Printer software quits

So, if the camera software is installed the printer doesn't work. If the camera software is uninstalled the printer doesn't work well but works, and if the printer software is reinstalled and no camera software is installed the printer more or less goes back to working? It seems to me that something in the camera software is conflicting with the printer and/or the way they are interfacing with OSX components. If this really is the scenario then there probably isn't much you can do unless either manufacturer has brought out new drivers that are still compatible with Tiger. Have you checked for updates?

While a nuisance, you could try setting up a different account on the computer and see if installing the camera to just work on that account (if that is possible) gets around driver conflicts.

While the HP forum may be difficult to join, they are also the ones who have used the software and will have direct experience.

It is possible that in installing the camera software it did something to some other software, probably the printer drivers. If it wrote a variation of a file used by several devices and the uninstaller did not remove that file because it didn't want to remove something used by other devices, it may have left a bad version behind.

Have you done some basics such as restarting the computer (it's surprising what that can clear up), repairing permissions with Disk Utility?

Try the free (and excellent) EasyFind. It finds everything on your drive, as opposed to the intrusive and utterly useless Spotblight that misses a gazillion files that Apple has declared off limits to its own internal search engine.

2.5 GHz Power Mac (PPC) G5-Quad; 16GB RAM; mutant, flashed 550MHz nVidia GeForce 7800GTX 1,700MHz 512MB VRAM; ATTO ExpressPCI UL5D LP SCSI card; Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 and Leopard 10.5.8 boot drives; Spotblight, Dashboard and Time Machine permanently disabled; dual 22" CRT monitors; USB wireless 'n' available but connected to the Internet via wired Ethernet; FW flatbed scanner; 2 SCSI scanners (one tabloid-size transparency scanner and a film scanner); various internal & external HDs; FW Epson 2200 and Ethernet Samsung ML-2850ND printers; 2 X Back-UPS RS 1500 XS units.