0, and needs to be changed to 1.5 ~ 2.0, depending on the application you are using; yes, different gamma for each app in my case. Easily changed and saved in the Print dialogue. The first few prints you try will look awful, but the oversaturated look does tell you what range the printer is capable of.
- The driver/printer combo has a bit more sharpening than I would like, so there is a little bit of an artifact if, for instance, you have a black box around a colored rectangle or super skinny fonts. Not at all a problem with photos, even of black-and-color objects; only with Illustrator files and such. Sharpening can be reduced, but it can't be turned off.
- The paper sticks out the back (eek!) with each pass, so you need to have about 5 of clear space behind the printer. Be sure to move the power cords out of the way.
- The printer seems to be able to talk to the Mac only with USB; WiFi is only for the phone app, which I haven't tried, it seems. I had some trouble with Printer Sharing on MacOS 14, so I hooked up the printer to the 10.14.6 machine, which I use as a server anyway.
- There are some printer settings that I don't quite understand, and can't tell what exact difference they make in the print quality. The manual and HiTi web site say nothing, and there are very few reviews or discussions of this printer online.
- The gloss is about 3/4 gloss... glossier than semigloss inkjet printer, not as glossy as glossy inkjet printer. I haven't tried the matte setting.
- The paper is a bit thinner than I'm used to, but stiff enough to be postcards.
- Typical of Dye-Subs and many printing methods, the more layers of color you have on a given spot, the thicker the ink seems. In other words, the photo is not completely smooth... but this only makes a difference on how it reflects light at a super acute angle, and you can't feel it with touch.
These are minor quibbles. I love it. A lot.
