I’ve played with both, and in general can highly recommend the Epson line. If you only need to go up to 13” wide, then the affordable R2400 is probably your best bet. See this thread for samples from various printers, including my 2200 (the predecessor of the R2400).

Thanks — I missed that thread in my search. I had wondered if a “photo” printer could serve my needs (I think you’ve proved that it can). I need to look into Ghostscript, too.

Have you ever used your Epson to print on both sides of a sheet — to make a booklet, for example?

I’ve been using the HP Designjet and Epson for years. Personally, I favor the HPs, particularly with regards to color accuracy. Most service bureaus I’ve worked with also favor Designjet for proofing so, when my agency brought prepress in-house, we decided to go with Designjet as well. We really couldn’t be happier. Just be certain to purchase the EFI Designer Edition RIP, rather than the HP solution.

Oftentimes, people will say they favor Epson because of all the papers available. I think this argument is moot these days, as the Designjet can self-calibrate to any paper. It’s my personal opinion that most Epson advocates have not used a Designjet – at least not lately.

As far as duplexing goes, good luck. No large-format I’ve used is good for duplexing. You will be stuck feeding paper through twice.

I’ve been using the HP Designjet and Epson for years. Personally, I favor the HPs, particularly with regards to color accuracy. Most service bureaus I’ve worked with also favor Designjet for proofing so, when my agency brought prepress in-house, we decided to go with Designjet as well. We really couldn’t be happier. Just be certain to purchase the EFI Designer Edition RIP, rather than the HP solution.

Oftentimes, people will say they favor Epson because of all the papers available. I think this argument is moot these days, as the Designjet can self-calibrate to any paper. It’s my personal opinion that most Epson advocates have not used a Designjet – at least not lately.

As far as duplexing goes, good luck. No large-format I’ve used is good for duplexing. You will be stuck feeding paper through twice.

[expensive] Epson 4800

[not so expensive] Canon i9900

As far as I know, HP is the last word when it comes to printers. RELIABILITY is a major factor. I’ve had Epsons, Canons, lexmarks, and they’ve all had remarkably short lifespans.

I know people who’ve got really old HP inkjets that are still in perfect working order. I have a Deskjet 5150, just for home office use. It’s a real workhorse.

But the best printer I’ve ever had (by far), was my old Apple StyleWriter-II. Bought in 1993, and it still does a fine job.

Palatine,
I have a LaserWrter II NT circa 1989 still working in PS level 1 only and hates big files but the sucker still runs!

Willing to sell it cheap :-)

ChrisL

We run Epson 2200’s and 1280’s at school...both handle up to 13” wide and both do a nice job on prints. The 2200 has better ranges in it’s blacks though due to the 3 different black ink cartridges.

I have an old Epson 3000. The heads are outdated, and have some problems, but with a third party RIP I get good results. What I would highly suggest is getting something that will print on banner paper. Mine is 17” wide but I can go up to 44” in length, which fits large page spreads and box flats etc. It can save money over time to not use a whole sheet but only as many inches as needed. Look at ink costs over time as well, I’m sure you know. From what I hear HP has the better options, but the RIP is very important, and the support for it. Read reviews of the various softwares, and choose the one that is most stable and/or the one that has the best third-party RIP.

I used an HP DeskJet 1220c/PS for years, and it was great — worked out of the box with near contract proof colour accuracy via the Adobe PressReady software. PressReady was discontinued a few years ago so I started looking for other options and settled on a DesignJet 10PS (with HP’s RIP rather than the EFI one). I bought it from eBay so it arrived without software — not normally a problem in these days of online driver downloads and updates. Oh dear. HP’s support site is a horrific rabbit warren of out-of-date information and the software itself, when I finally managed to get hold of it, is utterly half-assed. See my comments here.

The big plus side of the DesignJet range is that they use dye-based inks rather than pigments like Epson. This allows a larger colour gamut and reduces problems like bronzing and metamerism. The big downside is that on papers other than HP’s own very expensive and hard-to-find range, dye-based ink fades pretty quickly. With the new Epsons, you can print on pretty much anything and get a near-archival lifespan, and there are loads of third party papers available that are nicer and cheaper than Epson’s own range. The bronzing and metamerism problems that Epsons were known for have now been pretty much solved with the new Stylus 2400, apparently, so even though I don’t have personal experience of that model, based on my experience with HP I’d recommend the Epson. Prepress houses agree, at least in the UK — most guys I speak to now actually call digital colour proofs ’Epsons’!

