Which small Epson printer for b&w prints and normal printing?

koraks said:

Yeah, I can relate - and I wouldn't even know unless I'd print the same thing and put it side by side to systematically compare both. I'd sooner spend my days making sudokus, however.


They used to have/still have a foothold in the wide format printing game.


I think the x-ray film does quite poorly when you hold it against a computer monitor to try and make a negative from a digital file.

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I used the duplicating film with an enlarger in a “wet” darkroom. It is like making a print but just reverse similar to slides. Over expose = a lighter negative to make a darker print and under expose = a darker negative and lighter print. You can dodge and burn if necessary.
I was talking about x-ray DUPLICATING film not regular x-ray film. The negatives I make are generally 7in x 7in.

FWIW, I'd suggest buying an All-in-one based on multi-function efficacy - how well and easy it works as an office machine, not a piece of photographic equipment.
We have a laser printer based Canon Imageclass machine that works great for that. It prints black and white only, but the text and line graphic output is great, the toner cost is very low per print with third party toner, the paper handling works well, as does the document handling multi-page scanner, and it was inexpensively priced.
It also is a competent, full legal size page scanner.
Then address most of the rest of your photographic needs separately.

Matt's right. The fact is, no printers that are good for photo-quality prints are a sensible choice for document printing and vice-versa. A laser printer is an excellent choice for printing out illegally downloaded copies of Harold Robbins books (or whatever) but pretty lousy when it comes to forging Ansel Adams photos. And you'd waste a lot of precious black pigment ink printing out smut on your Epson Fancy Inky Printomatic, if you chose to do that....

As for HP, a few years ago I bought a large format (40 inches or something) HP printer for very little. The drive belt had shredded - it was also old and outdated. I replaced the belt and made it work, thinking I could do interesting things printing on big paper. I never did anything with it. Well, I gave it away last year. I even bought an old ThinkCentre with Windows XP on it to drive it.

I've never found HP printers very good with colour. I had a small dedicated HP photo printer for a while. It was very difficult to coax that into printing anything that looked any good at all.

jeffreyg said:

I used the duplicating film with an enlarger in a “wet” darkroom.

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I understand that. I've done similar things, using regular x-ray film, but the principle is the same. Indeed, just like normal enlargement. I recently used that approach here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...be-scan-one-negative-2025.215648/post-2937385

My comment was informed by the observation that most people who engage in alt. process printing do so on the basis of digital photos. Even the people who start out with film-based images, often prefer the flexibility of editing before going back to a wet print using a 'digital' negative. I think the reason people don't use a whole lot of x-ray duplicating film for this application is not that they don't know about it. It's simply because it doesn't answer to the requirements.

Koraks,
I was making a suggestion as to not having to buy extra equipment. I often make digital enlarged negatives for pt/pd printing since I can quickly make a new negative after seeing a test print and seeing something that I should change. I get excellent results from both but the film results might be slightly better side by side but each has its benefits and negatives.

Yes, I understand. Your advice makes sense for those who start with silver gel negs, who have a working darkroom and who don't mind that route to make their negs. That rules out most of the alt. printing community today. Note that OP wasn't the one asking about digital negatives AFAIK.

I've had an Epson pigment ink A3+ photo printer - a nightmare that I dumped within 2 years. Then a Canon A3+ dye photo printer that worked like a charm but became very expensive on the cartridges. Now I have an Epson ET-8550 A3+ dye printer with ecotanks; the Canon was much easier in handling but the ink costs are of course much better with the Epson. The print quality of both the Canon and the ET-8550 is excellent and better than the pigment ink Epson. As for longevity of dye prints:

Based on the Wilhelm Imaging Research (WIR) report, prints made with the Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 and Epson Claria dye inks on Epson Ultra Premium Photo Paper Glossy or Luster can last:

• Over 200 years in proper album/dark storage conditions at 73°F (23°C) and 50% RH.
• Over 140 years when displayed under glass in typical indoor conditions.
• Over 170 years when displayed under UV-filtered glass.

That is long enough for me.

I have a Canon Pro 100 that I’ve had for quite a long time now. I bought it back when Canon had big rebates on them. I’m not a heavy user but I’ve been happy with it and its output. It takes 8 cartridges and they are tiny and expensive but I refill them with inks and a kit from Precision Color which costs about 10% per cartridge than buying new cartridges.

I can’t speak to ink archival properties of the printer but prints I’ve made seem to be holding up well.