This is such a late post. I don't know if Jen will read this or not. I, along with others, have been very disappointed with Consumer Reports recommendations. Most reviewers, CNET and Consumer Reports included, are bestowed, let us say "favors", instead of monetary rewards, for favorable reviews. CNET authors and editors, in the past, have answered me directly when I have had a critisism, or question, or disagreement with their review. CNET reviewers let you know who they are, they haven't hid under the name CNET. Also, I have found that CNET reviews are very thorough and tailored to each item and each product they review. CNET is not afraid to enter obscure companies and their products into their reviews. The truth is, I bought one the first five disk DVD changer/player's on CNet's recommendation, and low and behold one of the generous and knowledgeable experts contributing to this forum, who was the owner of an electronics shop in Michigan, had the same model, thought it was terrific and believed there was nothing better in its category. Something was in the player that wasn't supposed to be, and he walked me through getting it out. That player must be at least five to six years old now, and it is humming along perfectly, with a gorgeous picture and all the optical, componet, composite, svideo, hdtv hookups imaginable. It was a product before its time. Strange that other reviewers didn't have it at the top of their list. I had never heard of ABS or the Falcon or Polywell or even the ACER Travelmate before I started to read CNET. Back to photography, one other opinion I highly, highly recommend is Phillip Greenspun, and his brain child Photo.NET. He is a highly respected Harvard/MIT professor and computer whiz. Five years ago it was between his and CNET's endorsement of Canon that made me skeptically give Canon a try. Through the past years, companies are catching up to Canon. On photo.net, there are detailed comparisons of photos from several brands of cameras in the same category. As I post this, Canon may have become a leader of nothing more than the past. For this thread's sake ... such as one of the competing Olympuses' and Canons'. If anyone is interested in photography, Photo.Net and Eric Greenspun's personal pages are more than worthwhile to investigate. His and his colleague's tips and tricks for taking good pictures are invaluable. I hope this is a satisfactory answer to your question. marf Here is a link that might be useful: Camera Comparison's on Photo.Net

There are lots of decent photo printers out there. Which one you pick depends in part on how much you want to spend and in part on how large your DIL will want to print. If she's doing photo shoots with clients, my guess is that she'll want to have the option to print big. I have this one, and can recommend it highly. It prints up to 13 x 19". Because of this, the printer itself takes up a lot of room. It wouldn't do for a small desk. The Canon line of photo printers has a good reputation. You might do an Amazon search and check out the different models and reviews. Epson has a good rep, too, but I don't recommend it because of so many reports of ink clogs if the printer isn't used often enough. I had an HP photo printer for years and was happy with it, but I don't know anything about their current line. One possibility is that your DIL might want to print her own occasionally, and for casual photos, but send the pro images out. That's what I did when I was exhibiting, uploading my image files to Mpix.com. They do beautiful work. You sound like a good mother-in-law!

