Talk me into/or out of buying the PictureMate PM-400

The questions you have to ask yourself would be, Is it really critical that the prints are true 4x6? Do I really need to be able to print 5x7 at home? How often will I realistically use the new printer knowing the prints are almost twice as expensive as lab prints? Does it need to be portable? What kinds of projects will I be using the photos for?

I can understand it if a person is doing PL or pocket scrapping and it would be bothersome to have prints that are sliding around loose in the pockets and you don't want to go to the trouble to mount them onto larger cardstock. That would be a valid enough reason to me.

I sat on the fence with the Selphy for a long time before I bought one. I do mostly traditional scrapping on 12x12 layouts and the occasional mini book. The slightly smaller Selphy prints don't bother me at all because I trim down my 4x6 prints anyway to mat them onto 4x6 cardstock or patterned paper. I do like using larger prints on my pages sometimes (5x7 typically) so having that capability would be nice, but I already have a standard Epson inkjet that will print that size and usually when I want to print something larger I do it at Costco anyway simply because it's more cost effective.

I like that the Selphy prints have a protective coating over the top which is nice for photos in mini books that don't have page protectors. As I mentioned earlier in the related threads, I don't print from home (or at crops) all that often, so I would have the problems with clogged print heads, dried out ink cartridges, etc. which would really affect the affordability of having a portable inkjet.

So after a lot of thought, I decided for my purposes (which is primarily to have the ability to print decent photos when I'm at crops and for the occasional school project) the Selphy is adequate. I love that I can print wirelessly from my phone, camera or iPad. With a little trial and error, I've been able to figure out how to tweak my images in PSE to get the print quality I want. I typically edit most of my photos anyway so it really isn't adding any time to my process.

ETA: When I want a photo that is actually 6" long from my Selphy for some reason, I just cut it with my trimmer instead of snapping off the perforated sides. It *prints* that size, but for some reason the paper has the perforations so the resulting photo is smaller. Not sure why, it's weird.

ETA2: I don't use Selphy software to print from my computer, I use PSE or Scraproom/Gather software and have no problems whatsoever printing from either of those to the Selphy.

I'm no help but I just bought 2 albums off ebay so I am in the 'just buy it' mentality right now.

I'm definitely not an expert and I just know enough of what to try to get things to look better. I haven't had a whole lot of time lately for scrapping so I still have to look stuff up.

I took an online class by Linda Sattgast at Digital Scrapper last year that helped a lot. It was Fix Photos FAST and it includes a ton of PSE actions that you can just click on and it automatically applies them to the photo such as lighten, darken, warmer, cooler, whiten teeth, high pass, etc. The class includes videos that show exactly which actions she uses and in what order to greatly improve the images. It was worth every penny.

She also has a follow up class called Enhance Photos FAST that I would also like to take, but I haven't had the time to even think about it. That one would be worth looking at too.

I had one of the original PictureMates that only did 4x6 photos back in the day and it *was* a huge issue for me. To the point that I literally opened the lid on the garbage can one day and chucked the whole thing in!  

I had the printer for about a year and tried to use it several times. After getting less than 30 useable prints out of the first cartridge (new) the previous printing session, I had just replaced the ink cartridge AGAIN for the second time in six months. I ended up running the head cleaning at least three times and I was still getting streaky prints. I was just done at that point. It was out of warranty by then and it didn't work.

Those print packs cost me about $35 each and were supposed to print roughly 100 photos each, but at the rate I was going it was costing me over a dollar per 4x6 print. For that kind of money it made it worth my trouble to go out of my way and drive to Costco. And with that level of frustration, I would happily stand in line behind 15 people at Costco to pick up my prints because I still would be back home scrapping faster than trying to get one decent print out of that printer and losing my mind doing so!

Now, I have no experience at all with the newer ones and it's possible that now they are better. However, I do have an Epson Workforce Pro inkjet in my office right now that's a couple years old that I use for general stuff (not typically photo printing) and even that thing will produce crappy, streaky prints (even just black text!) unless I am printing at the absolute highest quality. I use it week in and week out, so it's not like it sits idle for any long amounts of time. The only thing that saves it from getting tossed in the can too is that at least this one has high capacity ink cartridges so I only have to replace them a couple times a year.

All I can say is if you know you won't be using it **frequently**, go and read some of the recent negative reviews at Amazon because they are pretty much all saying the same thing I am, so it is still an ongoing issue. It might very well be the best printer on the market in the history of ever if a person uses it every day or even every few days, and if that is you, awesome! Maybe it will be right for you then. But if that's *not* you, it might not be worth the expense and the headaches.

I think if I was going to spend more money on a dedicated photo printer specifically with the ability to make larger prints I would just buy a regular photo printer that handles standard letter sized paper and be done.

You're welcome. I hate to feel like I'm always bagging on those little printers especially when everyone else seems to really love them. But it really does matter how often it will get used and not too many people seem to comment on that. The constant head cleaning rendered mine effectively useless, and I wish someone would have mentioned that somewhere before I spent my money on it (along with the money for three ink/paper refills that ended up in the trash one way or another). Such a waste. When the cost for a standard sized photo print goes over a dollar each, no amount of convenience is worth that to me.

At least with the Selphy, when I pay for a print pack I end up getting ALL of the prints I've effectively paid for in advance to actually print. If they don't turn out due to lighting or whatever, that's on me for not optimizing the print before sending it to the printer. They end up costing about 30¢ each, and while that's still expensive (to me) at least it's something I can live with. If Canon would come out with non-perforated paper that you trim to the printed edge yourself creating a true 4x6 print, I think more people would be happy with the Selphy.

I haven't tried matte paper yet but I am able to use Canon paper. I just buy it from Amazon. I know Canon has matte paper you can use.

And in regards to the print heads clogging, I haven't had an issue. I've had it for over 5 months now and I definitely haven't used it daily. Or even weekly. Actually, it has sat unused for several weeks and I just used it the other day. No problems at all. I'm guessing they fixed the print head issue with this newest model. Where have you read there are issues with the PM-400?

I wish it was available in New Zealand....it would be in my office already if it was.

Does anyone run a PictureMate on Windows 7?  I bought a Instax printer, but it won't run with Windows 7, which I didn't realize until I bought it.  It should run on wifi, but I can't get it set up on wifi either.  So frustrated...

I have the older PictureMate (that only prints 4x6) and I always use matte photo paper. I order the ink/paper pack from Amazon because they are the only place I've found that sells the matte paper pack.