Just purchased an Epson C80 printer so that I can finally print some of my lighthouses photos from recent trips. Does anyone have this printer? How is it working out for them? Is there a better printer out there? We have a Olympus 2100 with 2.1 megapixels.

Carol,
I use an Epson 1270 wide carriage printer that lets me output image sizes up to 13x44 inches on roll paper or 13x19 on sheet paper. The quality of the Epson printers, is in general, excellent and I suspect that you'll be happy with the choice of an Epson. For supplies, you can get them from Epson on line with free shipping from their distribution center in Indianapolis if that helps any.

Gary

I have an Epson 980 and an Epson 2000P and a nephew who works for Epson and can get printers and supplies for his relatives (including his Uncle) at a very friendly price. I don't know about your C80 but I do know that Epson produces a whole line of great Photo printers. There is even a link on their website called Epson Clearance Center , where you can purchase rebuilt printers, which my nephew said are sometimes better than the ones that come directly off of the store shelf.


[This message has been edited by engbrady (edited 02-26-2002).]

How do you like the 2000P, Paul? It unfortunately came out after I got the 1270. I've heard pro and con on the ability of the 2000P to handle fine gradations of color relative to the six color ink printers and was wondering what your experience was if you've done a direct compoarison of the 2000P with outpout from the 980.

Gary



[This message has been edited by lighthouse_photo (edited 02-26-2002).]

I changed the expired link to just text, Gary...

I love the 2000P... the only reason for the 890 is that they don't produce the super high gloss finish paper for the 2000P and the inks are cheaper for the 890 for the every day printing.

The Archival paper is great especially when you figure that when used with the 2000P inks, a print should last over 100 years... the other 3 surfaces of the paper that they produce for the 2000P are also nice I especially like the Watercolor paper. They also have Premium Semigloss and Premium Luster Photo Paper.

I had a 1270 (sold it to friend to help pay for the 2000P), before I got the 2000P and I loved it and that is why I bought the 890 for the glossies. The 890 is basically the 8 X 10 version of the 1280 which replaced the 1270, which I think just added borderless printing to become the 1280.

Paul

[This message has been edited by engbrady (edited 02-26-2002).]

Paul, a question for you re the watercolor paper. Water color paintings, as the name implies use a wet field to give the beautiful, soft colors characteristic of the medium. Have you ever taken a print on watercolor paper just after it came out of the printer and sprayed it with water or immersed it in water to see what sort of effect you'd get by doing that, maybe a true 'watercolor' sort of effect? I've been curious about that and don't know anyone who has tried that sort of experiment.

Gary

Nope.. haven't tried that. This is Watercolor only in that it has a rough textured type surface and the colors also come out much more subdued not as vibrant as the other surfaces... It makes a great paper for doing posters as it is really stiff.

What I will try with an image is using the Photoshop watercolor filter on it and then print on that surface... I will let you know the results.


[This message has been edited by engbrady (edited 02-26-2002).]

I'm afraid my experience with an Epson printer is not anywhere near as good as any of yours, Paul and Gary. I had purchased an Epson 900 at one of the Best Buy stores. During the 1-1/2 years that I had it, I kept on getting messages that the ink was out (in some instances where a page and less than a page was printed). At 1st I thought it was defective cartridges, but when it continually happened, I figured it had to be the printer. Finally found the paperwork for the 3 year policy and brought it back, expecting that they would fix the Epson. Turns out Epson had stopped making it and I was told to choose another printer. When I asked what the next best photo quality printer was to the Epson 900, I was told the Canon S800 with the 6 individual ink tanks. For the most part, I'm happy with it. I wasn't too happy when I was printing lighthouse photos for entries in the Lighthouse Digest contest because the Cyan and Photo Cyan ink cartridges kept running out, but of course that was because there was so much blue in the water and the high waves in these photos. I find as much as I prefer semi-gloss and matte paper, though, that the S800 prints much more vibrant colors on glossy paper. The difference in getting really vivid colors on the different papers is quite remarkable. I have a question for Paul regarding the Photo Luster paper. I've heard that this is a very good quality paper. What is your opinion of it?

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Terry (Only my mother, brothers & sisters call me Teresa) Forrest

[This message has been edited by 1of3trees@prodigy.net (edited 02-26-2002).]

For those of you with digital cameras that have PIM (Print Image Matching) Epson has teamed up with Adobe to create a plugin for Photoshop 7.0 to allow you to take advantage of that feature with Epson printers. The link below should take you to a news piece on this in Photographic.

http://www.photographic.com/shownews.cgi?144

Gary

[This message has been edited by lighthouse_photo (edited 03-02-2002).]