Customer Reviews

Canon SELPHY CP760 Compact Photo Printer (2565B001)

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I'm still using HP Photosmart A618 to print 5 x 7 & some 4 x 6 photos. I'll not compare the Inkjet technology with Dye-sublimation because the dye-sub is clearly better in image quality even with 300dpi(dye-sub) vs 600dpi(inkjet). but I'll write about what I liked & what I didn't like using Canon brand printer. btw, I print from the PC (fix the exposure, remove noise..etc photos using Lightroom or any other software) and then I use the official software to print.

What I liked:

- The photo is super clear and the printer produces amazing quality (outstanding). you will never be disappointed. I assure you that.
- The printer is fast enough.
- The paper quality is very good and you will not be worried about papers & ink (36 ink cartridge size will print 36 photos, no less no more).


What I didn't like:

- The paper size isn't perfect 4 x 6 (101.6 x 152.4). It's smaller (100mm x 148mm) in Canon and maybe more smaller than that.

I compared the HP 4 x 6 paper with Canon 4 x 6 paper and the HP was bigger by 2-3mm in width and height. I believe that HP produces a better size of 4 x 6 because when I resize any photo to 4 X 6 using any software I get (101.6 x 152.4) which means 1800x1200 ,resolution 300dpi. But When I print this photo size using Canon, the printer will crop automatically 2-5mm from width and height (Canon paper has 2 tabs at the right and left sides which can be removed after you print the photo). The printer will print at least 3mm in the tab area and will crop 2-4mm from the height.

Now if I don't want to lose any part of the photo, I should resize all the photos I have to 1748x1181 (100mm x 148mm). To do this, I must disable the constrain aspect ratio. but this will make my photo worse (a square looks like rectangle).


To override this problem, I must not disable the constrain aspect ratio but I need to make the height exactly 100mm. that's mean I'll sacrifice some (mm) in the both sides of width (if the Canon paper really 100mm height).


- The default colors settings aren't correct (for me the orange color was warm yellow and the warm yellow in the reality was almost green!!). what you see in the PC screen is different than the printed photo. I printed 8 pictures to find the correct settings for me. Raised the contrast, exposure and saturation a little and not equally. still, the final result not perfect but very good. (the colors, contrast and other settings in my monitor is correctly adjusted. mostly as I can see by my eyes).


Final words:

Before you buy any Canon dye-sub printer, take a look in Epson (PM260 or PM280) or the Fuji (QS-70 or QS-7). Check the actual paper size to make sure you get the 99% of the frame in the final result from the printer. You will need to take a photo to any shop and print it by the models you are thinking of. Make sure to set the resolution at 300dpi and the paper size of 4 x 6. Compare the results and choose what you like then.

This is my 4th "CP" Printer from Canon. I don't know why I keep upgrading because I don't need to. This one is the fastest "CP" Printer yet. I have 2 complaints...

1. They took away the retractable usb cord.
2. No battery support.

Luckily I still have my CP-710 for portability. I use the CP-760 for my desktop machine. I love the new speed, the larger display screen and design of the 760. It still produces great prints so I would rate this printer from a scale of 1 to 10 an 8.5 because of the 2 reasons I mentioned earlier.

Tim of...
Tim Farris photographer
tfarrisphotography.com

This is my first portable photo printer and I really love it. Allows me to print photos for my friends anytime. I usually use it with my macbook pro via iphoto. I normally have to put the brightness setting to highest in iphoto to get the same exposure as on my computer screen. Prints are sharp and colors are saturated with natural-looking skin tones. Really photo lab quality. Only thing I think that would make this better is if it also ran on batteries which would make it a really print-anywhere-anytime machine. Anyway, high marks for this little printer!

I have fallen in love four times in my life. The first was a heartbreaker in college. The second, I married. The third was a Weber Q grill. And this printer was the fourth.

Now, a printer is not the kind of thing one should fall in love with. It's stupid. It's a pile of plastic and metal enclosed in a box. And while it is a very nice box, a box it is none-the-less.

