T
Travis
Guest
Today, I received the Epson 1280 printer from Insight.com (one of Epson's online dealers listed on their website). I was a bit nervous ordering from them because I hadn't heard of them before and didn't see very many others who had either.
But I took a chance since they had the printers in stock! I paid full price ($499) for the printer, but I told them I had originally preordered with Outpost.com who has free Overnight shipping. So they matched that and shipped it to me overnight! I received it the next day as promised.
I have been using an Epson 880 for the last few months. Before that, I was using the Epson 1270, which I liked a great deal, but I took advantage of the buyback program and got my money back shortly after discovering the orange shift problem. Although I did experience the orange shift problem myself to a minor degree, I think I jumped the gun by sending the printer back right away. I guess I was afraid that if I didn't do it right away, then wouldn't honor the buyback later. At any rate, I returned the 1270 last year and got the 880 in the meantime (since it was much cheaper and still made decent prints). BUT I missed my large format printer!!!
For the last few weeks, I was debating whether to get the 1280 (which would still probably suffer from the orange shift problem), or get the new Canon S800 when it comes out in April. Unfortunately, it didn't appear Canon was going to release a large format photo printer... so I decide to go with the Epson 1280 - mainly because I wanted a large format photo printer, but also because of the borderless printing options.
Margins have always been a bothersome thing to me, especially in creative print programs like Print Artist. Whenever you design a card, sign, etc you always had to account for the margins. On HP printers, for example, the top and bottom margins are different, which really creates a headache for making cards that you fold. You either have to totally customize the settings in the print program (and hope you got it right), or trim the paper when you are done (which is equally challenging to get right).
ANYWAY, I just got done printing a half-fold card on the Epson 1280 on two-sided brochure paper and it turned out great! I used the borderless setting and it worked just fine for this paper. The first time through, part of my card was cut off because I forgot that the Epson printer driver expands the file a little in order to make it borderless. This was no big deal, though, because all I had to do is create a very small margin around the page (about .10 inches) and then it printed right to the border without truncating the printed text/graphics. No problemo!
Then I printed a borderless 8.5 x 11 photo because I found a cheap frame at the dollar store at that letter size. Again, no problems and it printed just fine on the Red River Ultrapro Satin paper that I used!
One thing that I did notice is that the paper feed slows down a LOT at the beginning and end of a borderless print! The carriage still goes back and forth at about the same speed, but the paper advances very slowly for the first and last 1/4" of the paper... which adds a little printing time to the borderless projects... no big deal though.
I really don't understand why the 2880 option is not available when doing borderless printing??? Does anyone else know why this would be? Well anyway, the 2880 resolution was an option on the Epson 880 I have been using and I didn't think it was worth the much longer print time... the difference was negligible. I saw a slight increase in detail with smaller prints, but other than that, the 2880 is just a gimmick since the drop size is the same.
My next test will be to do a very large photo - perhaps a panoramic photo from my G1 digital camera!
Travis
But I took a chance since they had the printers in stock! I paid full price ($499) for the printer, but I told them I had originally preordered with Outpost.com who has free Overnight shipping. So they matched that and shipped it to me overnight! I received it the next day as promised.
I have been using an Epson 880 for the last few months. Before that, I was using the Epson 1270, which I liked a great deal, but I took advantage of the buyback program and got my money back shortly after discovering the orange shift problem. Although I did experience the orange shift problem myself to a minor degree, I think I jumped the gun by sending the printer back right away. I guess I was afraid that if I didn't do it right away, then wouldn't honor the buyback later. At any rate, I returned the 1270 last year and got the 880 in the meantime (since it was much cheaper and still made decent prints). BUT I missed my large format printer!!!
For the last few weeks, I was debating whether to get the 1280 (which would still probably suffer from the orange shift problem), or get the new Canon S800 when it comes out in April. Unfortunately, it didn't appear Canon was going to release a large format photo printer... so I decide to go with the Epson 1280 - mainly because I wanted a large format photo printer, but also because of the borderless printing options.
Margins have always been a bothersome thing to me, especially in creative print programs like Print Artist. Whenever you design a card, sign, etc you always had to account for the margins. On HP printers, for example, the top and bottom margins are different, which really creates a headache for making cards that you fold. You either have to totally customize the settings in the print program (and hope you got it right), or trim the paper when you are done (which is equally challenging to get right).
ANYWAY, I just got done printing a half-fold card on the Epson 1280 on two-sided brochure paper and it turned out great! I used the borderless setting and it worked just fine for this paper. The first time through, part of my card was cut off because I forgot that the Epson printer driver expands the file a little in order to make it borderless. This was no big deal, though, because all I had to do is create a very small margin around the page (about .10 inches) and then it printed right to the border without truncating the printed text/graphics. No problemo!
Then I printed a borderless 8.5 x 11 photo because I found a cheap frame at the dollar store at that letter size. Again, no problems and it printed just fine on the Red River Ultrapro Satin paper that I used!
One thing that I did notice is that the paper feed slows down a LOT at the beginning and end of a borderless print! The carriage still goes back and forth at about the same speed, but the paper advances very slowly for the first and last 1/4" of the paper... which adds a little printing time to the borderless projects... no big deal though.
I really don't understand why the 2880 option is not available when doing borderless printing??? Does anyone else know why this would be? Well anyway, the 2880 resolution was an option on the Epson 880 I have been using and I didn't think it was worth the much longer print time... the difference was negligible. I saw a slight increase in detail with smaller prints, but other than that, the 2880 is just a gimmick since the drop size is the same.
My next test will be to do a very large photo - perhaps a panoramic photo from my G1 digital camera!
Travis