Epson - SureColor P900

I love my p900

Canon and Epson are probably going to be your best to brands to pick from if you want true professional print quality at home. Canon makes their Pro line of printers (pro 200/300/1000) and Epson has the P700 and P900. Each will have their pros and cons, but overall you'd be happy with any of them most likely. These are not your regular inkjet printers you'd buy at an electronics/office store. They are proper professional photo printers. Canon Pro 200 will print up to 13" wide, so it would work for you very well. I think it's about $600 USD. The real question is, is buying a pro printer worth it for you? It's a combination of cost/savings vs a print shop and then the control you'll have over your prints. If this is for just printing your photos for personal use, then it's probably not going to be worth the cost. Printing A4 prints at print shops isn't THAT expensive. But buying a $600 printer and then spending a bunch of money on ink refills and potential wasted paper/ink, probably won't be a cost effective option for you if that's the goal. You'd either need to print a lot to hit a break even point for personal use, or just be that demanding in regards to your prints to want more direct control over how they come out, to make buying a pro printer worth it.

I have four printers in my home printing lab.  Epson Sure Color P900 - this is my workhorse printer for black-and-white and some color, depending on the tonal range and the paper.  Canon Pixma Pro 100 - much cheaper ink, but I am less happy with the black-and-white results, though I think it does extremely well with images that are predominantly, red or green.  Epson XP7100 - my day to day home office printer that does extremely high-quality 4 x 6 glossy prints with minimal fuss.  Epson Stylus Pro 3880 - much more expensive to run on Epson inks than the P900, but much more flexible in terms of utilizing third-party in including a wide gamut set of dedicated gray scale ink.  I do my own exhibition printing and have access to a 48 inch wide format Eason roll printer.  I share all of us because this is doable, if you are serious about high-quality printing and want the precise control over what paper and output you achieve, but be prepared for a significant financial investment in ink and paper.  I also have the benefit of being taught digital printing by a highly accomplished photographer who, like me, was a skilled dark printer before moving to digital. He also just happens to have work in multiple famous museums and collections, so his printing skills are indisputable. But even with that knowledge, sometimes it takes me two or three prints to completely dial in an image. 

I’ve got the P900 and I am really enjoying it so far. I’ve made maybe two dozen prints but the quality is incredible. It was fairly easy to set up. My two points of guidance are: 1) Don’t buy it used or refurbished. I bought a refurb from B and H and it was a nightmare. 2) Paper is also not cheap. The epson brand photo paper is ok, the nice Hahnemuhle stuff is pricey.

I used a Spyder to calibrate my monitors prior to printing and I find that from monitor to print the match is phenomenal. I have had a couple of prints seem a bit bluer initially but once the pigment fully dried I felt better about them. I’ve also been satisfied by the contrast. However, I’ve been using the Epson Premium Photo Matte papers and some Hahnemuhle mattes from a sample pack. So I can’t speak to full black and super dynamic contrast. Glossy prints are just not my aesthetic.

I have had a lot of trouble with my P900, printing odd margins and poor color.

I own the Epson p900, depending on the size you want to print this machine can do 17x22 Keep in mind you may need to print weekly-biweekly to keep the ink from drying out.

The Epson P700 is one of the best options, print quality wise. The two main downsides are small lightweight flimsy construction of the printer, and unexpectedly high cost for ink. The latter is easily fixed by going for the bigger brother P900. It's 17" and accepts larger cartridges, bringing the price per mL of ink back into normal regions. Fixing the flimsy construction problem isn't possible within your budget, at least not if you want to keep the "the best photo printer" quality requirement. You can get more robust printers, but not nearly as good ones unless you pay much more. The real fix is the P5300, which contains the same print technology, but in a sturdy metal chassis. It's built like a tank and requires two friends to help you move it around.

I think your numbers are off. An A3 print does NOT cost $5 in ink on a printer like the Epson P900. If you said 0.50 I'd believe it. The same for maintenance. Mine does daily nozzle checks to stay "fresh", and maybe 3 simple head cleans per year, plus 1 power clean in 2 years. This may be equivalent to about $70 per year: approx 1 cartridge of "wasted" ink (wasted = put to good use), a maintenance cartridge for the power cleans, a 500-pack of office paper for the nozzle checks, and electricity to keep the thing running.