But I am in love. Let me count the ways.

(1) It does what it says: it prints beautiful color photos in about a minute. The printer uses a process called dye sublimation in which a solid ink that is spread on a thin plastic sheet is transferred to the photo paper in a four step process. In the first three steps, different color inks are deposited on top of each other to create all the other colors of the spectrum. In the last step, a clear coating is applied that protects the print from minor scratches and fingerprints. (BTW, don't let the 300dpi resolution put you off. The photos look every bit as good as the "60 million by 24 million dots per blah, blah, blah of the ink jet printers. Evidently, dots per inch are not all the same.)

(2) It is simple to use. You take your picture. You insert your memory card into the front of the printer (it accepts just about every common memory card). You select your photo from the small display built in to the printer and press the print button. One minute later, your print is ready to handle and share. Want to print all the photos on the memory card? Simply select the "print all" command and it will print all the photos. No laptop or PC needed.

(3) It is cost effective - take 1. When you buy the special paper for the printer, the solid ink cartridge(s) come with the paper. You always get enough ink for the amount of paper that you buy so you don't waste ink. Unlike inkjet printers, you don't waste ink cleaning nozzles or have ruined pictures because of a clogged inkjet. At the normal price, prints come out to about 30¢a print. While this is more expensive than sending your prints to Costco, you have the benefit of not having to drive to Costco. With gas at $3 a gallon, you have to factor that in. I have actually bought paper and ink in a 108 print box from Best Buy that was on sale for about $14. This brought the cost down to about 12¢ a print. Needless to say, I bought eight boxes. The paper is widely available from all the big box digital camera retailers and from specialty camera shops.

(4) It is cost effective - take 2. The prints come in only one size, 4x6. (Actually, the print is really 100mm by 148mm. This works out to a slightly smaller 3.94 x 5.83 inch print.) If you want larger or smaller prints, then this is not the printer for you. However, the upside is that you only have to carry only one type of ink cartridge and one type of paper. If the printer had to handle more sizes of prints, the printer, paper and ink would be more expensive.

(5) The pictures are durable and smudge proof. Unlike inkjet printers, the photo won't run if water spills on it. The dye sublimation ink is wax based and does not dissolve in water. Kept out of the sun, the photos should last your lifetime and into your kids lifetime. Will it last forever? No. For that, you need to shoot in black and white on film. Frankly, this printer is not for archival purposes. It is intended to print pictures that you can enjoy and share immediately. Kind of like the concept behind the Polaroid camera.

(6) It is made by Canon. Canon has been making quality photo equipment for generations and this printer is no exception. Service centers are nearly everywhere in the USA.

(7) It is portable. I can store two of these printers - with all power cables and a box of paper - in a large laptop computer case. I have taken them to a school banquet and printed photos of all the guests for a take home souvenir. Using two printers, two cameras, and a small pile of memory cards, my wife and I printed over two hundred take home keepsakes to remember the event with in under three hours. There's even a port for plugging in a 24 volt battery supply, though I haven't tried it yet.

(8) It is reliable. The paper loads in a tray that is inserted into the front of the printer. The ink cartridge is loaded into the side of the printer. The paper feeds from the tray and passes in a straight line to the back of the printer. The paper shuttles back and forth while the layers of ink and protective coating is applied to the paper. That's it. In many other printers, including full size ones, the paper has to feed through several sets of rollers that bend the paper through a convoluted paper path. In my experience, the more convoluted the path, the greater the probability that the paper will jam in the machine because of a tolerance or timing problem. The more convoluted the path, the more complicated the mechanism has to be and the less reliable the printer becomes. The straighter the path, the more reliable. So far, in over four hundred prints printed on two of these printers, I have not had a single jam or lost a photo because of the printer. (Though I can't say I haven't lost a picture because of the crappy photographer. ')

(9) It is flexible. Okay, so your photographic skills aren't the best or you don't have a top shelf SLR. There is a limited amount of adjustability built right into the printer. Want the colors to "POP"? Choose the "vivid" selection and the color saturation is amped up a bit. Want your prints to look "old timey"? Select sepia tone. Red eye a problem? Automatically fixed. While the built-in software isn't going to replace Photoshop, it wasn't meant to. Photoshop is for being creative. This printer is for fixing minor photographic glitches or for adding a little fun to the prints that you can share right away. You can even adjust contrast and color settings if you're the fussy sort. Want more? The included CD has a photo editor and more advanced features to play with your images that you can run on a laptop if you're into that kind of thing. As far as I'm concerned, that's not why I got this printer for.

