Printers...

Northline

Northline

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I'm thinking of getting a photo printer and quite fancy the look of the epson r1800 and wondered if you guys (&gals) had any views or experience of this printer?

Also wondered about the running cost with inks etc. and understand you can get a continous ink system for it and would like to know more about the pros-cons of that as an option.

Any advice gratefully received :)

Thanks. . . Robin
 
I utterly despise Epson printers. Every one I've ever had has died an early death due to clogged print heads which are more trouble than its worth to clean.

If you plant to print every day you'll probably get away with it. But if its left standing for any length of time, that's when the clogging normally happens.

For this reason I've moved to HP and would never go back. The HP print head is part of the cartridge, not part of the printer, so print head clogging is rarely if ever an issue.
 
GfK said:
I utterly despise Epson printers. Every one I've ever had has died an early death due to clogged print heads which are more trouble than its worth to clean.

If you plant to print every day you'll probably get away with it. But if its left standing for any length of time, that's when the clogging normally happens.

For this reason I've moved to HP and would never go back. The HP print head is part of the cartridge, not part of the printer, so print head clogging is rarely if ever an issue.
Click to expand...

I have had Epson printers for many years and have never had one clogg up on me, thats with some of them sitting in the garage for a few months loaded with ink too!

I have an R300 and some R220s and their prints are excellent. Limited to A4 but for my needs its fine. Anything bigger and I just use someone online.

I know people with continuous ink suplies and they swear by them, havent taken that jump myself yet, but they do seem the way forward.
 
I've had a couple of Epson printers.
- The first had printheads on the ink cart. Was VERY expensive to run and allways clogged.
- The 2nd went back to argos after 2 days as it never worked .. always streaky. Probably just a duff one.

So I bought a canon i965. Brill never a days problem with it
 
Canon i865 here. Sat in a garage for over a year and came out still working perfectly.

:canon:
 
Epson printers are notorious for clogging heads especially if you put compatible inks through the system.

I believe at some point, Epson were thinking of taking the manufacturers of compatible inks to court to try and make sure that only genuine cartridges could be used.

Ink is damn expensive for them as well. More so than the other leading brands.
 
i'm on my 3rd Epson and even with genuine inks they clog if you leave them for a couple of weeks. :(

What annoys me even more is the amount of ink they waste during the cleaning cycles.........built in money spinner :suspect:
 
digitalfailure said:
i'm on my 3rd Epson and even with genuine inks they clog if you leave them for a couple of weeks. :(

What annoys me even more is the amount of ink they waste during the cleaning cycles.........built in money spinner :suspect:
Click to expand...
"Which?" did an investigation in to the cost of ink cartridges last year. All cartridges reported 'empty' when there was still ink left, but Epson came out worse with as much as 38% of the ink left when it said it was empty.:shrug:
 
GfK said:
"Which?" did an investigation in to the cost of ink cartridges last year. All cartridges reported 'empty' when there was still ink left, but Epson came out worse with as much as 38% of the ink left when it said it was empty.:shrug:
Click to expand...

At least you can see how much is left in Canon cartirdges and when the screen message says "empty", they really are.
 
Ive had a few Epsons, and they've all 'gone down' with clogged heads. That's with OEM carts though (but like DF says, it happens with originals too).

Unfortunately Epsons are well known for it. That said, some people do strike it lucky and never have any problems with them.
 
mine also prints waaaaaaaay to dark, it can't be a colour managment issue
 
My earliest Epsons had clogging problems but they were very easy (and cheap) to clear once you knew how. I've had my R200 for umm 2? years now and it's never shown any sign of clogging, I use the cheapest inks I can get and get great results with them.

The only reason I buy new ones is to get better resolution and or features. I actually have 4 working Epsons here just now
 
well i've decided that my once top of the tree epson photo stylus 950 hates me :(

My monitor looks great, the print preview and soft proofing look spot on......but the prints are darker.

To get a picture that resembles the original on screen image, I need to crank up the brightness.
 
The tft is turned all the way down already, and if I adjust the gfx card settings, the image looks nasty.

I think this is all a big ploy to get me to join my local photographic society, they have colour calibration and printer profiling stuff for hire to members.
 
I have the epson profiles for their paper, i use genuine inks and it's always been darker than ideal.

what I need to do, is get hold of some pukka gear for setting up the screen beyond doubt , print a calibration sheet and then have the icc profiles tweaked accordingly
 
Whoa.. That just tugged on a neuron. (dat hurts ona Sundy mornin - stopit)

I had a problem like this when I started using PS2 (and not just printing straight from jpg using easyprint or such). Got pics that were too dark... people looked like they'd been in the sun too long and had makeup applied by Barbara Cartland.

What was happening is that Photoshop and Then the printer was applying ICC profile compensation.:bonk:

What I do now (after much faffing) is:
- Let photoshop decide on the compensation
-->PrintWithPreview->ColourHandling->LetPhotoshopDetermineColours
- Set the printer Colour adjustment to manual / no adjustments

That seems to be the "optimum" for my setup...
 
Another vote for the Canon printers, I currently use a Canon ip4000 for my A4 work using compatible inks.

I also use a Canon i9950 photo printer for my large A3 prints and only use genuine Canon inks.:)

Had no trouble with either printer at any time and the results are nothing but amazing..:love:

I have spent many years using Epson printers and recommended them to other users but not any more due to the troubles mentioned above..:shake:
 
I have a Canon i865, Ive had it for 2 years and its still going strong.
It once decided it didnt want to print black text at a very crucial time for me, so it tainted my view of it somewhat.
It would print every other colour as well as black in pics, I never figured out what went wrong and it just appeared to start printing text again of its own accord! :shrug:
I find when it tells me my tanks are running low, that I still get a few A4's out of it before I actually change the cartridge.
Oh! and Ive never once had any clogging.
 
I have used 'epson' printers (large and small) for professional and personal use for at least the last 10yrs..
They do clog (especially with generic inks)
They are not cheap to run or buy.
They do not produce their best if set up poorly.

However if you take the time and put in the effort (with profiles, test prints etc.) they will produce the best images I have seen from any inkjet manufacturer.

Up to A4 R800, Up to A3 R2400, Up to A2 R3800(new)
3800 best for B&W
1800 is the 800 with larger train as I understand it.

Have to say if you can stretch 3800 is ******* brilliant and! fits on a table/desk top.

Hope this is of use;)
 
I'll have to install CS2 on my main machine, it's still on CS and the colour management doesn't allow you to say "let photostrop do the colouring in"

or i could re do the network connection between my lappy and main PC and get it to try printing files sent from the lappy.


I printed a picture of a bridesmaid yesterday and the colours look OK to people who've not seen the on screen image, and after a day or so to dry fully I think it looks acceptable!

I'd just like to iron out the uncertainty :)
 
Had my r300 for about 2 years now with (touch wood :bonk: ) no probs at all. If you have a scout round you can buy a little device that I believe will reset the chip on the cartridge, thus you'll be able to eek it out further, think they are around £15-20. HTH.
 
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