Making fine art prints on an Epson EcoTank ET-2850? - can art paper work well with just four inks?

Can you make good quality prints on art papers with the Epson ET-2850 EcoTank printer? With only four inks. How a good printer profile can help, along with how to use Epson's free EPL software.

Using Epson Print Layout to print bordered and borderless matt prints on different papers. How thick paper can you use and still feed into the A4 sized ink-tank printer.

Part of Keith's upcoming ET-2850 printer review

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[rustyneuron]

I have this printer and ran glossy paper through, selected meduym glossy paper in properties and turned off high speed printing, and the colors came out really good.

[toke]

I print black and white prints for my infrared pictures. Black and white. Absolutely perfect with NO colour casts. I am so pleased.

[rolfvansoelen]

I am considering to buy the 2850 and I am very pleased with your extensive videos about it. Thanks a lot for that !

[carloscelis]

What a great
I've watched videos today for about an hour and I've learned so much. Very informing and interesting!

[pizzablender]

I own the ET-2820, which is very similar but has dye based black ink instead of pigment, and no duplex unit.
I quite like the prints on Epson premium glossy paper, which are most sunlight resistant of my tests (but not as good as lab prints on Fuji photo paper).

[christopherwormald]

Thank you, I have thought that I might try an Eco-tank printer. My Epson higher end printer died quite some time ago, but was really good with it's multiple inkset.

[APassageForms]

Appreciate the walkthrough and sample prints on different papers!

I'm about to buy this printer for stickers, good to know it would work for some fine art prints as well.

[rgnbdby]

Thanks for the video Keith - I recently bought this printer and was about to send it back because it seemed to be printing images rather "soft" and not very crisp. (not that I was expecting art printer results). I was very surprised to hear you say use the "Matte" setting even for glossy stock or else it won't utilize black ink. That seems like a strange thing but it definitely helped to the pull the image up and out of the haze and the colors are more accurate. I've had numerous Epson printers in the past, including fine art ones and never came across this situation. Also, wasn't able to get Epson Print Layout to find the printer. Thanks

[MelanieMaguire]

Hello Keith. Thanks so much for all these videos, I find them fascinating and also quite soothing!!! (Keith's talking about printing and all's well with the world...) Anyway, I felt I had to chip in on this one because I have an Epson ET-3600 (4 inks, black pigment ink and cyan, magenta, yellow DYE-based ink) and an Epson SC-P900 (10 inks, all pigment).

I've recently started printing out artwork that's been scanned in via a CCD 12"x17" scanner (specifically for scanning art), in 2 formats - prints and greetings cards.

I first tried the greetings cards in the Ecotank because obviously that would be cheap as chips inkwise. But the quality wasn't good enough. I never considered doing prints on it, I'm using the 900 for that.

The difference between the print detail, colour matching etc between what comes out of the Ecotank and what comes out of the 900 is night and day. The prints I'm getting out of the 900 are superb. Prints out of my ET don't meet my standards for even greetings cards. I'm now doing the greetings cards on the 900, which feels like complete overkill for what is essentially ephemeral. This has been my experience with these 2 machines.

Sorry this is so long... But the deal-breaker reason that I bought the 900 is because of the pigment inks. Dye-based ink is extremely fugitive (especially magenta), so even if I could achieve the quality necessary on the ET (which I can't), I would never sell them as "fine art prints" because they will fade quickly (depending on light levels, obviously), but you could be looking at a print that's starting to look more and more green after as little as a year. The pigment ink in the 900, on the other hand, lasts several hundred years (under museum conditions), so I feel happy that I'm selling something that has some longevity - in a normal bright room probably 50-100 years.

Because these are prints of oil paintings etc, it's crucial to me that the prints match as closely as possible colour-wise (and value-wise - contrast etc) to the original works. The colours etc on my ET just don't match well enough - only 4 inks. The colours on my 900 match exactly (10 inks).

So my experience is that No you can't make "fine art prints" on an ET - you can make prints, but I think it would be a bit deceptive to call them "fine art"... I wouldn't feel happy, personally doing that. You could make greetings cards, if you're not too picky, and the fading of the picture wouldn't be an issue, because cards generally aren't kept, but when they are, they tend to be put away in a drawer out of the light.

This has been my experience - I need great detail, perfect colourmatching etc, and longevity. My ET doesn't meet these requirements. However, mileage may vary, and of course, other people may have different requirements and experiences.

