I've been looking for a good photo printer. I am not a pro and the ink cartridges cost of professional photo printers (e.g., Canon Pro-300, Epson P700) is too high for me. I am hoping for a 6-color printer that also has ink tank instead of traditional cartridges. I would also like to use genuine OEM ink only. I found Epson L805/L850 that suite my need quite well, but as far as I know they have never been on sale in the US.
Note the ink used in epson tank printers is not the same as the art or pro inkjet printers. Think Claria.
The epson color ink bulk programs have no (consumer) support in the USA. Meaning that getting the inks in bulk as a consumer is somewhat difficult or just cost comprehensive (think one gallon ink jugs) as they want you to buy large quantities, the way reproduction houses do. You are in new york, so you have access to multiple great printing labs that will work with you to achieve whatever your looking for in a print (paper type and ICC profile) allowing for greater flexibility and certainly cost effectiveness. Id start here https://www.adorama.com/Printique
About non oem inks, coming from the advertising printing world I can tell you not all color ink is the same, however id look into ConeColorPRO and refillable cartridges program. The support and technical aspect of that ink is superb. I believe they can send you a sample of prints made with it. Also will work with epson printer driver without any problems. Ask them questions, they nice people.
Just know that PRINTING and photography go hand in hand but are two different disciplines with two entirely separate needs. Printing being a dedicated full time money/maintenance hungry venture as the printers want to be run all the time to be happy.
I dont believe that canon or HP have any sort of solutions beyond the hamster wheel of printer/cartridge model. At least the aftermarket supports epson printers, because the head technology is so good.
Hope that helps. Sadly the printer suppliers went the opposite way as a business model focusing on marketing "more inks" and providing little value to the occasional home printer.
I was only seeking a printer that produces a bit better photos than regular 4 color home office printers. After hearing your words now I think printing labs are the way to go. Thanks a lot for the advice.
It looks like a fine option for A4, but either the quality is not great or Epson prevents them in the US since the exorbitant ink prices of the cartridges is more profitable. I've not been able to find a fine photo printer smaller than B3 for about 15 years.
EB-1 wrote:
It looks like a fine option for A4, but either the quality is not great or Epson prevents them in the US since the exorbitant ink prices of the cartridges is more profitable. I've not been able to find a fine photo printer smaller than B3 for about 15 years.
EBH
Yes. I find L805/L850 are quite nice. I don't expect them to be worse than other 6-color epson home printers (e.g., XP-970). They should certainly be a step better than 4-color models. It's unfortunate that they are not sold in the US.
Get the four-color printer if you're buying a printer for general use. Get the other one if you're buying it for photos. I'm only familiar with more than four colors on huge plotters, where there is a noticeable difference, but the question is always if you need that difference. Additional colors are unnecessary for me.
The six-color printers at printerhow are designed for customers who wish to generate photo prints; the two additional colors increase the color spectrum, allowing for more realistic photo prints with the least amount of grain on the photos. Good luck!
You should consider all Epson Ecotank printers with 6 inks. I owned L1800, which is A3+ version of L805 and it worked very well - then i upgraded to P800, because printing becomes my passion with full control and no waiting for photos from the lab. For office needs i always used separate printer with 4 colours, but i know some people that are using 6 inks ecotank printers for both photos and office needs (inks are not so expensive).
I have just bought myself a Christmas present...the Eco 8550 printer.
So far...hard to fault....and I know it is a printer that needs skill / practise to get the best results; but already I'm getting prints that are close to my properly set (up and working perfectly) Epson R3880.
I was persuaded after spending some time at this site: https://www.northlight-images.co.uk What this guy doesn't know about these printers (most photo printers) probably isn't worth knowing.
OEM inks are still very economical to buy in the UK, and the resulting prints (properly profiled on quality paper) are display quality, and can be made up to A3+ (panoramas too apparently).
