To Buy or Not to Buy and Why

[spylaw4]

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Another recommendation for the 3800 from here. First rate prints in both colour and B&W, but especially using it in ABW mode.

Got mine pre-owned off that auction site with a load of A2 Epson lustre paper - not my favourite but hey it was "free" and it's fine for general purposes.

[sblutter]

3880 - I can't believe how few ink carts I've gone thru printing a ton of 17 x 22's

 

Last was the R1800 - Epson did a fantastic job of fixing every issue:

 

Paper feed, cart size, IQ, waste ink capture...

[tobey bilek]

Ink dries without pretty regular use. It also has a shelf life.

 

If you had a darkroom like I have, it is tempting to want to do this, but I do not recomment for low volumn.

 

Find a pro lab you can deal with that does good work. Send the files over the internet and they mail the prints back in a few days. Save a bunch of hassle.

 

AiProLab.com is a neighbor and they work for me. MPIX is also quite good and there are otheres like West coast Imaging.

 

Calibrate your monitor and work in a darkened room so you send them decent files.

 

If you get a printer, you need to calibrate the screen and profile the printer so you get decent prints. It is just not fun like a darkroom. I love pulling a color print from the Nova slot processor and knowing It is fully my creation. Inkjet just does not do it for me. Plus the prints are nowhere near as nice as a laser print on Kodak paper. Epson sends me 16x20 samples of their latest and greatest. Sorry, they do not make it for me. And these are Epson made samples.

[erl]

Tobey, maybe you could expect photographer made examples to be better! As a comparison, I would expect a photographer to make better pictures than Leica.

 

Just a thought.