Hi Beth,

Unfortunately, the Dura-Brite inks are more for business applications, not for printing photos. I personally think their ads are a bit misleading, but we've been careful to NOT put the Dura-brite printers in the scrapbook mags. While the inks themselves are wonderful, there are only 4 colors (versus the 6 or more colors that a photo printer will have). So your pictures will be light and water-resistant, but they won't have the same color spectrum as ones printed on a photo printer. Does that make sense?

If you're interested in an all-in-one photo printer, I can highly highly recommend the RX600. My dad just bought one and loves it (he prints a ton of digital pictures), and I've had the chance to play with it at our trade shows. Is it too late to think about exchanging yours for that one? I see it's retailing at $299 at epson.com, plus a $50 rebate, but it's out of stock. You can probably find it online though.

I recommend looking at Atlex.com for printers, inks and papers (from ALL companies, not just Epson). He has the best price on our scrapbook papers by far (the "official name" is PremierArt Matte Scrapbook Paper for Epson). I'm going to attempt to link you to their scrapbook papers: http://www.atlex.com/Epson/more/scrapbook_paper.htm

If you haven't printed on these yet - they are fabulous! They are matte (like cardstock), but coated for photos. Layouts look absolutely amazing. The size used to be 11.6x11.6, but we recently changed it all to 12x12 (you need to make sure you aren't getting the old stuff - the new packaging is red; old packaging is white and blue).

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Leigh

Here's a link to Epson's print permanence chart. UltraChrome inks are more archival than DuraBrite. The 2200 model uses UltraChrome inks and prints up to 13" wide, but like someone else mentioned, I think they're coming out with a new wide format model that's patterned after the R800. From reading the specs, it doesn't look like it will do a true borderless 12x12 print, but personally, I'd rather print a 13x19 and trim it down. Anytime I've tried printing borderless, I find that the printer does a bit of cropping around the edges that I'm not entirely happy with.

Click here then click on "Print Permanence Ratings (download pdf)"
http://www.pictureline.com/digital/d.../consr800.html

Wish I'd thought to ask these questions BEFORE I plonked down my money, gleefully ripped open the carton and got it all set up! LOL Too late to return it now, with the ink cartridges open and tested. I did notice that my first prints were not *quite* as luscious as I'd hoped (though I really can be picky-picky). Oh well, I got a good price on it, and it's still a VAST improvement over the 10 year old HP it replaces. I'll have to order some of that scrapbooking paper to print on and see how that looks. And there's always next Christmas...

Thanks for all the great info, Leigh and Jennifer!

Beth

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Beth
my gallery

Well, I'm not sure if they won't let you send it back Beth - just say you aren't happy with it! I know that most stores here would accept a return (especially for an exchange) within 30 days of the sale. If you bought it online, it could be different, but most places will happily exchange a product that you're unhappy with (not to say you're truly unhappy - but you can always make it sound that way )

I have the 2200, and while I like the longevity of the inks (UltraChrome is our brand name for pigment inks), I honestly don't like the prints quite as much as I like the ones from the 1280. And if you're interested in printing glossy with the 2200 - forget it. The R800 is a different story however - it's my absolute favorite of the printers that we currently have available, and it uses a different ink set than the 2200, although they are the Ultrachrome inks as well. The prints are absolutely gorgeous, and the photo and matte black cartridges are in there at the same time, so you can switch back and forth from glossy to matte papers without changing out the inks. That said, I'd wait on the wide-carriage version.

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Leigh

Well, keep in mind that the print permanence ratings are for displayed prints -- not ones in a book. Even so, printing on matte paper you still get 72 years DISPLAYED with the dura brites -- not bad. And if you keep them in a closed book most of the time, your prints should still last you a very long time. I used to work in a museum with the works on paper collection, so I was really picky about having everything archival when I started shopping for a printer.

Whichever you decide on, buy separate units. Combos are a combination of cheap units. There are many good printers and scanners out there; Epson from the posts here is highly recommended. My personal preference is Cannon. I'm just a Cannon fan. Shop around and do your research. Go online and check out the forums to see what actual users have to say about each product. Do not rely on the guy at Best Buy. He is in reality only there to sell you something and will say whatever it takes to make that sell. Happy shopping!

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~Rae

Avatar Credits: Chickie by Hunibuni, BG: Felina-Iron Orchid, Border: Days of Eden-Valerie Fowler

I Googled and Froogled for ratings and prices. Wish I had looked for forums as Rae suggested. Some of the ratings online were based on only a few reviews. But recommendations seemed to fall in line with what you folks had already told me. I found the best price on 3170 scanner at the Epson site. With free shipping! Important in the far reaches of Penns Woods. Lo and behold, there was a very reasonable reconditioned R800 printer as well. I have been pleased with a couple reconditioned HP products... I decided to go for it. So my Epson adventure ships today. Can't wait. Thanks for all your comments. (I know that now as I get to the WWII pics I will be yearning for Digital Ice.)

I love my Epson 2200 wide format printer. It is expensive but I wanted a large format printer with archival inks for a huge all-digital family scrapbook project that I did last year knowing that I would be printing out 17 copies of the scrapbook with 35 pages in each book--that's close to 600 pages and doesn't include the color proofs I sent to each family member while refining the LOs. I handed it out to my 11 brothers and sisters and their families at our reunion in August and they loved it. The quality of the printouts is awesome. I used the 13x19 Enhanced Matte (archival) paper and cut them all down individually because at the time there was not a true Epson 12x12 paper. I also ended up getting a rotary straight edge cutter because I was tired of spending hours and hours at Kinko's. I don't print any glossy photos on my printer. They look much better having the camera store do them for less money than it would cost me and a lot less hassle. I strictly use my printer for big scrapbook stuff, invitations, cards--anything that look great on the matte paper.

I had purchased an Epson Perfection 3200 photo scanner the previous year to begin the huge project of scanning all of my family's heritage photos. It's been a great workhorse. I'm still in the early stages, but so far I have scanned over 300 heritage photos on two trips back to my sister's house (1200 miles away with my Mac and scanner in the trunk of my car) and over 300 family photos of mine. The old magnetic photo albums are very damaging to photos. I suggest removing your photos from them ASAP and putting them in an archival notebook with simple archival pages/sleeves for safe permanent storage. I am amazed at the deterioration of the photos of my kids from the 70s and 80s in terms of the color (they sure had not perfected the color processing chemicals or photo papers back then) and those darn magnetic pages. I also hate the old "satin finish" of the photos when it comes to scanning. My wedding photos (1974) are pink and have been since the early 80s and all the professional photographer's negatives were lost in a fire.

It's going to take me months--maybe years--just to get all the scanning and Photoshop work done on the huge stash of family/heritage photos...but I'm in this for the long haul. This is my contribution to my family's legacy. Hopefully I can squeeze some scrapping in-between all the scanning.

Margie