What I was interested in is if anyone on here uses an Epson EcoTank and if they have tried re-filling the OEM bottles with 3rd party inks...and if yes...how did it go?
Just my opinion, but if the OEM inks are economical to you, why even bother with third party inks? As Keith Cooper mentions in his videos about the 8550, you do get a lot of prints out of the OEM ink bottles.
To me it wouldn't be worth the hassle of trying to refill the bottles with the third party inks.
anthonygh wrote:
I have just bought myself a Christmas present...the Eco 8550 printer.
[..]
What I was interested in is if anyone on here uses an Epson EcoTank and if they have tried re-filling the OEM bottles with 3rd party inks...and if yes...how did it go?
I have used ET 8500 and ET 8550 printers for more than two years, with various papers and was always happy with the results. However, I never thought about using 3rd party ink. As mentioned above, I would not trust 3rd party ink for being close enough to the OEM's inks. Using proper profiles (and a completely profiled workflow) is very important to get consistant results. Using ink that I would not be sure of would compromise the whole process...
Thanks for the replies. I do use Epson inks in both my printers but recently read that Epson is slowly but surely raising ECO ink prices....something I have already noticed.
I have seen numerous positive comments about using Marrutt inks with printers like my R3880....and am thinking about converting when I exhaust the Epson ink I already have.
Which got me thinking about the EcoTank printer....I know the ink prices are rising rapidly, but not sure about buying a set now and storing it; the current inks might last a year....so worried about shelf life.
As it happens I have a half litre bottle of InkTec black pigment ink left over from my R3000 days...and I know it is easy to refill the OEM ecotank bottles (tops just unscrew)...so plan B might be to use this for the pigment ink and stick to Epson for the other dye inks.
That said...I was gifted close to a 1000 sheets of decent paper (A2 to A4 but mainly A3 / A3+)...so will probably be making good use of the ET 8550 in 2026....so shelf life might not be an issue....
Count me in with Epson ET-8550 offers 13x19 print size. I’ve had it for a year and have printed a ton of photos and my gf uses it for her work printer too. I just added gray ink, no other colors yet!
Absolutely love my images printed from it. Check out reviews on it at Red River Papers, a great source for all your papers as well👍🏼
The ET-8500 and ET-8550 and Canon G620 are, I believe, the only 6 color ink tank printers that we (Red River Paper) recommend. Note that all three of those will struggle with heavier weight papers. Stick to 11mil thickness or less for best results. The 8550/8500 are extremely popular with our customer base.
You may want to look over the Compatible Media section of the 8550/8500 page from our website to get an idea of what kids of paper work well with those models. I just signed up for this site so it wont let me insert links, but if you go to the 8550/8500 ICC profiles page on the Red River Paper website (Resources->Color Profiles) and scroll down a bit you will find it.
You should consider the Epson ET-8500 (up to 8.5x11) or ET-8550 (up to 13x19) printer. Six color eco-tank printer. I have seen a number of posts from users that are quite pleased with these printers. A Epson renewed ET-8550 is available for $480 at https://epson.com/search/?text=EcoTank+Photo+ET-8550&keyword=EcoTank+Photo+ET-8550
A guru of inkjet printing, Keith Cooper has this to say:
"This is a printer that can fire the printing enthusiasm – sure, paper will cost and the inks will need filling up, but it’s easy to use.
Given my background using big large format printers, it’s not a printer I’d choose for prints I would sell, but definitely one where I’d happily put the prints on my wall."
Another +1 for the Epson ET-8550. Caught the $499 sale about a week ago and I've been very impressed with the print quality so far. With a calibrated monitor and paper-specific ICC profiles, I've been getting stunning results on the first photos printing straight from Lightroom on Epson Ultra Premium Luster and Velvet Fine Art papers - it's so easy to achieve "what you see is what you get" on this printer! The ink levels don't seem to have gone down noticeably even after a couple dozen prints, so that's fantastic as well.