There’s a review of the 2400 here, which points up another advantage: great black-and-white prints. B/w prints from my HP come out green, calibration or no.

R

This is all very helpful. I’m self-employed and dont’ have a large budget, but I don’t mind spending $1,000 for this as long as I get my money’s worth. I may talk to my printer down the road...

The thing to remember about inkjets is that they hate sitting around unused. This is when they start the clog syndrome. Print something every day just to keep your printer happy!

ChrisL

My perspective on evaluating these printers is different, because I’m actually writing the software to drive them myself, rather than using what’s provided by the manufacturer. But in a comparison between the Epson R2400 and the HP 10, there simply is no comparison. The latter uses only four inks, of which the black is 18 picoliters (a huge drop size by today’s standards). That’s why your grays come out greenish - they’re printed almost entirely with CMY ink, where on the Epson they’d be primarily “light black”.

Also, the mechanical accuracy of the 10 series (I had a 110nr) is nowhere near that of the Epson. For type work, I’m absolutely in love with the 1440x1440 mode of the Epson, and, while I was initially skeptical that it was really hitting that accuracy, I’m now convinced. By contrast, the HP has visible imprecisions even at 1200x600.

Early Epson pigment inks did indeed have problems with gamut, bronzing, and metamerism. But the latest generation is very good indeed. Bronzing can be a problem, but choosing the right paper helps a lot. As for gamut, I found the CMY inks on the 110 somewhat watery, making rich red-browns and midnight blues hard to attain.

Metamerism is a trickier question, and I really wouldn’t want to make definitive pronouncements without doing spectrophotometer measurements, but the greenish cast on the 10 series may also have something to do with that. Try viewing the prints in different light (flourescent, incandescent) and see if the cast stays the same. I know the earlier Epson dye printers (I had a 1270) had really bad metamerism, so pigment is not always superior to dye.

If you do go for the HP, get the 30 series, which is six color and has a reasonably good black dot size - that’ll improve text rendering considerably, at the very least.

In any case, enjoy! The quality of sub-$1k inkjets today is absolutely incredible, compared even to high-end pro models from a few years ago. I’m sure that whatever you end up with will suit your needs.

Just looking on Amazon — does anyone know of any huge drawbacks to buying the R1800 as opposed to the R2400?

I think a major issue that a lot of people don’t bring up when discussing HP and Epson large format printers is how the paper is fed through the machine. Epson’s tend to be top loading and when sending large amounts of paper through, jamming is an issue. Also does it make logical sense for a 13x19 format printer to load from the top? I never understand the logic in that construction. You actually have to hold the paper as it prints sometimes to assure your image prints properly.

Raph, really interesting comments. To clarify, the HP I’m talking about is the 10PS, same series as the 30 — so six inks. The greenish cast in six-colour greyscale prints is, I think, primarily a calibration issue. This printer — along with the 20, 30 and 50 — has a little built-in scanning head which, as well as dealing with printhead alignment, is supposed to perform a closed-loop calibration for whatever paper type you want to calibrate for. Suffice to say it doesn’t work and, in fact, usually seems to make things worse. Although that could be a fault in my unit, rather than a ’feature’.

But your comments reinforce what I thought already: ditch the HP and save for an R2400.

R

I hate Epson printers - have had two and always problems with streaking, spotting, jamming. They are extremely temperamental machines and it is also virtually impossible to abort a print job without rebooting the printer and your computer - altho this is easier now. I know a lot of photogs who swear by them but mine have both been lemons. Next one I buy will be some other brand.

Plus they are very difficult to calibrate. My scanner and monitor speak the same sweet language but it takes a tremendous amount of work to get a printout that’s even close.

Interesting advice above about using it every day, that may be part of my problem. But still, with the price of toner and paper I hate the waste.

Picoliters-Shmicoliters. You should evaluate printers with your eyes (and a good loupe) – not specs.

The eye is great at some thing, but not everything.
For example, it can’t tell when text comes out a bit
darker than it should. I would listen to Raph.

hhp

“Shmicoliters”

Sounds like the European on-tap version of Schmidts Beer :-)

ChrisL