What's best fine art printer?

[Tony Wypkema]

What's the best fine art printer that
-- costs less than $1,000
-- prints well on watercolor paper
-- is reliable and
-- doesn't cause banding?

I'm thinking of getting an Alps MD 5000, but I had poor results on my
Alps MD 1000 on watercolor paper and I experienced banding.

I'm thinking of getting an Epson Stylus Photo EX, but the Epson Stylus
800 we own is unreliable; and produces banding frequently, despite print
head alignments and nozzle checks, and I rarely get more than half a
dozen consecutive prints without some problem with the print-outs.

Thanks.

Tony

[Mike Weiser]

If you can wait a few weeks, go for the Epson Stylus Photo 1200, which is
out in Europre now and due here very soon. The 1200 is the replacement for
the EX and will print up to 13" x 19". It has a smaller droplet size than
the previous version.

Available now and supposedly exceptional are the Stylus 900 and the Photo
750, which won't print as large but are also getting rave reviews (see
http://www.computers.com/ ...look in the yellow box for the ink jet review).
The 900 is four color with the smallest droplet size around at 3 picoliters
(as well as variable drop size), and the 750 is six-color. The 900 is the
better multi-purpose printer and very fast, but the 750 is the choice for
printing mainly photos.

From what I hear, you won't have the problems you've been having with these
printers.

--

Michael Weiser
mwe...@camsystems.com
http://home.earthlink.net/~mweiser

Tony Wypkema wrote in message <3720C814...@design-write.com>...

[BHilton665]

>From: Tony Wypkema <thepa...@design-write.com>

>What's the best fine art printer that
>-- costs less than $1,000
>-- prints well on watercolor paper

What is 'watercolor paper', how do the results compare to 'glossy-film' or
photo-quality paper?

>I'm thinking of getting an Epson Stylus Photo EX, but the Epson Stylus
>800 we own is unreliable

Anyway, I have the Photo EX and get great results on film, I'm very happy with
the image quality (using 35 mm slide film, scanned in with a Nikon LS-2000).
Also have an older Stylus Color ... have not seen the problems you mention with
your 800.

I have had two problems with the EX ... it clogged once when I left it off for
several weeks (vacation etc) and took most of a cartridge to clear out; and in
general it uses a lot of ink, but other than that I really enjoy it.

As a previous responder said, wait a few weeks and the 'new improved' version
should be available.

[Mike/ToySoldier]

Water color paper is a textured surface paper with a lot of "tooth" to
it. Good water color paper looks stippeled or dimpled. It helps the
artist when you're using a "wash" effect, that is, flooding the area
with a diluted tint, and then washing down... something I normally
would do when painting a sky or as a general background before working
on the finer detailing. I don't know if a "normal" inkjet printer
could even handle it... but it might be interesting to try it.

Mike

--

[Edward Bigelow]

Probably any printer for which you can buy archival inks such as the Lysonic
or Luminos.

A good starting place for Epson archival inks/watercolor paper is:
http://www.islandartcards.com/epson/epson.html

And two other sources for info are:
http://www.missupply.com/store.cgi?cart_id=2396289.10795&page=arcinks.html

http://www.lumijet.com/Linkpage.htm

And throwing a little light on ink/paper issues is:
http://www.tssphoto.com/sp/dg/fade.html
..
..

Tony Wypkema wrote:

> What's the best fine art printer that
> -- costs less than $1,000
> -- prints well on watercolor paper

> -- is reliable and
> -- doesn't cause banding?
>
> I'm thinking of getting an Alps MD 5000, but I had poor results on my
> Alps MD 1000 on watercolor paper and I experienced banding.
>

> I'm thinking of getting an Epson Stylus Photo EX, but the Epson Stylus