Epson - EcoTank Photo ET-8550 All-in-One Wide-format Supertank Printer

Try saving as a PDF from Illustrator and then printing from the PDF. I get significantly better prints from my EcoTank when I do that — like night and day. Also make sure you have all the drivers installed and up to date.

I hope someone can suggest something, but AFAIK unfortunately this is kind of just what you’re going to get with an EcoTank (for the cost-effective printing). I have two I use for my business, with the primary being an 8550 which is a 6-color printer. I was using it for greeting cards for a while but it was becoming too time consuming so I now hire those out to a local printer. They use a laser printer, though, and the colors are worse than the EcoTank. Really the next step up would be a pigment ink type of printer — that’s how you get really vibrant colors. But the prints themselves aren’t quite as durable and I’m not sure if they’d hold up as a card. There’s always a trade-off.

I use the Epson ET-8550 6 color printer. It produces excellent prints up to 13x19” and borderless too. It isn’t hard on ink so not expensive to use either. Highly recommend it. Check YouTube (Kieth Cooper / North Light Images) for reviews on printers. He really goes in deep on the nut and bolts to give complete accurate assessment on capabilities and good/bad on printers. Lots of info.

I print a test page on my ET8550 a couple time a month just to keep any issues at bay and do a head cleaning periodically if I see any problems. Using a tank based ink delivery system does away with much of the headaches of cartridges. I know I’ll NEVER go back to using cartridges again. Even my day to day inkjet is an Epson EcoTank printer, ET2800.

Back in the day, some cartridges had integrated heads. Bad design all around. I had an Epson Workforce series cartridge style printer. What a dog! Didn’t have int’g heads but I could not keep cartridges from messing up in that thing. Almost swore off Epson because of that printer, then I started looking at the ECOTANK technology. Bought the ET2800 as a test bed. Used it for nearly a year and never once had any issue short of an occasional head cleaning (seemed to be YELLOW that gave me the most problems). When the ET8550 was marked down for BF a couple of years ago, I took the gamble based on what I saw using the ET#800. Best gamble I ever made.

Second the choice of the Epson ET8550. I bought one a couple of years ago and do my own prints, everything from 8x10 to 13x19 (max size). Even did a trial run of a landscape panorama I created on 13” wide roll paper (cut to 48” long) and it was fantastic looking. As to longevity of the prints, under glass and not left in strong direct sunlight, estimated to last several decades. Kieth Cooper (on YouTube) will give you more detailed information about the ET8550 and printers in general than you can imagine. The man’s a printer guru! You can watch his review of the information about the processes used to make this longevity claim here https://youtu.be/AzESi8ecgiQ?si=2byKfnmJo4RhDJ0L The ET8550 is very economical to use. I’ve done lots of prints and just recently needed to refill the tanks. Luckily I bought a couple complete sets of bottled Epson ink at the same time as the printer as ink prices have gone up so a full set of 6 inks needed is now around $130 but unless you going into printing commercially, should last for over a year. The supplied ink that comes with the printer will last quite a while. eBay has some good deals but be careful you’re getting ACTUAL Epson ink. Even at these prices, Epson ink is one of the least expensive sets of ink on the market. I highly recommend you do not use 3rd party inks with the ET8550, not because they don’t work (probably will but I’ve spent to much time perfecting my color calibration to chance it) but because you don’t know the standardization of the ink itself and in doing so, you could throw all your good efforts for color calibration out the window. I recommend you read up on color calibration, as you may want to use color profiles with this printer to achieve near perfect color rendering. I use DataColor’s full suite of tools (software and hardware sensors) to calibrate my monitors and printers to standardized samples. All of my papers I use are calibrated to Epson inks and unless they are actual Epson OEM papers, I create an ICC color profile that is loaded in the printer. My prints come out looking exactly how they look on any of my stack of four color calibrated 27” UHD monitors. Hope this little missive helps anyone who’s looking for a good photo printer.

Mainly price. The ET8550 was on sale at Amazon for a bit over $500 during BF a couple years ago. Haven’t been sorry at all. Even got the additional extended warranty for 5 years (IIRC). So far it’s been an exemplary performer for my printing needs.

I have had issues getting things to come out as I want but only have had to ‘take what I could get’ a few times. I don’t shoot what you might call ‘fine art’ images, more a general purpose of landscapes and street style. The ET8550 does a fabulous job in that respect for my own wall hangings and photo albums plus I give them as gifts to family and friends.

