Help! New Epson ET-8550 worse than cheap HP?

[mitsley]

Hi there,

I just bought a new Epson ET-8550. It has great photo printing, but I'm hoping to find a fix for its document performance, because it's worse than the HP ENVY Photo 7855 I bought for $150 in 2020.

The main problem is ink bleed on and through the paper.

1. The HP prints crisp text without bleed around the characters. The text and images do not show through the paper from the other side.
2. Text from the Epson ET-8550 bleeds around the characters and both text and images are very visible through the paper from the other side, particularly the darker areas of the images. These issues are quite visible to the naked eye

I have taken steps to ensure this is a fair test:

• The same papers, including Epson paper.
• Both best and normal quality settings.
• Tried all types of paper *settings* on the Epson - plain paper, lightweight, coated, even photo glossy as I read that might stop the pigment ink being used.

The Epson also shows slight white lines in images on Normal quality, despite repeated calibration. These aren't visible on Best quality.

Can anyone recommend how to solve this? I bought the printer for printing double-sided on Tabloid paper at a reasonable cost. It surely isn't worse than a cheap HP!?

Many thanks!

 

[mitsley]

Can anyone help here?

 

[x64]

It seems that the printer puts more ink on the paper than you would like, you would have to reduce the ink limit or densities to solve that. Without access to these parameters there isn't much more you can do considering you tried all the available presets and settings in the driver. You could try Gutenprint to see if you can tweak it. I have no experience with it on Windows or mac though, if you are using either of those. Also consider you bought a printer purposely built to print photo's, not for documents where something like a laser printer would excel.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

You tried lots of driver settings but did you try another paper as well ? You may try an option in the driver hidden in the extended settings - to reduce the ink density overall. It's on the maintenance tab - extended settings - print density.
The ET-8550 uses both the dye and pigment black ink to print on normal paper, dye inks may cause some bleeding around the black edges . The HP printer probably just uses a pigment black which creates a sharper edge definition since the pigments don't bleed along the edges of the letters.
You may use the 'Velvet Fine Art paper' selection, but that's printing veeery slow.

 

[mitsley]

Thanks! I'm trying to proof chapters of a cookbook, by creating booklets printed double-sided on Tabloid paper.

I wanted the best balance of text and photo printing, with a reasonable cost per page.

I didn't think the 8550 would output worse quality than my cheap HP on the same paper types. I suspect you're right about the dye black.

Do you have any suggestions for the best printer for my use case?

I tried a couple of papers - Hammermill Premium, an Epson plain paper. Do you know of a double-sided paper type that might work better with the 8550?

I much appreciate your help - thanks again.

 

[RICHARD PARIS PHOTOGRAPHY]

Thanks! I'm trying to proof chapters of a cookbook, by creating booklets printed double-sided on Tabloid paper.

I wanted the best balance of text and photo printing, with a reasonable cost per page.

I didn't think the 8550 would output worse quality than my cheap HP on the same paper types. I suspect you're right about the dye black.

Do you have any suggestions for the best printer for my use case?

I tried a couple of papers - Hammermill Premium, an Epson plain paper. Can you think of a double-sided paper type that might work better with the 8550?

If I was doing this I would look at some of the websites that self publishers use to print similar books and checkout what paper they use or go to a bookstore and see what your fave cookbook is printed on.
Are you using the papers .icc profile?

 

[mitsley]

‘

If I was doing this I would look at some of the websites that self publishers use to print similar books and checkout what paper they use or go to a bookstore and see what your fave cookbook is printed on.
Are you using the papers .icc profile?

‘Proof’ is actually a strong word - it’s not critical to have exact colors and paper. I just want to share the content with friends and family for testing. But I want it to look good.