Epson printer + HP paper. Is there a solution?

[lukasdp]

I have a 1400 Epson Stylus photo printer and I picked up a batch of 50 4x6 HP glossy photo paper on ebay for 1.00$!
great deal, only the photos are horrid. Colour wise they seem fine, however the ink output is much to heavy and no matter the combination of settings the output remains the same. This is a clear profile issue and I have had great result using non-epson papers before.
For my professional work I use Harman papers and their profiles and the results are perfect. I can not find any HP profile to download and use so I'm at a loss as to my options. Buy Epson paper and forget this HP stuff? or could I possibly craft my own profile somehow?

yours thoughts and experience will be greatly appreciated!
~Lukas
www.lukaspeters.com

 

[brian.stone@mail.com]

You Do Not have any options. HP paper does not work with Epson Printers. Your best solution is to toss the HP paper or give it to someone you know that has an HP photo printer. Profiles will not help. The paper and ink are not compatible in any way.

 

[mikling]

Well there exists sometime little snippets of tricks etc. not available to all.

I suspect you purchased HP Premium Plus photopaper which does not work well on a lot of printers especially when the paper ages a bit. I was a victim of such a deal. However I found printers to use this with and ended up with inexpensive high performance papers in the end. However only selected printers can use these effectively.

The issue is that Epson printers will put down too much ink for these papers and not allowing the ink to dry sufficiently before a second pass. Depending on the age of the paper, Canon printers may not like it as well.

You need to find a paper setting that will put down less ink. Try a matte paper setting.

Secondly, turn off high speed in the Advanced Tab.

Finally, there is something that is not available on the 1400, 1900 1800 etc. that is available on the higher end printers. In the Advanced tab, there is an ink config selection. Here you can control the ink density and drying time allowed. Starting from the 2400, 2880 and up, you can fine tune the ink output. This a a level of control that allows you to further tune the printer to match the paper chosen.

It is not just a profile issue.

By running dye ink in my R2400, turning down the ink density combined with turning off high speed mode allows me to use this HP paper. I have a half case worth of it. Color wise it is excellent...just finicky and you need to be patient to allow it to dry properly.

 

[fotofreek]

I had a similar problem about ten years ago with an epson dye based printer and some Kodak paper I bought on sale. Too much ink laid down and "bronzing" in the dark areas. Also the ink just didn't dry completely. Kodak did have the settings to be used for this printer, but they didn't produce acceptable results. This happened well before the current Kodak printers come onto the market.

 

[Greysonphil]

Why not give HP paper to somebody who can use it properly?

 

[Fenrir Enterprises]

I think HP Everyday paper is the only one that says it's universally compatible and not just HP-only paper. Of course, it's lower quality paper that's less glossy and can't take detail as well. Staples usually has it for sale, $1-after-rebate, either 4x6 or 8.5x11 one week out of every month, alternating sizes.

 

[WolfgangExler]

I'm not shure if all these information poster here are correct. In general, photo paper coating needs to be compatible with the kind of used ink. Epson offers printer with bith Dye and Pigment ink. As far as I know, all Epson photo papers have a microporous coating and can be used with pigmented and pigemnted inks as well. Swellable coating can be used with only with Dye ink. HP offers both kind of papers, in the past all "Advanced" papers had a microporous coating usable with pigmented ink. I use some of this HP papers with Epson printers with great results.

So depending on the printer and used ink, only some HP papers can be used with pigmented ink, but all HP photo papers are usable with Dye ink.

HP Everyday paper has a swellable coating and therefore it has very bad results when used with pigmented ink. There is a HP Everyday Paper for Pigmented ink, but as far as I know this is only available in roll format for large size printers.

Wolfgang

 

[godlyatheist]

I just had the unfortunate experience of buying the HP Brochure paper (Q1987A) to use on my Epson Artisan 835. When the page comes out the ink isn't completely dry and you can feel that there's a layer of ink that sits on top of the paper (way too much ink used). The worst part is that the colors all have a blue tint so everything looks off. Even the cheapest Kodak paper I tried doesn't do this. I only bought the HP paper because I can't find another brand of glossy brochure paper that's blank on the back side in store. What can I do to get a more compatible paper?

 

[Fenrir Enterprises]

Huh, I'm pretty sure I've run HP gloss brochure through my R340 (OEM ink) but that's non-Claria ink and also older pack of paper.

How about the store brands? I think both Office Depot and Staples have double-sided gloss brochure paper. Running brochures on an inkjet can get pretty expensive though, even using refill inks you're still spending a fortune in coated papers. Depending on your volume, you may be better off doing it on a color copier with laser gloss paper, which is usually about $20 for 500 sheets, not 150 sheets like most inkjet papers are.