> I’m not sure if they’re too professional for what I need. For *"making zines and photo books"*, I wonder if they are professional ENOUGH. They are good for a few one-offs now and then. But then you don't even use much ink. Quality paper and time spent at the printer will dwarf the cost of ink. For higher volumes you should look into sturdier printers, and print technologies beyond inkjet on specially coated paper. BTW, if ink cost is your #1 priority, the P900 uses larger cartridges and the ink will cost almost half the price of P700 ink (per ml). A similar calculation can be done for the (more sturdy) P5300 vs P900.

Printing photos at high quality usually means inkjet with 6 or more color cartridges (more = better). Inkjet means you can't just print "sometimes", you need to baby the printer every day or at least every week. Else it will clog up and stop working. If you still want to own a printer, I recommend the Epson P900. It's a bit flimsy so it needs to have its fixed place in your home where nobody touches it unless it's you doing a print. The print quality is excellent, but you need high quality paper to go with it. For everyday photo memories I recommend Hahnemuehle Photo Perl 310gsm. If you want the same quality without the flimsy bit, get the Epson P5300. But that is a seriously large and heavy printer, as is expected if you don't want flimsy.

Pro P900: - smaller, lighter - less frequent printhead cleaning / maintenance - prints any length, including rolls (with optional adapter) - can handle totally flat posterboard Pro Canon 1100: - sturdier Contra P900: - flimsy - pizza wheel marks on some papers - optional rollpaper adapter is not very good Contra Canon 1100: - banding visible on some papers - paper size limits - frequent automatic headcleans cannot be skipped I have the P900 and am happy with it. If I were to buy again, I'd go for the newer P5300. It's the same printhead and ink, but with bigger cartridges and sturdy mechanics. Money aside it's a no-brainer, better than both P900 and 1100. But it didn't exist back then.

I can't speak to the 8550 but for my photography business I used Epson since 2010 and every iteration of the 'new upgraded' printer actually got worse on many fronts.  All 17" printers ... First one was the 3800, pretty great reliability until it just suddenly died (mainboard related) so i got the 3880. For such a small iterative upgrade it seemed to have a lot more issues with clogged nozzles and just general pain in the ass printing issues.  Then came the P900... Amazingly they decided to remove the firmware functionality that let you print ink usage reports AND the printer status software stopped showing actual percentages of ink remaining and instead just showed a small bar for the level so when it was running low you never had a clue how many more prints you could do. Also, they removed the physical buttons for navigating menus on the printer itself and replaced it with a touch screen... Totally unnecessary. All that said, it does still work, though i have flashed the firmware and installed inks i can refill myself because i got tired of the cost of Epson inks. Oh yeah, earlier last year they had supply chain issues with their light magenta ink and as you can expect, if you are out of one ink cartridge you can't print at all, so for people using the printer for business you either have to put business on hold or go buy a new printer that you can actually get ink for. Last October i bought the Canon 4600 44" printer and i absolutely love it. It's just so much more end user friendly, both in use and cost.

Try the epson consumer line of pigment printers. E.g. P700 or P900 (or older P800, 3800). These are much more robust against clogs (maybe because they are consumer oriented) than other epson models. I won't say they never clog, but it's rare for me. Usually I print in bursts, doing a lot and then nothing for a month or two. AFAIK there is no way to avoid the canon cleaning cycles short of printing something every few days (there is a lot of info online on the timing). Epson also has a different set of annoyances. Pick your poison.

Lots of artists use epson or canon printers to make their own prints. Not only is it higher quality than most labs, it is massively cheaper if you print on fine art papers. It’s still less expensive than photo papers (light sensitive) but the benefit is less. Would recommend epson p900 or canon pro 1100. They are a little more than 1k but worth it

If you’re printing on standard size paper get the epson 900 or canon pro 1100. They have a sheet feeding tray and this makes it very easy and convenient. You buy cut sheets and not have to worry about trimming paper to size or decurling. The pro 2600 is designed for roll paper and it will be a hassle doing small prints on it. If you need larger prints than 17” wide then the 2600 is the only option. Many people get both a smaller and larger printer for this reason

If it’s living on your desk then a standard photo printer would give you the best results. The Epson ET-8500/8550 is very popular for the low ink costs. Pigment printers like the Epson P700/900 and Canon imageprograph series are considered a step up in quality but the running costs will also be higher, If you’re only ever going to be printing 4x6 then the Epson 8500 Wild be my recommendation.