long lasting 8x10 prints at home

[maplerock]

Can anyone suggest a reasonably priced printer that can produce 8x10 prints of photo quality...that will last many years... and use reasonably priced ink cartridges?

I was happy with my Epson Photo stylus 750, but the ink is expensive and hard to find in my area. It also is fairly slow, and seems to use lots of ink.

If any of you have experience in this area I would appreciate hearing from you. I know there are many, many printers out there...

I am a serious amateur that wants professional looking results.

[y6y6y6]

I don't think this is something you're going to find. Ink jets are cheap, and many will do photo quality. But the ink is always pricy and the prints won't last for "many years".

You can have one - Cheap or long lasting. Not both.

I use a Canon S9000 which does great photo quality prints. But even on highly rated paper I only expect the prints to last 2-3 years.

You may be better off taking your digital files to a photo developer and getting real photos.

[Motorsports Photo]

maplerock wrote:
Can anyone suggest a reasonably priced printer that can produce 8x10 prints of photo quality...that will last many years... and use reasonably priced ink cartridges?

I use the Epson 2000P. Permamnence? No problem with this printer. Cheap?? Well not really. The new 2200 is cheaper as far as initial cost, but supplies are still not minor expenses.

I also saw another photog using luminos inks on his Epson 1280, to get some permanence to his images.

I didn't start my changoever to digital until I found out about the 2000P. I didn't want my customers to suddenly find out their prints had faded after a few years.

-PS
Strasburg, OH

[Ken Fong]

I considered the 1280 along with 3rd party inks for long- lasting prints (more specifically a Piezography conversion kit for monochromatic printing.) But given I would not be printing very frequently, I did not want to deal with the potential clogging issues that seem to accompany Continous Inking Supply (CIS) systems, so I went for the Epson 2200 instead...faster and cheaper than the 2000P, but with the same good lightfast ratings and a built-in paper cutter. For the first year or two, you will only be able to buy Epson ink cartridges...though more expensive than CIS, they are less of a hassle than CIS for infrequent printing. Like the 2000P, you only need to change the color cartridge that runs out (vs. the entire color set as with the smaller printers)...this might save some money.

I have no real experience with the 2200 as my printer is still on backorder at Amazon after 2 months of waiting.
Hope this helps.

[JR92]

If you want something to produce long lasting images your best bet is to go with dye-sublimation. I have an Olympus P-400 printer and though it is expensive to run, if quality and long lasting prints is what you want than it is worth the money. Other than that Kodak offers some dye-sub printers as well but are very expensive. I sell my photographs, so I have no use for ink jet or its poor light-fastness.

[hmhm]

y6y6y6 wrote:

I use a Canon S9000 which does great photo quality prints. But even on highly rated paper I only expect the prints to last 2-3 years.


For what it's worth, Canon claims a lifetime of 25 years for S9000
prints, Epson claims 80 years for the 2200. All assuming their
ink and best paper, of course, and certain environmental
factors (sunlight, humidity, etc.)

I don't know how optimistic those numbers are, but I think the
point to take away from this is that ink jets are far more lightfast
than they used to be, and in the case of Epson their claims are
certainly challenging chemical processing.
-harry

[Sheila]

maplerock wrote:
Can anyone suggest a reasonably priced printer that can produce 8x10 prints of photo quality...that will last many years... and use reasonably priced ink cartridges?

I was happy with my Epson Photo stylus 750, but the ink is expensive and hard to find in my area. It also is fairly slow, and seems to use lots of ink.

If any of you have experience in this area I would appreciate hearing from you. I know there are many, many printers out there...

I am a serious amateur that wants professional looking results.

I have a Canon S820 which does excellent A4 (or in your case, 8 x 10) prints. Canon states that their prints will last 25 years under normal circumstances (under glass I assume). This printer has six differing ink cartridges and the software indicates when you are running low. I use both Canon paper and Ilford paper, the latter using Classic Pearl which is a matte like paper. I first tried Kodak paper and Canon printers, it would appear, don't like Kodak paper. I sell photographs and haven't had any complaints yet. I used to have the Epsom 760 which is also a good printer but I wanted better quality prints.

Cheers
Sheila