Epson and Canon both make great photo printers. But honestly...
Just get an Epson RX595 already (or other printer that has the same basic printhead/same inks).
Then for ink, buy the stuff from swiftink.com during their buy one get one free sale, which gets you 2 FULL SETS OF 6 FOR $35. Then buy the Kirkland Signature brand photo paper at costco for glossy, and/or luster paper at
www.theeconozone.com . You are now equipped to make prints for almost nothing! "But, but, the quality, it's going to suck!" I hear you say...And first of all, lets be honest. The prints aren't going to last as long if they are displayed, not like a frontier or noritsu "real" photo will, and nowhere near like a good pigment print will. But who cares? If you're like me maybe like 1-5% of the pictures you print you actually hang up. Most you make to share! "Okay, but extra, what about the quality???" Okay, okay, fine...
I have an rx595 and an epson R1900. Oh, and at my work (the company I work for supports some major retailer's photo labs) I can print for free on our Frontier 340 or various dye-sub photo printers if I feel like it. (gotta run prints through our 340 or chemistry goes to waste! originally we were going to charge a small amount for people to use it, but nooooo, no one brought in prints, so finally we are like begging our employees to bring in their memory cards lol)..
Anyway, I printed out a picture (was trying to upload it, but imageshack is being incredibly slow at the moment...On the rx595, the r1900, fuji frontier 340, and a fuji ask-4000 dye-sub printer (it's a re-branded copal printer). And yes, I turned image intelligence off on the PIC.
I then asked people to pick which one they preferred and asked them which prints they thought came from what.
Of the people who had a preference, it was pretty much a 3 way split between each of the inkjets and the ff340, with a slight edge going to the inkjets. NO ONE preferred the dye-sub print.
But here is the really funny thing: most people thought the rx595 print had come from the frontier 340...lolololol.
So, in conclusion: Go buy epson rx595. Buy the stuff from swiftink and the costco photo paper. Have fun making prints and exploring the different settings. For pictures you LOVE and want to hang up, take them to COSTCO and have them printed or take them to a friend with a pigment based printer like an r1900, r1800, or r2xxx.