Re: New Epson Photo Printers

[indivar@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Indivar Sivanathan)]

About epson inkjet printers...

On the positive input from the epson inkjet list, I have been using 
Generations Inks from Media Street (check their site on the web)
with Epson Inkjet Glossy Paper, Mitsubishi Artist Glossy paper,
Epson Inkjet paper (clay coated) and Weber-Valentine 206 with an
Epson 3000 & one of the earlier 6-color Epson Photo Styluses.  So
far the papers mentioned are good though the Weber-Valentine 
paper has not worked as well, perhaps they print settings not being
right.  Epson's glossy was the best with a minimum amount of color
adjustment.

My output is primarily photo-quality and am yet to do much work with
the cotton rag coated papers, though plan to do so.  

Also am refilling cartridges.  Filling the 3000 large tanks is quite easy
and much less expensive than buying OEM cartridges, even at discounted
houses such as BuyComp.  The blank cartridges can be purchased from a
number of vendors & sell for around 8.00/ea.  It is probably possible to use
emptied OEM tanks/cartridges though I haven't tried it.  The cartridge
blank is basically
a plastic bag or bladder inside the plastic container.  The cost per refill
(less
the cartridge) is just under 10.00, quite economical, especially considering
the Generations Inks are reputed to be archival and are waterproof.

As a color match to OEM inks they are close, requiring additional color
saturation,
possibly more contrast, and some individual tweeking, such as adding more black
in the selective color channel in Photoshop.  

Refilling 6-color cartridge blanks is much more challenging, and unless one
has an
extreme amount of patience, refilling used cartridges is not recommended. 
The cost
however is very good:  if purchased in quantities of 10 the blanks are 4.90
and inks
around 2.00 or even less.  Quite a price difference to a preloaded
cartridge at 38.00.
Readers interested can check out the MIS Supply website for lots of info &
suggestions
on refilling.  

Cartridge blanks are available for the Epson 1200 & quite possibly will be
for the new
Epsons coming out next year.  However if Epson's claims of better color
longevity are
true, staying with the OEM set may be best for many applications.  

Hope the info is helpful,
-Indivar



>Thanks for all the mail I received about ink jet prints and their
>durability.
>The conclusions are:
>- some peoples are very satisfied
>- others are not satisfied at all
>- the result is that I can't make my mind !
>It is difficult to decide something because experiences seems to be sometime
>contradictories.
>Life is cruel.
>
>Gildas Le Lostec