Epson is aiming to ease both concerns by bringing the EcoTank line into a photo printer. The Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 is a mid-level photo printer with refillable epson photo printer ink tanks. The ink included with the printer itself will last for about 2,300 4×6 prints and replacing it will cost only about four cents a print.
As such, you’ll need plenty of desk space but, nevertheless, it’s a subtle and straightforwardly designed printer. Printing can be quite expensive if you aren’t printing those larger A3 prints so, again, this is professionals who need its remarkable photo print quality. You’ll have no shame selling your best snaps when using Canon’s high quality photo paper and this printer together. I didn’t care for the process of removing the back to use the rear photo feed — in part, because it needs to be put back together before other types of prints.
Available in white, yellow, or black and measuring a pocket-friendly 1 by 5 by 4 inches, the one-pound printer makes four passes to lay down cyan, magenta, and yellow ink plus a protective clear coat. Kodak says its largest (90-print) paper and ink pack translates to 40 cents per photo, but we’ve found sale prices that cut that to 30 cents. The Epson SureColor P700 produces beautiful, high-quality color and black-and-white prints that accurately reflect the original image across many types of media using archival, pigment-based inks meant to last a lifetime. This printer consistently delivers excellent prints with long-lasting pigment inks. Be aware that it ships with less-than-full ink cartridges.
Erin Roberts is a freelance writer reporting on cameras and camera accessories at Wirecutter. She started her career as a photojournalist working in newspapers—shooting film—and was the mobile-imaging editor at DPReview. She is also a professional photographer who has made her living photographing everything from rock stars to humpback whales. If you’re looking for a printer capable of producing vibrant colors that pop off the page, at a lower price than our top pick, the Canon Pixma PRO-200 is a great choice. The P700 features a transparent window and an interior light that together allow you to watch each print in process, an experience that we found as absorbing as seeing an image emerge in a darkroom tray.
Now, you’ll pay a lot more money for a professional photography monitor so it’s up to you if you want to invest in such a device. If you have a low quality monitor and you think everything looks ‘good’ on your screen, it looks completely (or slightly) different when coming out of the printer. This is because both devices need to have the same understanding of how your file should look. Keep in mind that its smaller brother, the SC-P700 (which is nearly identical, its just smaller and thus prints smaller paper) has 25ml cartridges. For the most part, I found the paper handling of the ET-8500 to be excellent. If I had one complaint, it would be that you can’t set the option for thick papers from the print driver, only from the touchscreen, and when you change that setting, it is reset once you power down the printer.
Printing documents on a photo printer is expensive and inefficient, while photos will look bad coming out of a document printer. Regular 8.5×11-inch printer that puts the emphasis on photo quality rather than document output, the Epson XP-8600 is an excellent choice. Of course, all this wouldn’t mean much if the prints didn’t look any good. Fortunately, the Canon PIXMA G620 MegaTank (G650 in Europe) puts out images of great quality, with good color rendition and tonal range.
I’ve not had the 8550 here for a while, so the profiles I made are it. Lastly and very importantly, to print digital negatives (I talked to Keith and he made a video about this a year ago) on transparent film for contact printing (cyanotype, epson laser printer albumen, salt, platinum/palladium, etc). Keith Cooper’s YouTube and blog reviews will give you chapter and verse on the ET8550. I’m very happy with this printer and I’m sure you will not be disappointed with the ET8550.