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

[jeffreyg]

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.

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.

 

[MattKing]

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.

 

[Don_ih]

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 The drive belt had shredded - it was also old and outdated.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.

 

[koraks]

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

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.

 

[jeffreyg]

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.

 

[koraks]

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.

 

[Ron789]

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.

 

[mwdake]

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.

 

[koraks]

As for longevity of dye prints:

That's AI hallucinating. http://www.wilhelm-research.com/epson/WIR_Epson_EcoTank_Photo_Printers_ET-8500_and_ET-8550.pdf

Still very impressive for a dye-based ink set! Wilhelm's public test reports aren't detailed like the ones by Aardenburg, which makes it impossible to tell what exactly happens to the image.

Some fading is more problematic than others; it's especially fading that affects one dye more than another that produces visible problems. In the parallel universe of RA4, Fuji has made an effort to ensure that the three dyes in their RA4 papers fade at a comparable rate, at least as much as possible. This makes the effects of fading not very apparent; I can attest to this based on prints I have that have spent several years on a wall that received direct sunlight during some time of the day. These prints have faded (which can be seen when they're taken out of the frame; the edges that are matted over have not faded), but you wouldn't notice unless you held a new reference print next to them.

The ET-8550 can be used with pigment inks if you so desire; many people have reported that it works and there are ink sets + user guides available for this. I've not looked into it, but I bet the cost per print turns out to be considerably lower than with the Epson brand dye-based inks and a good chance of improved fade resistance. The EcoTank printers have the main advantage that they are inherently intended to be refilled, unlike most desktop inkjet printing systems. I wish all printer manufacturers adopted this route and just charged a bit more for the printer to make up for the 'loss' of not being able to sell as much ink.

 

[gary mulder]

If it's a big print and an easy sudoku, both activities could be executed in parallel.

I don't quite understand what the connotation of making sudokus is.

 

[koraks]

There's no ulterior message, really. It's just the kind of inane activity (IMO) that seems slightly more interesting than re-making the same inkjet print to compare it with a potentially faded sample. That sort of thing sounds sort of fun if you get paid to do it by manufacturers. It's not my idea of spending a Sunday afternoon.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Thanks. Have you used these InkOwl pigment inks also for making digital negatives for alt processes? Do they have sufficient UV blocking power?

I've used the specific InkOwl inks that suit my Canon Pro10s printer.

They do work for me making Negs for Kallitypes but only with the third party PrintFab driver.
Canon printer drivers do not give sufficient print density.
And only tested with GoldUp USA silk screen film.

I don't know if the same inks are used for different printer models.

 

[BMbikerider]

Printers as far as I know come in 3 max print sizes A4, A3 and A2 There are larger ones but they are usually commercial and cost a shed load of cash.

Your max size comes between A4 and A3 A4 is too small so you would need an A3 and even then for a decent one they are getting expensive. To say nothing of the cost of the ink/dye. As for a built in scanner I personally have never come across a printer with a scanner. The Canon or Epson A3 printers are approaching £600 - £650 (UK prices) with replacement ink cartridges well over £100 for the genuine article. I never use aftermarket 3rd party ones because they do not have the same reliability as the genuine.

 

[Don_ih]

As for a built in scanner I personally have never come across a printer with a scanner.

There is an entire class of "all-in-one" printer-scanners (also used to include fax, but almost no one uses a fax, anymore). They are for home or office document printing and straight photocopying. The scanners are generally fine for scanning photos.

Any printer good enough for printing photos would not have a scanner built into it.