Last August I moved from Ohio to Massachusetts. Jan & I planned on taking about 3 weeks for the trip so we could get in some sightseeing photo time on the way. For the trip I packed my computer tower, 3 DSLR's and about 8 lenses plus an assortment of other odds & end. The remainder of my equipment was packed and shipped with an anticipated delivery date of 4 to 6 week. For my photo business I usually deliver the end item in digital format on a memory card or I have prints made through Adorama but I did need a new monitor for my computer so about a day after arriving in Massachusetts Jan and I went to Staples and got a nice flat screen(I had been using one of the old desktop boat anchors..LOL). Jan is just a beginner at photography and she said she wanter to get a photo printer for her computer, so we looked around to see what our options were. One a display in the isle they had the Kodak ESP 7250 All-in-one on sale. Normal list for the wireless model $129 and the hard wire model $99 less 25% for the next 2 days. I didn't know a thing about Kodak printers but in my mind it had three things going for it. 1.It was the cheapest printer in the store, 2. It is advertised at using the cheapest ink, 3. Would Kodak put their name on a photo printer that doesn't do a descent job of printing photos? When I got it home rather than mess with a detailed Wifi setup I just plugged in a USB cable from the printer to my router. Inserted the setup disc and sat back. Within moments I was watching a setup video that said it was all set up and went on to explain the features. Two paper trays. The top tray will handle up to 5x7 photo paper or business envenlopes and the bottom tray handles up to 8.5x11 legal size bond or photo paper. When your printing photos it will ask you which size you want and select the paper automatically. I had a pack of 8x10 generic photo paper so I loaded a sheet, went to my pictures and pulled up a photo then hit print. A couple clicks as it loaded the paper then it went silent. "What is wrong" I thought? About 10 to 15 seconds later I got my answer. nothing wrong, it just prints so quiet you can't hear it running till the finished print pops out. I then checked the print, and to say I was not happy would be an understatement. I can only eplain it in one word...trash. The print had way too much ink, was still wet and actually smeared when I touched it then the thought hit me, those are new ink catridges and usually you have to run a test print to set up the print heads. I checked the book, and sure enough, there is an easy test print to run, but I found something even more interesting. You only need to run the test print if you use non-Kodak photo paper. So here is the catch I thought. All genuine Kodak photopaper has a bar code printed on the back of the paper that tells the printers processor how to set the print head for that piece of paper. This means you can easily switch from gloss to semi-gloss or matt without changing the setup, but how much does genuine Kodak paper cost? To my complete surprise, while Kodak Paper is a bit high in Staples, at WalMart it is the same or cheaper than HP photo paper. When I began running prints on genuine Kodak paper I could not believe my eyes. The prints look better than those that we had printed at Walmarts 1hr service. To get a good test of the prints I selected 6 photos and put them on a memory card, then I printed them on this machine. I then took the memory card to 4 different 1hr photo service places around town and had them printed again, being careful to mark the back of the photos to know where they were printed. I then took all the photos to the photoclub meeting at our senior center and spread them on a table and asked everyone to select which they thought looked the best. Over 90% of the people who participated selected the prints from this printer. The printer also has built in memory card readers so it can be used as a stand alone printer, and the Wifi model will work directly from Ipods & Cell phones. Would I recommend this printer? Absolutely YES. in fact since I bought this one over half the people in our photo club have also bought one. I primarily use 4x6 paper, which is $7.00 per 100sheet for brilliant glossy white at Walmart. I have not priced the ink at Walmart but at Staples the ink is $19.89 for the color and $9.98 for the Black, but staples also gives a $2 rebate for any used cartridge you turn in. (Up to 10 empties per month). I just found a website this morning for cheaper ink cartridges for almost all printers. Thru the site I can get color cartidges for this printer for $9.98 www.inkjetSuperstore.com

Your best bet is to take those negatives into a darkroom, the R2400 is your second best bet. If you don't have darkroom equipment, people are just about giving it away these days. I bought three enlarging lenses in the last four months. Each lens new would have cost over $250.00 and I didn't pay more than $20.00 for any one of them. My reason for the darkroom suggestion is this: Photography has always been somewhat paradoxical in its position in the art world. A silver print (B&W) made in the darkroom and properly processed has the longest life expectancy of any known art media -- a stainless steel sculpture might compete. At the same time color photographs hold the position on the opposite end of that scale. It wasn't until the 1970s that color photographs were even tolerated in art museums (Sarkowski bought some Eggleston prints for MOMA). The right inkjet materials are an improvement over old chemical based color, but in comparison to darkroom silver prints inkjet prints are still ephemeral. A B&W print from the R2400 is still made with inks that will fade. Darkroom not a reasonable option, then the R2400 makes really superb B&W prints. I use that printer. I have a friend who just bought the newest Canon (also designed to do B&W) and she is raving about it, so based on her recommendation I'd endorse that option as well. P.S. it is possible to beat a decent B&W print from a "color designed" printer. There are three ways to go. One: Give up on expecting neutral B&W and add a color tint to the image; make a brown and white print and use the color inks. Be happy. Two: Get a custom profile for the printer and software that will allow you to edit that profile (not necessarily cheap) and then painstakingly adjust the profile (could require expert help). Three: There are companies (see link below) that make special inks. Lyson's quad black inks make really nice B&W prints. The problem is you have to take the color inks out of the printer and it becomes a B&W only printer. That could be an option however -- buy a used printer like an Epson 1280 and dedicate it to B&W only. This would cost less than the new R2400. Joe Here is a link that might be useful: Lyson quad blacks