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No, you can print with the EpsonMatte media setting for B&W and it’s passable, but doesn’t really get the look I’m seeing on the other rag papers (such as cold press natural).
EPSON EcoTank ET-8550 All-in-One Wireless A3+ Photo Printer
Unlike in some large-format multi-function printers, the scanner is upsized from A4/8.5x11-inch to an 8.5x15-inch unit. (Image credit: Epson) Baryta style papers such as the Epson TPP looked good, but these usually excel on pigment ink printers.
There are also a wide variety of third-party apps available to enable wireless printing through Apple devices, even to machines that are not natively AirPrint compatible printers. By sharing a printer installed on an Apple Mac or Windows Pc over a wireless network any printer may be able to take advantage of the AirPrint features. (An additional third-party app may be required to be installed on the local machine) However I’d suggest leaving them overnight to make the comparison, and perhaps giving them to someone else to compare. Too many photographers (IMHO) get tied up in image detail concerns that few people can spot, when they would be better off paying attention to their photographic and editing skills. The grey ink allows for mixing with the strong colours, and along with variable drop sizes helping negate some of the need for light colours – usually light cyan and light magenta. It also helps in greyscale reproduction delivering better B&W printing (I’ll be returning to B&W in a bit). Here are two sets of measurements of a B&W test print. The first one uses Epson Hot Press Bright, a good cotton rag paper with a modest amount of brightener. In the example below, I’m printing two B&W images via the Epson PPL software on different media (this is from my B&W video)
C11CJ21201 | EcoTank Photo ET-8550 All-in-One Wide-format
Smart Panel allows you to operate and manage the ET-8550 locally or remotely. Supported operating systems are Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. In addition, you get TWAIN and WIA drivers for connecting the scanner to third-party programs such as Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Word. That’s not an 8550 complaint – if I want vibrant pie charts and sales graphs on plain paper, I’ll get a colour laser printer and accept that it won’t be much good for photos… So, a Hahnemuhle 210gsm watercolour paper was in the ‘big gamut’ category, whilst the Fotospeed Platinum Cotton 305 was in the small gamut camp (and hence much better for B&W). For some colour images (such as the scanned watercolour) it worked well, but paper choice should partly be driven by what sorts of image you want to print. The paper tray seems best used for plain paper and thin photo paper – almost all my photo prints and cards went in via the top.Using the printer in Windows is typically straightforward, integrating nicely into Windows’ existing print settings, with a breakout set of options on a sub-menu if you want to control the finer details. Remember me? The famous old Stylus Pro 3880 isn’t a bad image quality comparison – more inks, but the ET-8550’s more modern inks and tiny droplets help compensate. I tried to install the product's software for an Ethernet connection but cannot complete the installation in Windows or on my Mac. What should I do? This also beats Canon’s G650 and G7050 A4 ink-tank printers and beats the speeds achieved by Epson’s four-colour ET-2750. Colour prints arrived fast, too, produced at 6.1ppm – three times faster than Canon’s six-colour G650. Note that if you want to use A3+ sheets there is space needed above and to the rear of the printer.
Epson ET-8550 | ET Series | All-In-Ones SPT_C11CJ21201 | Epson ET-8550 | ET Series | All-In-Ones
It will probably be a difficult printer to find profiles for, too. No major paper manufacturer other than Epson is supplying any profiles yet… What might eventually arrive? I’d put at least some Red River papers in the “probably” category – they already have profiles for a few other EcoTank models and many other dye-based Epsons. Will they include the more interesting papers? Both Hahnemuhle and Moab are at least possibilities – they offer profiles for a few Epson dye inkjets, and this is one of the more photo- oriented models to come out in some time. Canson Infinity seems unlikely, since every Epson printer they support so far is a pigment model. It should be possible to make custom profiles, but that seems like a lot of effort for this type of printer. Profiling hardware is expensive, and it is somewhat difficult and time-consuming to use. Easier to use profiling hardware exists, but is several times the price of this printer. Compare the graph with this one using the same paper, but the VFA setting. The flat curve is what I expect to see from pigment ink printers.
Note that you can have multiple connection methods for an individual computer, but each one will appear as a ‘different’ instance of the printer. So, since I also used USB when testing, I have two 8550 printers in my (MacBook) printer list – one USB and one on the network (wirelessly). Noise Level: 5 B (A) with Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper / Photo RPM mode – 37 dB (A) with Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper / Photo RPM mode
Epson ET-8500 EcoTank Printer | Wex Photo Video Epson ET-8500 EcoTank Printer | Wex Photo Video
As a printer that’s much better suited to office work than specialist large-format photo printers, the ET-8500 features multiple input cassettes for loading different types and sizes of paper, auto duplex printing, and a large-format 8.5x14-inch scanner to enable direct scanning and photocopying. Everything’s brought together by a handy 10.9cm color touchscreen with an intuitive interface and, for remote operation via a smartphone or tablet, there’s the ‘Epson Smart Panel’ app. Connectivity options include USB, Wi-Fi and Ethernet, and the printer also features an SD/HC/XC card slot and PictBridge port. If you can open it on your apple device, chances are you can print it with AirPrint and an AirPrint compatible printer. Airprint works with Safari, Mail, Photos, iWork, PDF's in iBooks and many third-party AirPrint compatible apps available from the app store.
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Saving the image as a TIFF file (colour management turned off), I was able to import it into i1Profiler to create a custom profile. For printing from mobile devices, Epson provides its Smart Panel app. This is easy to use and provides a choice of printing and scanning possibilities, from photo printing to document capture. The app even has a power button so you can turn the printer on and off remotely, and it also tells you how much ink you have left.
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