Epson - EcoTank Photo ET-8500 Wireless Color All-in-One Supertank Printer

I have the ET8500 A4 printer and wish I had bought the A3 version for a £100 or so more.. I have just sold my Canon Pro 300 A3 plus printer. Basically the Epson printers are expensive and the ink is cheap. Epson make most of their money from the printer not the ink. For Canon the printers are quite expensive and the ink is VERY expensive. (see below) The prints from the Epson are very good especially as I do not use the top quality photo papers. Just Kolas Satin 250 g from Amazon that costs about £0.22 (UK) per sheet. Chat GPT estimates the ink cost of printing an A4 full colour photo as about £0.08 for the Epson and £2.00for the Canon. So I pay about £0.30 for each A4 print. I have a calibrated monitor and print from Photoshop. I have a action that adds brightness and a small colour correction to the file before printing. The results are usually a good match for the image on the screen. Occasionally I have to tweak the colour a bit and print another copy but at about £0.30 I do not mind. People at my camera club are impressed with the quality of the prints I produce and say they compare well against those from a top end printer like the Canon.

I should have also have said that the scanner in the ET 8500 is very good

We went from pixma to Epson ET-8500, eco tank with all colors filled with black. Refills are super clean and last a long time. No need to buy toner cartridges.

I personally am an inkjet guy, but if you go with a thermal type laser you get access to Koehler black cored paper that replicates a real card snap. I can't help on a best recommendation for laser though. If your family will occasionally do photo prints as well you might consider an epson 8500 or its larger brother the 8550. I use the 8550 for my proxies but my gf uses it for her photography as well. Its a very capable printer, and having the black document ink in addition to pigment black really helps on refills if you are doing a fair amount of plain document prints. Ink is very affordable and my proxies run $0.015USD per single face cards or roughly $0.135 per page of epson brand ink. It may matter or it may not to you but the 8500/8550 is also capable of printing on 1.3mm foam board from the rear slot. Here is a [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicproxies/comments/1ij7pip/paper_test_summary_list_with_links_epson_8550/) with various papers I have tested with my 8550 in addition to several links to other posts by fellow proxy makers. Edit: For the record I was unable to get successful prints on my 8550 using an inkjet on black core card stock to justify the price, furthermore what is widely sold as "cardstock" from most manufacturers is not a true cored playing card stock. I have been told that swapping over to a full pigment based ink on my 8550 would allow me to print, or alternatively if I prepped with a product called "inkaid" I could get reasonable prints. However I have never seen a post with photos about either of them in use.

The 8550/8500 are exactly the same except the 8550 can print up to 13in wide. I have enough trouble with cuts on a standard 8.5 width let alone the two sheets I attempted at 13in wide. That being said being able to run out photos and posters for people at 13in wide is pretty handy. I have done a few 13in by 19in wall posters of real cards for gifts. Also something to note, the 8550/8500 is also capable of user defined paper length up to 70in or so. Can't remember the exact number but its in the tech specs if your curious. This is a [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicproxies/comments/1ij7pip/paper_test_summary_list_with_links_epson_8550/) with a bunch of papers I tested on the 8550 if you want to see what it can do. If you have already seen it then my apologies. Edit: Checked the specs max user defined paper length is 78.7 inches.

I have been happy with the Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8500 which I bought from B&H for about $750. It has a 8.5 x 14 inch scanner, so does not check that box (for that I have access to an Epson Expressions 13000XL-- that thing is expensive though). The Epson EcoTank accepts paper up to 13x19 inches. Like all inkjets, it needs special paper- I've found Inkpress to be a good budget line that has some papers that can be printed on both sides (especially the Duo Matte 80 paper). My one disappointment with the Epson EcoTank has been in how it handles text-- I've been happy with image and photo printing, but text is always printed much heavier than seems correct, especially when compared to the crisp type I get out of my laser printer (HP Color LaserJet Pro 3201).

Either use double sided card and just print the cardbacks on the other side, or print the fronts on sticker paper and the backs on card/photo paper, then stick. Any decent photo printer should do the job, but the Epson ET-8500 does it very easily and while upfront costs are fairly high, a tank of ink gets you so many more prints than the old cartridges did.

If you're looking for an art printer, don't get the ET-2850. It's a consumer-level home printer designed for documents. [www.epson.ca](http://www.epson.ca) has the ET-8500 refurbished for $579. That's a dedicated photo printer.

Most manufacturers websites have comparison settings so you can put in your requirements. So you want A4, borderless, maybe six colour rather than 4, straight through paper path for thicker media. ET-8500 is six colour, great paper handling ET-1410 is four colour but A3 which makes a very impressive print if you are selling them

I just got an Epson ET-8500 and it is amazing. I am still in the process of getting the right paper thickness and vinyl stickers I like but the quality is better than anything I have seen.

Get an Epson 8500 or 8550 when they go on sale (or refurbished). The initial cost is a bit steep but it's way cheaper long term. The megatank ink setup will encourage you to print more instead of feeling paranoid that you're wasting ink ($). Paper is key. Try to find sample packs and see what you like. I'm a huge fan of Ilford cotton rag. Pricey but it looks sooo good.

When Epson ET 8550 & 8500 first came out, I couldn't find one for months. I finally was able to get the smaller 8500, and I jumped on it. I'm still able to print amazing 8.5 x11 photo printers. They look amazing. I kind of wish I would have waited for the 8550, to be able to print 13x19 photos, but I haven't needed to, outside of two projects Refillable ink is amazing. And the pictures truly come out better than anything I've been able to have printed at office max, office depot, or some of the local shops near me