Olympus Camedia P-10 Digital Photo Printer

This printer can connect directly to select digital cameras. Learn more about PictBridge.

What's in the Box
Camedia P-10 Digital Photo Printer, AC adapter (with power cord), paper tray (with 3.5-by-5-inch conversion tray), Starter Kit, CD-ROM (printer driver), Instruction Manual, warranty card, registration card

The printer uses Dye-Sublimation technology. It prints Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and a special overcoat layer that makes prints fade resistant. You can connect the printer to your PC with a USB cable, or, if your camera supports PictBridge technology, you can connect the camera to the printer directly, and print without PC.

There are two paper sizes supported by the printer 4" x 6" and 3.5" x 5". You have to buy special paper, which comes with ribbon. What I like the most about this printer, is that it produces borderless pictures without the need to tear off perforation or anything like that. When it spits out a picture it's just like from your local drug store - glossy, and ready to use. Or, if you prefer, you can specify to print the images with white border.

The printer is very easy to use, fast, and looks superb. I welcome the fact that it doesn't require any nozzle cleaning, head adjusting, or much preparation at all.

But now is the most important question. How good can it print? I run through the supplied pack very quickly, printing 5 pictures from my collection. Two of the pictures I printed before, using Epson Stylus Photo 820 Printer, Epson Inks, and Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper. The ink-jet clearly had an advantage rendering light tones, seeing as it was a 6-color printer. The Olympus, unfortunately, really struggles with rendering light blue. The lighter shades of sky don't look all well to me. Another area where I wouldn't mind to see improvement is shadow detail. Perhaps we are ready for 6 or 7 color Dye-Sub printers, 3 colors may be not adequate.

Off course just 5 pictures is not enough to get familiar with the printer, I am sure, as I gain experience with it and learn to play with settings, I should be able to foresee difficult to print areas of images, and perhaps correct them in order to get better prints.

Overall the printer produces very nice results. And I can see that it will be much easier to maintain and use than an ink-jet.


Excellent printer - used 9 hours a day for 8 days!   December 27, 2004
Jim Bowden (indianapolis, in USA)
31 out of 32 found this review helpful

Purchased this printer versus a Sony due to name brand issues.

WORKS like a champ! We are printing:

On average: 90 prints a day for a 9 hour day * 9 days = 810 prints so far.

It has never jammed.

I have had fairly good luck buying the printer cartridge/paper (40 sheets or 100 sheet / pack) in NYC. Prices for the 40 print pack: $17.00 at J and R to as much as $25.00 at Compusa Midtown. Amazon sells the 100 print pack are $30.00 (through Adorama).

Print cartridge is easy to change (takes seconds).

Highly recommended.


Great toy, fantastic results   March 13, 2005
Geoff Leask
19 out of 19 found this review helpful

The good:

Impeccable results - The photos are printed on high quality photo paper, just as if they came from a photo lab. Ease of use is (mostly) a snap - installation and printing is simple as pie. Color reproduction and detail is dead on. Printing speed is good. I couldn't be happier with the results it produces.

Cost - $150 for the printer is dirt cheap and you can grab a 100 print supply pack for $38, which works out to .38 per print. That's about double what you pay for digital prints at a store. But the .38 seems reasonable for all the enjoyment and coolness of printing your own photos, not to mention the convenience.

Design - It's a nice looking piece of equipment. A bit large in my opinion, but it's a welcome addition to my desktop. Build quality seems fine thus far, with no cheap looking or problematic components, but I'd need to own it for a few years before really speaking to the overall build quality.

The bad:

Color reproduction. Wait, didn't I just say the results were impeccable? Well, yes, they are. But figuring out how to get those results took me about five test prints. Plus I own a Mac (OS X 10.3) which makes monitor calibration a snap, have a decent idea of what I'm doing, and am printing with a good program (Photoshop Elements). I'm afraid some users might become frustrated when printing, as the colors just aren't going to come out as they do on screen unless the monitor's colors are properly calibrated and the print options are set correctly. The manual isn't much help here because the number of variables involved is astronomical.

Misleading packaging - Says it comes with everything you need to start printing immediately. Lie! IF your camera is Pictbridge enabled, this is true. Mine's not, so I have to use the computer. This requires a USB cable that is not included with the printer.

Verdict:

On the whole I love the thing and would reccommend it to anyone with the ability and/or patience to get it set up properly. Once you're at the point, it's photo heaven.


Read on for a few basic tips. I'm using an iMac G4 with OS X 10.3.

1. Calibrate your monitor! Find a good utility (one may have come with your computer or be available with your video card driver). Maybe XP has color calibration built in. I wouldn't know. You want 1.8 target gamma. This is standard on Macs. PC standard is 2.2.

2. Printing: Get a decent photo program. Might I reccommend Adobe Photoshop Elements? Easy to use, powerful, great for printing. It's $80, but you get what you pay for. Also, when you print, be sure you're using procedural intent.


Excellent all-around printer   June 4, 2004
MusicLover1970 (Burlington, CT)
17 out of 17 found this review helpful

I bought this for my wife to supplement our P-400 (8x10). We went digital almost 3 years ago with the Olympus C4040 and P-400 and I was looking for something to do 4x6s w/o having to cut 8x10s down all the time. I've always been partial to Olympus, having worked extensively with the OM-1 as a photographer in the early 90s. We were very happy with the results we received from the P-400 and I have to say the prints from the P-10 are stunning, if not better. The cost per print is about 39 , which is a bit more than taking it to some of the local pharmacies (though we live in the middle of nowhere, we'd more than make up for it in time and gas). Plus there's something to be said for the convenience of printing at home. Print time is reasonable, what you'd expect from a dye sub. The greatest benefit to me is that you don't get the diffusion dot patterns you find with the ink-jet "photo" printers. If you want "photos", dye sub is the only way to go -- and the bottom line is the P-10 gives the quality I want at a reasonable price.


Mac OS compatible. Best of all Archival Quality.   December 13, 2004
Francis Dayrit (SC United States)
16 out of 16 found this review helpful

One of the previous reviewers states that this was not Mac OS compatible. It is compatible with OS 10.3. I tried it with several computers using OS 10.2.8 and it did not work. Even called customer support. No dice. I think that they tried writing another driver for 10.2.8 but it still did not work. I upgraded to 10.3 and it works great.

There have been many comments about the colors being off. I have used this with 3 Macs and the colors are right on. There may be a slight problem with the brightness but otherwise the colors are well approximated. I noticed that those who complained were using Windows. Color management may be a little trickier on a Wintel than a Mac. I would consider calling customer support of either the computer maker or that of Olympus.

Ctein of Photo Techniques reviewed the P400 about 2 years ago. He had only praises for the prints. But the best part about the print is it's archival quality. Dye Sublimation with an overcoat apparently has a track record for good archival quality. Meaning it will not fade and will maintain it's image quality given certain parameters of humidity, heat, and light exposure. This is a same process that Kodak uses. I do not see the point of printing something only for it to fade on you a few years later. There a lot of claims of archival quality among other printer makers but personally, I do not know how true they are and if they have been proven.

Image quality is great. I really looks like a regular print from a photo processing shop. Colors are crisp and they are continous tone. No pixilation or lines to speak of at all. I have only been using it for snapshots printed from iphoto. I have not used adobe photoshop yet. I can't wait. Have not used it with pictbridge.

Basically, the lost star was for initially stating Olympus would not support the Mac OS then turn around and make a non-working driver for 10.2