Who Prints Better? Epson or Canon.....

[rarebear]

I thought till a day ago both where are the same quality but a good friend who just bought a Epson R1400 retuned it bought a R1900 returned it and bought a R2880 and is thinking of buying a Pro 3800 told me he printed pictures at the store and that the Canon 9000 and 9500 was easy to see it was not as good as a Epson..

I see most members here own Canon's and was thinking Canon was best but now have to go with what my friend told me..

Is there a hands down winner for photo quality at the higher end of user models?

 

[dan_uk_1984]

Canon do a thing where you send them the file and they print it and send it back - you can choose which printer you have it printed on so this may give you a good idea of quality

 

[ghwellsjr]

I believe at least some of the four Epson printers you listed use pigment ink. If your friend used plain paper to do his comparison test between Epson and Canon, then the Epson will look much better. If that is the case, he should also do another comparison test using glossy photo paper, but be aware that pigment ink requires a special glossy photo paper.

 

[qwertydude]

At the higher end it's awfully close in terms of quality and even print life, I mean the definition and color is superb with both brands of high end. But keep in mind if you plan on refilling you pretty much throw those comparisons out the window in which case Canon tends to be easier to refill whereas Epson is easier to convert to CIS.

 

[incartek]

Epson, Canon and HP are all good. I like Epson because you have more choice on suppliers and you can have a third party bulk feed such as Nomorecarts.

 

[rarebear]

Hi All,
My Friend bought his own images to print and they used all the same photo paper at one Fry's loaction.
Maybe the paper or print settings was the problem..

IMHO I can't beleive they could be that far a part in quality..

 

[ghwellsjr]

Did your friend use an Epson glossy photo paper designed exclusively for pigment ink?

Or did he happened to use an Epson glossy photo paper that was designed both for pigment and dye inks?

Or maybe he used a glossy photo paper that was not designed for pigment ink?

Was his photo paper even glossy?

If you want the best photos with dye ink, you should use a glossy photo paper designed exclusively for dye ink and to be on the safe side, you should use Canon paper for the Canon printer.

If you want the best photos with pigment ink, you should use an Epson paper designed for that printer.

Please have a look at this link:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=8965#p8965

And you can see more discussion on the subject by searching on Durabrite with my name as the author.

 

[pharmacist]

Since I use both the Canon i9950 (very similar to the Pro 9000: same printhead, except without chips on the cartridges) and the Epson Pro 3800, my experience might be interesting to you.

On high glossy photo paper the Canon i9950 produces the sharpest and the best pictures, unrivaled by the Epson Pro 3800, since the pigment inks tend to become a bit dull on high glossy photo paper. But the details in the shadows tends to be flatten out in favour of the overall contrast of the picture. But must will prefer the Canon i9950 (or the Pro 9000), because the pictures looks more vivid and the glossy shine is maintained with dye inks.

On matte paper and semi gloss papers the Epson Pro 3800 rules supreme, because the pigment ink reflects the light better on this surface giving very good details in the shadow area's without the flattening seen with the Canon i9950 dye inks. Since the semi gloss (pearl) paper is less suffering from spot lights, the resulting photo's look more pleasant to the human lights and also helps to reduce metamerism and bronzing seen with pigment inks on high glossy papers.

Which is better: it depends what your favorite paper/media is.