The printer comes with Camedia Master 4.0, a software application for controlling print layout; editing photos; adding text; adjusting color, brightness, and contrast; sharpening or blurring images; and removing red-eye. The software also offers cataloging and special projects such as creating calendars, panoramas, desktop wallpaper, or albums.
It may be big, but the Olympus P-440 is no slug. It took just 1.9 minutes to produce an 8x10 photo--among the best time of any dye-sub printer we've tested, big or small. However, it took up to 40 seconds for the computer to process and spool the data, which usually indicates an inefficient print driver. For what it's worth, we didn't experience as long a lag when printing from a media card. The P-440 isn't especially noisy, but it makes a high-pitched whine when the ribbon passes from one color layer to another.You'll get acceptable prints, with solid detail reproduction in both shadows and highlights. However, the color balance of our test prints was slightly off; we attribute this to a cyan cast, which also results in washed-out colors. The prints also showed severe metamerism--the cyan cast turned to a noticeable magenta cast when switching from daylight to fluorescent illumination. In addition, we noticed some visible striations caused by the printhead. Furthermore, thanks to its relatively low resolution, the P-440 had a hard time rendering fine details, especially on diagonals.
Paper costs range from $119.95 (list) for 100 sheets of A4 stock to $34.95 for 25 sheets of postcard or album paper. Matte or glossy finishes are supplied by the ribbon's overcoat layer, so you'll want to purchase either matte ribbon ($59.95 for enough panels to print 50 sheets) or glossy ribbon ($54.95 for 50 prints). That works out to about $2.40 per A4 sheet.
CNET Labs Project leader Dong Van Ngo contributed to this section of the review.
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