(10) Which brings me to why I've fallen in love. To me, photos are meant to share memories. When I was little, this meant gathering around the photo album and reminiscing about times gone by. What this printer does is allow you to remember the good times that you've shared TODAY! Before you leave the party, picnic, gathering, or meeting, you can share a photo that can be stuck to the fridge, posted on the board, or stuck in the briefcase. So instead of waiting weeks or years to remember the good times, you can share them now to be remembered tomorrow. Photography was invented to record moments in time. If you want or need your photos to be perfect reproductions of reality, then this is the wrong printer for you. If you want to share the moments of your life, then get one of these and start sharing.

As I'm writing this, Canon has come out with a newer model with some additional features over the Selphy CP760. This means that this model is being discounted rather aggressively. This makes a good deal almost too good to pass up. I ended up buying four more to give to my friends and family.

I was asked (told) to do photos at our school's Hallowe'en party fundraiser, and was told print out would be over a B&W laser printer or color printer through a computer

No WAY . . .

I am after all a published photographer and saw the results of laser printing, even color, on plain paper.

NO way . . .

So I got this CANON SELPHY CP760 and two boxes of 108 sheets of postcard paper (4x6) with enough color printing roll inside to cover those sheets.

Works like a charm. Beats ANY ink jet out there. While your ink jet is wasting ink cleaning its nozzles, this thing is floating out perfect photos every time, no problem, no jamming.

Case closed.

You can choose an on board color optimizing feature which might make some colors a little too hot, or deep, or vibrant, than real life, but it looks great. And fleshtones are always true to the subject. That's what counts.

It is amazing how much photo lab software can be accessed on board, as well as directly on your DSLR. No need for a computer, ever, anywhere.

Just puts out great prints - excellent PHOTO QUALITY!

I wish I could figure out a way to attach my flashdrive, but just plugging in the SD memory card (EVEN 4 gig SDHC like the Sandisk 4GB EXTREME III SDHC SD Card (SDSDX3-4096, Static Pack)) is great.

AND you do not have to turn it off to unplug the SD card and keep on shooting. Apparently a little bit of roll might get wasted from turning off and on, but you do not have to turn it off just to pull out your SD card.

This thing is great, never fails, has PLENTY of paper and ink in the Canon KP-108IP Color Ink/Paper Set pack and never any spots or waste like with your high cost ink jet boys.

It did take a second or two at first to figure out how to load the paper in the carrier and then the carrier into the printer (lift the top clear cover as noted elsewhere) and also how to load the color film (just follow the arrows) because the brochure is not really explicit about these things, but once you get the hang of it, it quickly becomes intuitive, not a long learning curve here.

Also it takes four swipes in and out (clear some space in back) first yellow, then red (magenta?) then blue (cyan?) AND THEN CLEAR PROTECTIVE COATING (not black like another reviewer guessed). And the screen display tells you which color is coming (as if you cannot see on the page).

The product page says that clear coating is good for 100 years, better than my pick-up's.

This little printer is good, well built, fun, sturdy, inexpensive (relatively) for what it does, and does it very very well.

Where's the down-side? While your ink jet buddies are still wasting that expensive ink clearing their nozzles (was there really dirt in there?) you be printing out. Ink jets are just a cash cow for printer companies to sell expensive ink that gets wasted in cleaning. This Canon Selphy CP760 printer has no waste and no pain; just does its job and does it well.

