photo printers - direct connection or print server?

[integral]

Hello

Im thinking of picking up a HP photo printer next week and i was planning on getting a decent print server for it. Now, a friend has been mentionting that for a photo printer a direction connection should be made instead.

Anyone have any experience here?

It kind of make sense to me (coming from linux), with a direction connection my mac might be able to make use of some extra features but then again if i find a decent printer itll probally just use standard postscript anyway.

Thanks

 

[MisterMe]

If you want to use a USB printer in a networked environment, your printer will not be supported by HP. HP's MacOS X drivers support the USB driver, exclusively. You will have to use a CUPS driver (as with Linux) for your printer, if it exists. If not, you are SOL.

 

[gsahli]

MisterMe is right.
Couple more data points to consider:
Postscript photo printers are very expensive. You are probably considering an inkjet photo printer - the vast majority of those aren't postscript printers. Postscript is definitely involved, because the native output of Mac applications is postscript (or packaged postscript = PDF). All non-postscript printers rely on software translation of postscript into the codes the printer can accept. The manufacturers work hard to make their driver properly translate the postscript for their printer. That is why you should plan to connect via USB, which is what most drivers support. The CUPS drivers are third-party drivers that are capable of network printing, but you almost always have to accept slightly lower photo quality.