Lab quality photo printer. (1 Viewer)

Hi all.

I`ve got around £300 to spend on one & have narrowed it down to 2 makes epson & canon.Any recommendations?

Thanks.

Steve.B :t:

Over 100k members & no replies.

Steve.

From my point of view, I am a great fan of Epson pigment inks, but none of their current range of these printers falls within your price range. Most of the more affordable Epson printers use dye ink and have a paper path that puts the paper through a tight curve. Hence the lack of response from me.
If you could indicate what maximum size print you are considering and if you are happy with standard weight photo paper I may be able to give some idea based on the dye based printers I have tried.

Thanks for the reply max size would be A4,I use Olmec photo paper which is around 230gsm in weight.

Steve.

Many years ago I used to have an ordinary Epson printer which was always clogging up, it used up more ink cleaning the nozzles than it ever did printing. Eventually I bought a Canon printer. I could leave it for many days at a time but then when required it would always work perfectly and never ever clogged up with "dried out" ink. So based on my experiences I would never ever buy an Epson printer in any of their model range.

Hi Steve. Not much help I'm afraid but a couple of years back I settled on Canon. Primarily this was due to the cost of ink.

Rich

I think that I am on my 7th Epson printer, the early cheap ones were prone to blocked nozzles. Modern ones, don't seem to have that problem if you turn them off before pulling the power, just cutting the power caused some I owned to be left uncapped. Many years ago I had one fail shortly after purchase and Epson sent a van out to swap it out for a new one within a few days. I suspect that level of service is no more though, that said I run them for years and havn't had to contact them. Perhaps I was lucky.

I tend to use Epson paper as it works best with the inks and the transparent coating the printer sprays on to seal and generate a uniform gloss.

230 gsm is relatively normal for standard weight photo paper so it should pass through the convoluted paper paths on an all in one type printer, if that is what you end up with.

I have never used Olmec so have no idea of its handling characteristics.

My advice is that most people seem to use Canon or Epson for a range of reasons and if you buy a printer labelled as a Photo printer by the manufacturer that is to the top end of your budget you will probably be satisfied. Always read the reviews online, both technical reviews (such as DP review) and also user reviews on Amazon for example.

There is no guarantee, one way or the other, that the paper you currently use will suit the printer you pick (in terms of colour reproduction, gloss and drying characteristics) and certainly I have had trouble with some third party inks clogging causing the jets to have to be be flushed with a cleaning cartridge.

As most of my printed output is destined for other people I do stick to the manufacturers own products as they are very consistent in the results I can get.

As you have had an unfortunate experience with Epson, I would suggest that you would be happiest with a Canon.

Thanks everyone for the replies,food for thought.

Steve.