So
Just one question:
What's a SELPHY anyway?

I bought this printer for a charity event. We took pictures of entering honorees, printed them and framed them as gifts. The picture was fantastic and the color was perfect. Everyone asked me where I got that great little printer. I highly recommend it.

It's hard to describe how much better the Selphy's images are than what you get from most ink-jet printers. Don't be put off by the rated 300-dpi resolution; dye-sublimation blends colors by layering them over each other, while ink-jets simulate colors using side-by-side dithered dots. So, ink-jets _need_ higher resolutions just to fool our eyes. The Selphy's output is best compared to commercial photo-finishers, but with instant gratification.

Only a couple of quibbles:

You can only use Canon's special paper-and-ink-roll packs, but that's due to dye-sub being a different development process. Price per print is pretty reasonable, especially if you get the 108-count triple pack, which you'll probably want to anyway.

The printer itself may be small, but the loading tray sticks out a good seven inches, and you'll need to be sure that another six inches stays clear on the back side. The printing process runs the paper back and forth through the unit, layering the primary colors and then a cover coat. This means the total footprint is larger than printer size would indicate, and with the loading tray inserted, it's kind of ungainly. Not a grab-and-go gizmo -- for that, you should consider its cousin, the ES3.

But man, you can't beat the image quality and print durability.

I really didn't need a photo printer, I already had one. But this was a gold box deal, and the ratings seemed great. I also wanted something portable, and this is definitely it.

When I got it, I was a bit confused as to how to add the paper cartridge, it isn't explained very well. After a bit of fiddling (the blank cover has to be opened before it is slid in), I finally got the paper in. I then printed one of the pictures I had on my Nokia N95. It pulled the paper in, and out came some yellow stuff. Aha, I thought Yellow, Magenta and Green. But then it pulled it in a fourth time to. My friends told me it was probably black, and that sounds plausible.

The picture is great, I really like what I can do with this. One thing to remember, though, you need space on both sides to feed the paper through. On the "front" side you have the cartridge, but you need space in the back too.

All in all, I am satisfied, and do not regret the purchase.

Don't be put off by the 300dpi rating of this printer. The dye-sublimation technology prints dots of actual color, as opposed to inkjets who need a lot more dpi because they sputter many microscopic single-color droplets over the "dot" space to make it appear as a single color from a normal viewing distance.

The CP-760 photos are indistinguishable from the ones you order at a photo lab. It does need special Canon-made paper and ink packs, but the Canon KP-108IN Color Ink Paper Set (3115B001) has everything you need for printing 108 4x6 photos at a cost of about 27 cents each (or perhaps a bit more if you take printer cost into account, which you should). Worth the convenience compared to walking to the store, especially when you only want a print or two.

The consumables are for exactly the number of photos they say they are, it does not matter how much or how little color is in the photo. The "ink pack" contains a roll of 4" wide film with 6"-long sections in each color (yellow, magenta and cyan) followed by a 6" clear coat, of exactly the number needed to make the number of photos indicated. After printing, each section ends up with a negative of that color from the image so it can't be reused. I imagine one could recover the photos from the discarded negatives, so if that is a problem, you should yank the film out after it's "empty" and dispose of it in some other way than throwing the cartridge in the trash.

Size-wise, a 3:2 format photo (as from a DSLR) fits the 4x6 paper better than the standard 4:3 format found in most digicams, which will get chopped top and bottom. Color came out very nice. You can print 8 images in one photo if you want to check the color levels. The LCD is low-res and should not be used to judge image color under any circumstances, luckily there is little the LCD can do that you can't do from a camera.

You can print straight from a memory card, using the clunky image selection interface on the LCD that does not allow for much control. Or you could prepare a "print order" in the camera, so called DPOF. As you view your images in camera in PLAY mode, look for a "Print" or "DPOF Print" in the image MENU. Then follow the prompts. When you're done take the card out and put it in the printer, who will execute your "print order".