I have the Epson ET-8550 6 color photo printer (13” x 19” max prints) and print my own work. I also use Datacolor’s suite of calibration tools to ensure all devices in my workflow are calibrated to the same standard so what I see on my display is what I see on my final prints. Unless you plan on making 100’s to 1000’s of prints, this is the way to go since you have ultimate control. If you plan to hang the prints I’d recommend using UV resistant glass/plexiglass coverings if hanging in areas of direct sunlight unless you opt for using pigmented inks. Myself I use the standard dye inks.

I’ve got the EPSON ET-8550 6-color photo printer and I really like the results. It runs around $600 and a full reload of all 6 bottles of bulk ink runs around $130 unless you happen to find it on sale like I did last year and bought up a large stock. It lasts for an extremely long time unless you’re constantly printing large prints. I refill about every 8-10 months and tend to print on a periodic basis in sizes up to 11x14”. The max paper that it can handle is 13 x 19” unless you hand feed longer sheets 13” wide and up to 79” long, like for panoramas. It’s a nice setup but you’re definitely not going to get it for $200 unless you happen to find a used one on eBay or such. There is the ET-8500, a smaller version (LTR size paper I believe) but not sure how much or the specs. Go to EPSON.COM where you can get specs and docs to review.

It uses ink tank's father than cartridges. Has a photo black and grey as well. I regularly print 11x14 with great quality. Qimage ultimate software on a pc let's you print multiple sizes or copies on one sheet of paper. So an 8 1/2 by 11 can do several 2 x 3 and a 4x6 for example.

I'm currently using an Epson ET8550 all in one printer. Does great photos and uses ink tanks, so no cartridges to dry up. I do lots of 4x6 and some 8x10. Occasional 11x14 as well. Theres a program Qimage Ultimate that lets you print multiple copies or mixed sizes on one sheet of paper. So 2 wallets and 2 4x6 on one sheet.

Print lots of photos on my Epson ET-8550. Six ink colors.

I am on my second ET-8550. The first one ran for 4 years perfectly until it gave me a paper jan error message which I eventually found was caused by a roller jamming the feeder bar. I was unable to find a fix so I purchased a second printer. Now I am finding that the new printer produces poorer quality prints particularly with contrast tones. I have tried all kinds of adjustments to the image without much luck. When you compare prints side by side you can see a significant difference. Anyone has a solution for this, of a source for replacement parts particularly the paper feed roller bar for my previous printer?

The et-8550 is incredible, I can’t recommend it enough.

I have this printer and I love it! It’s done an amazing job for me. From prints to stickers to mini comics and zines! Great workhorse, a little slow when it comes to multiple prints per minute at the highest color quality but other than that a great investment all the way

You're asking about price per print, *including* the amortized cost of the printer. In the long run, ink and paper costs always dominate. Short term however, the price of the printer dominates. A more expensive printer, such as the Epson ET8550, will have very good long term cost, but the initial investment is steep. A less expensive printer, such as a Canon SELPHY, will have a modest initial price, but price per picture adds up much faster. The least expensive printer is Walgreen's, with no up-front cost, but high ongoing cost. A second consideration is quality. The more expensive the printer, the higher the print quality. The ET8550 will outperform Walgreens, producing richer colors and more detail. A professional printer such as the Canon Pro 1200, will be even better. The SELPHY does not match Walgreens. And then there's effort. Walgreens takes your JPEGs and prints them. SELPHY does, too. But a dedicated printer will require some fiddling with a computer to get good results. On the flip side, you get to play with various paper types and sizes. But make no mistake, this is extra effort. Personally, I went with a Canon Pro 200, which is roughly equivalent to the Epson ET8550, but cheaper to buy and more expensive to operate. It's all a matter of how much do you intend to print. I also have a much cheaper Epson XP8500, which prints better photos than the SELPHY, for less money, but can't match the Pro 200. I also have a SELPHY, which is nice for what it is, but can't match Walgreen. And I have an INSTAX printer, which fits in my pocket and prints adorable little polaroids. But quality can't match even the SELPHY. Depending on your needs, all of the mentioned printers are a good purchase. In your case, I'd probably recommend the Epson XP8800 as a cheap, good quality photo printer. You'll be able to buy six full ink replacements before you'll reach the cost of the ET8550, which should take several years. If you'd like to splurge, the ET8550 is definitely the better printer, with lower ink costs. And keep in mind that ink is only one part of the running costs. It's easy to get swept up in the marketing that an ecotank printer makes printing "free". But that's ignoring paper costs, which in my experience dominate printing costs in the long run. First party paper is reliable and good, but offers only limited variations. Third party paper requires matching printer profiles, which can be hard to come by for non-professional printers such as the XP8800 (but some paper manufacturers (Photospeed) profile for free, and there are cheap services for creating bespoke profiles).

