The Canon Selphy CP760 - High Quality Dye Sublimation Photo Prints
Written: May 25 '09 (Updated Jun 05 '09)
Product Rating:
Ease of Use:
Paper Handling:
Pros: Convenience, good prints, low street price if you shop around, small size
Cons: Cost per print (28 cents), long printing path (about 17"), no battery option
The Bottom Line: A small, portable, convenient, dedicated photo printer that offers photo quality prints at acceptable speeds and reasasonable printing costs.
nc10's Full Review: Canon CP760 Thermal Photo Printer
The Canon Selphy CP760 is an inexpensive compact photo printer ($99), the base model in in Canon's line of dedicated photo printers. The Selphy CP760 is NOT an inkjet printer, rather a dye sublimation printer. Dye sublimation technology allows printer manufacturers to build a smaller printer than what they might be able to with inkjet technology, with equal or better print quality. "As purchased”, the Selphy is capable of printing only 4X6 photos. Cassettes/photopaper packages for smaller prints (cards), labels, and photo prints up to 4 X 8" in size are also available. I expect most people use this printer in "standalone" mode, printing directly from a digital camera connected to the printer or flash card inserted into the printer, but you can print images from a computer also. If you are considering purchasing a standalone compact photo printer, the Canon Selphy CP760 is an attractive option, its performs well and the currently low (May 2009) street price of $60 to $80 at reputable web stores (Amazon, JR.com, Crutchfield.com, etc) is particularly attractive. Even at list price, it is one of the cheapest compact photo printers available. The operating cost of the Selphy CP760 is competitive to most other compact photo prints, at 28 cents per 4X6 print if you buy the most economical ink/paper package. This is about twice what it costs to have photo's printed online. Print speeds are reasonable, at a little over 1 minute per 4X6 photo.
Key features and spec's for this printer include:
- Dye Sublimation printing, - 8" wide X 3.3" high X 5.6" high, though more space is needed when printing to allow photo paper to feed into the front of the printer and out the back. - weighs 2.1 lbs - Ink and paper for 5 prints are included. Additional ink and paper costs $30 for a pack that includes "ink" and photo paper for 108 prints. - Slots for compact flash, SD (and SDHC), and memory stick cards. If you want to use xD cards, you'll need an adapter. - 2.5" TFT Display
Not included is an optional bluetooth adapter for printing from via bluetooth. I tried using a couple bluetooth adapters I have around, and tried to print from Motorola Razr, but couldn't get it to work (apparently you need the Canon brand bluetooth adapter). This printer requires 110V power to run, via the included power cable/block. No battery option is available.
Setup
Being the entry level model, you wouldn’t expect many extras, and you’d be right. In the box is the printer itself, a power adapter (a power block with a cord on each end, one to the printer and one to the outlet), and a starter ink/paper pack for printing five 4 X 6 prints. You’ll also get a software cd with drivers for vista and Mac OS, and a pretty good 30 page manual. The ink cassette looks like a sheet of film stretched between two rollers, nothing like an inkjet cartridges. Setup is easy…. -open the door on the right side of the printer to insert the ink cassette. -put photo paper in the tray, and then insert the paper try into the slot on the front of the printer. - Plug in the printer, turn it one, and put a sd card into the card slot (or connect your camera to the printer with a USB cable).
Printing
There are three ways to print from the Selphy CP760 “out of the box”, and a fourth option if you buy the optional bluetooth adapter. The 3 options I've tried are:
- From a flash card inserted in one of the printer’s flash card slots - From any PictBridge or Canon Direct Print capable digital camera connected to the printer’s USB port. Most digital cameras are PictBridge capable and come with a USB cable for connecting the camera to a computer or printer. I’ve printed pictures from a Samsung L77 digital camera and a Canon A620 digital camera with no problems. - From a computer connected to the printer.
If you buy the optional Canon Bluetooth adapter, you can also print via the Bluetooth connection from Bluetooth capable camera phones. Most of my printing has been from SD cards. The Selphy works with standard and high capacity (SDHC) flash cards. Once you insert your flash card into the printers memory slot, the last picture taken shows up on the Selphy’s 2.5” LCD display. Scrolling through the pictures can be accomplished quickly by using the left and right arrow keys on top of the printer. It takes the Selphy about one second to display images from an SD card ( the file size of my images are typically 1-2 mb).
The Sephy CP 760 offers only limited options for optimizing prints. These options include:
- Printing borderless prints (or not)…. To make borderless prints that fill the complete 4X6” printing area, the Selphy crops off part of the edge of your image on all 4 sides to get an image with an aspect ratio that matches your photo paper. If you’ve not centered your image well, you might loose an important part of your image, say the top of someone’s head if it was close to the top of your shot. To make bordered prints, the Selphy fit’s the image taken completely onto the photo paper, and depending on the aspect ratio of the image you took, the borders on the side of the image might be a little different size from the borders on top. However, you do get your complete image with bordered prints.
- Red Eye Reduction
- Color enhancement … The Selphy does offer a few tweaks for enhancing the color of your images. Settings include: Off - No change to the original image Vivid - Contrast and color depth are enhanced, to my eye, this setting usually provides the best pictures, with bright colors and the best contrast Positive Film - Canon says this setting produces intense, yet natural looking colors. Neutral - Suppressed contrast and color Sepia and B/W settings work as you might expect based on their name.
- Page Layout - allows you to print up to 1, 2, 4 or 8 copies of a single image on one print
Canon’s Selphy glossy photo paper looks like other photo paper, except that there is a ½” wide strip on the left and right side. After printing, these microperfortated strips are removed, and the perforated edge is noticeable, but only barely with close inspection. Printing from a flash card requires the following steps:
1. Load photo paper into the tray 2. Insert the tray into the front of the printer 3.Insert your flash card, then scroll through the images on the printer’s display to select the image you want to print. 4. Check the picture settings (ie border or borderless, vivid color, etc) 5. Push the print button
Once the print button is pushed one sheet of photo paper is pulled into the front of the printer, and then out the back. The paper passes through the printer 4 times, with the first 3 passes the Selphy lays down a color, putting down shades of yellow, then red, then blue, and with a fourth pass the printer puts a quick drying protective layer on top of the print. After the fourth pass, you can pick up and handle the print up immediately. Printing from a flash card takes about 1 minute and 20 seconds, while printing from a camera or computer takes about 1 minute. Images from the printer appear truly photo quality to me, they can be viewed from any angle, colors are accurate, and the level of detail is good, even when I check with a magnifying glass. Some reviewers have mentioned that blacks aren't as black as you might get from an inkjet printer with a dedicated black ink cartridge, but I don't see much, if any, difference. The prints are nearly water proof, running a small stream of water over an image has no effect on it.
Size and Controls
This printer is small and light enough (- 8"X 3.3" X 5.6", 2.1 lbs ) to travel easily. If you pull out the small paper tray (7.5” X 4.5” X 0.5”) and close the printer’s cover, it will fit easily into a large brief case or carry on bag. You’ll need to take the power cord with you, as this printer can’t be powered by battery. The paper tray has a hinged cover, making it easy to carry along. All the controls are on the top of the printer, and the controls are clearly marked and intuitive in practice. The LCD display is ok, but not really good enough if you’re trying to choose between two similar quality images, the display's colors wash out when viewed off angle.
In use, the printer takes up more space than you might expect. You'll need to leave about 6" open in front of and behind the printer to allow the the paper to feed back and forth. If have a standard size desktop PC, the printer would fit nicely on top of the tower.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 50 Operating System: Windows and Macintosh
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