Another way is to connect the camera directly to the printer with the camera's USB cable, if the camera supports a "print mode" on the dial (PictBridge), most do. In this mode you can also choose 2-up or 4-up modes and once you push "Print" it will send them straight to the printer. Nice but wastes camera battery.

You can also print wirelessly, straight from your phone or laptop, by sending photos to the printer via Bluetooth. Canon says to buy the BU-30 adapter for that, but I had an Iogear Bluetooth USB adapter (GBU311) lying around from an old laptop and had to try it. I am happy to report that it works just fine in this printer and I could print from my phone, which may suggest that there is a good chance any USB Bluetooth adapter might work.

Finally, you can print from the computer via USB. There is a CD with software for Mac and Windows which I haven't tried yet.

It works with Linux. Gutenprint-cups 5.2.4 knows of some CP models but not this particular one, so you need to select the driver manually as Canon SELPHY-CP-520 CUPS+Gutenprint (note that 750, which is the closest model, does NOT work). There's also a gutenprint-plugin package that allows printing directly from GIMP. With these I recommend scaling the image to the paper size prior to printing, to avoid visible aliasing that happens when you let the driver do the scaling. In GIMP, resize with Lanczos(Sinc) to a width of 1740 (3.9") or a height of 1170 (5.8"), then apply a bit of unsharp mask if necessary.

I can't tell from the Canon product chart what is different in the new models outside of physical appearance and some gimmick software features (borders and such), because the CP series are all dye-sub 300 dpi printers using the same ink and paper. So given that the 760 is at a very sweet price point at Crutchfield right now, if you don't need a bucket or option for optional battery, I'd say go for it.

This was bought to replace the Kodak G600 which had stopped feeding paper after a year of moderate use (common issue). I'm using it on an Core 2 Due iMac running 10.5.6, and installation was a no-brainer.

I only care about one thing with dedicated photo printers: output quality that come as close to photolab prints as possible.

Printing from iPhoto, the printer will not give you proper colors at the default settings (way too much red). Once you tweak the settings, watch out -- this thing comes alive. For portraits, I use the following settings to get natural skintone:

Saturation: 0
Red: -1
Green: 0
Blue: +1
Brightness: +2
Contrast: +1

For pictures that I want colors to jump out without being artificial, so I use these settings:

Saturation: +1
Red: -1
Green: 0
Blue: +1
Brightness: +3
Contrast: 0

You just have to print the same picture (preferably human subject) at different settings and see what you like best.

The quality is much better than the Kodak, for I no longer see color banding problems that the Kodak had in light areas. Output is significantly sharper than Kodak even though both are rated at 300dpi. Really, you will be very, very happy with the output once you've tweaked the settings. It is as good as the Sony DFP95 for half the price, and superior to any inkjet. Don't bother comparing the dpi of an inkjet to a thermal dye-transfer. The Canon prints in continuous tone, so its 300dpi looks more like a photolab output (which is also continuous tone) than any inkjet could ever muster. I really can't find faults with the cp760 image quality. It's by far the best dedicated photo printer I've owned (HP, few Epsons). One small gripe: you need to tear the perforated ends off the paper, and this yields a print about 1/8" to 3/16" smaller horizonally and vertically than a true 4x6 print, and the edges have the perforation mark. It's a small compromise I'm willing to make for such fantastic output at a reasonable price.

BTW, I recommend the cp760 over last year's cp740 model since the cp760 is noticeably faster. I had the cp740 for a week and the power supply died on it. The cp760 power supply is different mfg.

I bought my cp760 in Japan. It came with a universal power supply. But be aware that the Japanese version comes with a smaller paper tray (what they call "L" size, slightly bigger than 3x5). This paper tray will not fit 4x6 paper! I had to spring another 1100 yen for a 4x6 paper tray (what they call "postcard" size.) The US version comes with the 4x6 paper tray.

Printer comes with 5 sheets of paper and ribbon enough for 5 printers. So definitely buy a pack of paper/ribbon with the printer.

Go for it...it will be the best $100 you'll spend in a while.