I know I'm a little late to the party, but I use the ET-8550 and I deliver professional prints with it daily. I have never had even my most discerning customers seem dissatisfied. At its price per print, I don't think there's anything else that I might even remotely consider unless my business somehow quadruples magically. It's more than enough for a small business pro photographer, and is THE choice in my opinion. This comes from someone with a very unique position of working for cool Best Buy managers who basically let me print on every printer we get coming through, even the returned $1,500 Canons. I can't tell the difference between the Canon and the Epson for quality. Their color is slightly different for most things, and Canon is very warm sometimes.

Wow did not expect so many responses and questions. Let me say that I am still in the middle of experimenting with many different things, not to mention I am only just now getting to the stage of playtesting a full deck of my proxies. I will pull some of the general questions and answers into this comment. **Paper/Print:** At the moment after testing paper and print settings on an Epson 8550 I have settled on using Canon double sided matte photo paper with the print quality setting at standard. The eventual hopeful goal is to be able to play straight paper cards, I do not know if that will be possible with an inkjet printer due to the way the ink and paper interact. I choose to print backs as well purely out of personal preference with an eye towards unsleeved play. **Finish:** For spray finish I am balanced between Minwax oil based polyurethane warm satin two light coats, rotating the paper 90° between coats, then Minwax water based polycrylic matte for a final coat has the best feel/shuffle of a card. The reverse order and coat numbers for the best look of a card. I wish to try the polycrylic in satin but I can't budget that yet. If the above commander deck tests well with wear/play I will print out another deck for testing of the opposite combo. **Cutting:** I am going to cut them after finishing with a guillotine style cutter with the blade sharpened at a roughly 24/25° single bevel edge. Depending on how they cut I might double bevel the edge to a roughly 30° angle. **Corners:** I haven't even touched on rounding the corners yet. I will see how much of a pain it is to use scissors to manually round the corners, if its too much of a pain I will try one of those corner rounders. **Cut edge:** After that I plan to use a sharpie to blacken the cut, in the future I might use an ink pad instead. Then I will stack, compress and hit the edges with a light coat of finish to seal them. **Thickness:** A basic swamp from onslaught measures .28 mm on my calipers. The same printing on my double sided canon matte photo with a spray finish measures at .25 mm. There is a variance of +/- .02 mm or so, since too much force will start to compress the paper itself. Also I might accidently go heavier or lighter on the spray finish due to human error

Canon 63lb double-sided matte photo

At the moment for double sided printing I am going with Canon 63lb Double-sided Matte Photo. Then I coat with finishes. I am still experimenting, but its close enough that I was willing to print out a full commander deck for play/stress testing. I was using canon 45lb single sided matte photo then gluing the back side with the same paper to it. Too much of a pain in my rear for me to continue. Some of the prints that I glued are having a reaction 2 weeks later to the oil based finishes and yellowing (I half expected that to happen or that the glue would fail due to the oil base). That combo makes a card that is a bit too thick/heavy once you put a finish on it.

MTGProxyPrinter, Epson 8550 using Canon 63lb double-sided matte photo paper. Epson print settings: Semi gloss photo setting, quality set to standard print. 2-sided printing settings: Manual (Long-edge binding), left long edge binding, back page binding margin adjusted by .3 mm. Color Correction: Brightness 3, Contrast -3, Saturation 3, Density -3 I am unfortunately no expert when it comes to color correction fine tuning. I got as close as my wallet/skills could afford for the moment. I keep hoping someone who is more of an expert in color correction will chime in with a better profile. The cards are close enough but anyone who really looks will see they are slightly off. Its close enough that I felt I could move on to testing a full deck with what I have.

I use an epson 8550 with decent results. This [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicproxies/comments/1ij7pip/paper_test_summary_list_with_links_epson_8550/) has a few links to different paper test posts with photos. I should note the epson 8500 is functionally identical to the 8550 but limited to max width of 8.5in u/UnguIate has a canon pro-1100, here is a [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicproxies/comments/1lgg18e/comment/mz28fs4/?context=3) with some of his results.

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.

Concur! Im going on 2 years with mine and it's very good.