HP sent me an Photosmart B8550 Printer to review.  It was very easy to install.  Basically I just had to plug it in, install the drivers (from a CD), and connect it to my computer.  At the end of the driver install, the software encourages you to print a photo from your computer.  I quickly picked a snapshot of Andrew and I.  I'm very impressed with the 4" x 6" print quality.  I'm also impressed that I didn't have to do all sorts of complicated resizing to get it to print.  One click and I had a borderless photo that's indistinguishable from one of those olden-days film prints ... and I'm only half joking here.  I can't remember the last time I had film developed!

Please forgive the photo of the printer on the floor ... it doesn't have a permanent place yet.  I couldn't wait to get started, so I rigged up this mini desk (a.k.a. cardboard box) for it.  :)

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One of the great features of this printer is that all the color inks (cyan, yellow, magenta) are separate. Plus they have a photo black cartridge that is separate from the standard black cartridge that you use to print documents. The cool thing about them being split up like this is if you're printing out a ton of wedding invitation photos, birth announcements, or whatever, and you're using a ton of blue in them, you'll only have to replace the blue when it runs out. If all your colors are in one cartridge, you might end up throwing out ink if you're heavily using one of the three ink colors. The list price of each of the cartridges is $9.99, but you can get the four photo colors/black for $35.99. Since you're only replacing the colors you use completely, I think this would work out to be pretty economical.

The printer comes with all sorts of software for doing scrap booking and making calendars, greeting cards, and themed photo albums.  I know it's all stuff that I'll never use (because I like to do things the hard way), so I didn't install it.  But it looks really cool, and knowing HP, it's probably very easy to use.

The software did give me the idea that I should make my own desk calendar refills for the CD-case desk calendar Andrew bought me last year.  How awesome would it be to pick out photos from each month this year for next year's calendar?

One of the bells & whistles that you don't have to install software to use is the "school papers" feature.  If you click the wrench on the keypad, one of the selections is "Printable School Papers."  You can choose metric or English graph paper, wide/narrow/child-ruled notebook paper, music paper, task list, or a full-page maze (that changes every time you print it).  Of course I already printed out a task list! I'm sure I'll be printing out my fair share of grid paper, too.

OK, I couldn't restrain myself ... I just pressed the buttons to print metric graph paper.  It's borderless!!!  Do you have any idea how many times I've "built" graph paper in Excel, or Photoshop, or Illustrator?  Countless times.  Being able to click two buttons to get graph paper makes me weak in the knees.  And it's light-blue-lined graph paper.  (swoon)

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As I mentioned before, the 4" X 6" photo I printed during installation of the HP Photosmart B8550 Printer looks great.  But the HUGELY exciting thing about this printer is that it will print on 13" x 19" paper!  I know!

We recently paid $26 for a 12" x 18" print at a local photo store.  From the time we ordered the print to the time we picked it up we were holding our breath wondering how the colors would come out.  Luckily, it looked great.  But, with all the photography that Andrew does, it would be awesome to be able to print out the photos ourselves.  And, if we're unsure about how something will turn out, we can always to a test 4" x 6" to double check the colors first.

For my for my 13" x 19" test (for which HP sweetly provided photo paper), I chose this photo.  Andrew and I both absolutely love it.  I had a little trouble figuring out which paper size to pick in the print menu because there are about 800 choices.  The first one I tried was "B+ 13x19in" but the printer wasn't having any of that.  I finally figured out that it wanted the metric "A3+ 330X483mm" and printing commenced.

As it was printing and the edge of the photo started oozing out of the printer, I was amazing at the colors I was seeing.  They are so bright and crystal clear!  The photo actually looks 3-D ... like there are bits of folded paper stuck to the photo itself.  Completely life-like.  Since all our photography is digital these days, I forget how much detail a photograph can have.  My monitor (and most monitors) have such clunky resolution that I never noticed some great elements of that photo: the wrinkles in the paper that is glued to the wall; the paint-on-paint texture of the top-right of the background; and dashes of bright blue, bright green, and orange spray paint.

The HP Vivera inks are wonderful, and the print's colors are true to the original image.  I picked a very challenging photo, too.  I'm beyond impressed.  If you print a lot of photos or color documents, this printer is going to give you amazing quality in addition to letting you use every penny's-worth of ink you buy (since they're all separate).  I totally recommend it, and can't wait to concoct some elaborate printing projects. At the very least, I'm going to start printing more photos because looking at them on the computer just isn't the same.

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