Thanks again for all your uploads. Best wishes, Mel :)

[btiphotography]

I've just bought an Epson ET-2850, to replace my 12 year old HP Photosmart Premium which I had been using with an CISS system. The main use of the epson will be basic home use, but those photo prints look good :-)

[ColzoArt]

Hey Keith! Another really helpful video. I have the et 2820 and found that if I want to print on a watercolour textured paper, the bockingford inkjet paper works beautifully. It’s a subtle texture but slightly less dense than some papers I’ve tested. I paint on the bockingford non inkjet paper so it works well for me. Might be helpful for other viewers to know too?

[mashaperel]

Hello friend,
First, great video.
I wanted to ask, i am trying to print a photo on an epson glossy 4x6… it comes out very doll very “dead” and lifeless.
I tried everything, now that i came across your video here, i see that you mentioned that this printer is not meant for glossy paper really…
Do you think if i change to the matt paper i will get more colourful results?
The results you are showing here are not even close to what i got with the glossy paper.
Thank you so much for your kind help in that.

[Ivorberry]

Thanks Keith very interesting and as a photographer useful

[colourpopcrochet]

Very helpful video, exactly what I was looking for! Thank you

[PaulaFi]

Thank you! A very useful video. I have noticed too that it's better to push the paper in the beginning a little, if it is thicker. Glad to hear that it is ok to do so. I have Epson Print Layout but it doesn't show Epson ET for some reason, only Epson Surecolor. I mean the software seams not to recognize Epson Ecotank printer/driver. I wonder what's the problem then?

[Ivorberry]

Hi Keith, having just acquired the printer and as a photographer trying to follow your instructions. I would add the following comments to maybe help people in same position as me. I have an old imac running monterrey
1 the epson print layout app is not in the app store and needs to be downloaded from epson site and I took some time to find it
2 having downloaded it, it refused to recognise the printer. This is because the setup I followed auto installed as an airprint printer. The app will not work with this.
I therefore had to download the drivers, delete the printer definition on the mac and create a new one with airprint not enabled. The app then recognises the printer and worked very well.
3 trying to print a photo from the iphone app was a nightmare. It looked fine and I elected to print on a4, but it persistently started printing then stop and said my a4 defined in the app was different from what was installed in the printer. I then tried setting the control panel to matt, which I thought would work but it then required more fiddling around with that awful tiny panel before I eventually got a print which was not great.
My hope was that I could avoid using control panel by the epson iphone app or imac printer settings, but apparently not. I hate that control panel with a passion as you said its very small and changing settings is a pain. It is a throwbook to 10 years ago.
The good news is that printing from the epson print app produced great results which I was very happy with. It will do fine for a few club competition prints. I used some canon matt 170gm paper.
Thanks again for your videos, very helpful

[someperson]

Hi Keith, I appreciate the passion you put into your videos, thank you!

I have one question. I know that this printer doesn't print great colors on glossy paper.
Nevertheless i found the qualitiy to be ok for some pictures. But I have the issue that the glossy prints have ugly marks of the rollers inside of the printer. There are several solid and dotted lines across the paper. They match exactly with the rollers inside of the printer ('Pizza Wheel marks' seems to be the term for this result). I wonder if this occured to you aswell or if this is either a technical flaw or I am not able to set it up correctly?

I have already exchanged the printer in the store, but the behaviour was exactly the same.

Thanks and regards!

[utbkhlo]

Hi there, i hope you can help me. I have this printer and any color images i try to print are muted, pale, have subtle lines all over, just look like absolute garbage. I don’t understand what is wrong. I am on Mac, i tried to look at the settings directly on the printer, and clicked all highest quality but it doesn’t make a difference. The colors look nothing like the image i am trying to print. How do i fix it? Thank you! I mostly want to make brochures and posters for my home business

[JP-rqjh]

Very good review. Would this be a good printer for a graphic designer printing vector artwork? I.e Logos, solid blocks of colour and text or am I better off with a photo printer? The manufacturer's sales chat isn't very helpful! I am looking between this ET-2850 and a Canon PIXMA iP8750 (a3)

[Natalie]

Hello, thank you for the review! I struggled with 300gsm and went down to 230gsm and I’m still getting indents from the paper feeding through. Is this a problem with my printer or do I need to go thinner with the paper?