YT: Cheap Photos From an Inkjet printer!?

[Adrian Caspersz]

For those of ye lookin at running costs...

Techmoan's Epson ET 7700 Ecotank review

[Mark]

Pointless really when you can buy refillable cartridges and good quality ink at a fraction of the cost. That Epson would still need to be used regularly or the print head would clog and worse the ink tubes leading to it.

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[Brian Gaff]

Yes Epson are not really designed for low volume work as you end up using more ink to keep them going than actually printing. Brian

[Johnny B Good]

Those objections might prove irrelevant to someone planning on saving the costs of wallpapering their house by substituting the expensive wallpaper with their collection of photo prints. :-)

[Dave W]

Not realising they'd be faded away by the end of the week.

[Dave W]

Not realising they'd be faded away by the end of the week.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Modern inks seem much better for fading than once was the case. Not so prone to running if the paper gets wet either (like a letter being delivered in the rain)

[Brian-Gaff]

I think ink jet and cheap are two words not often in the same sentence these days and of course use any make you like but not Epsom. the local tip is piled high with cheap epson printers and broken lexmark ones. Brian

[Bernard Peek]

Horses for courses. Epson printers will give you high quality prints but if you let the heads get blocked they are dead.

[Johnny B Good]

I'd expect to see evidence of imprint marks from the soles of size 9 work boots on many of the 'broken' Lexmark printers (and probably likewise the 'cheap' Epson printers[1]). :-)

[1] Actually (let's be all inclusive, why not?) and say *all* 'cheap' inkjet printers. The ink jet 'principle' was a nice idea... in principle but, in practice for occasional home use, it was one with a very obvious and glaring flaw which I don't need to spell out to anyone who has ever owned one.

[charles]

Interesting. Epson have gone over entirely to inkjet printers.

[Johnny B Good]

====snip====

So good, you had to say it twice? :-)

You exaggerate of course for effect but I do see your point. However, modern photo inks are a lot better in this regard compared to the early inks of two decades ago. However, compared to actual wallpaper, they're likely to become noticeably faded after a year or three, so maybe not such a good alternative to the more conventional wall covering materials.

My point was to beg the question as to what you'd be doing with the thousands of 'nicely turned out prints' you could produce 'cheaply' with such a printer. Hiding them away from damaging UV in photo albums is merely a form of 'archival storage' harking back to the pre-digital age of photography.

This has its charms but since most of the photographed images involved were recorded directly from electronic sensors in cameras and document scanners, archiving the image files produced onto electronic digital storage media serves this purpose much better.

I suppose the main charm of archiving photo-prints in photo albums is elimination of any dependence on electricity supply to power the display technology required to retrieve and display the photo album's content. After all, in the decades following the seemingly inevitable Nuclear Armageddon, the survivors will only need the light of day or that of a tallow candle by which to view the visual records of a bygone age.

Maybe it's a product aimed at the "Survivalist" section of the market demographic. :-)

[Mark]

Not true but admittedly it takes a lot more time and effort then most people are prepared for I won a bet a few years ago from a friend who had an Epson SX600 left in a loft for 4years unused its still in use now in our pub and working fine

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[Vir Campestris]

I scrapped an Epson. It did good pictures, and wasn't too expensive to run - but if I didn't use it for a month I was back to soaking the heads in meths. Again.

I bought a laser in the end.

Andy

[NY]

Our Epson suffered badly from that problem, and I set a weekly reminder on my phone to print a Windows test page every week to stop the ink drying up. That was with genuine Epson cartridges. Since I don't need accurate colour rendition because I don't print photos, I decided to change to cheap clone ink from one of the online cartridge companies. This ink has been much better as regards clogging. However on the occasions when I have printed photos (eg print of a web page or a PDF), the colours have been rather garish - so the choice is accuracy with a tendency to clog up, or lower quality but much less clogging.

For B&W (eg letters) a laser is probably a better buy than an inkjet - no streaky print if it's not been used for a while.

[whisky-dave]

But laser printers for colour aren't very good for photographes unless you pay a fortune even then you;d be better off with an inkjet in most cases. We have a rather nice one here we use a HP Designjet T790, you can get some amazing types of paper that can be used for posters, can even be folded and doesn't crease ideal for taking to events whereas previously you needed to roll them up.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I've got an Epson XP-415. A few years old. It only gets occasional use - sometimes only once a month or so. Not had a problem with it blocking, unlike the previous Canon.