Linux Photo Printer Support?

Bryan Andersen asks: "I'm needing to replace my color printer; mine has died and isn't worth repairing. I'm heavily into digital photography and wish to be able to produce high quality prints for display without having to use Windows or send the printing out. I realize I could either go to copy centers or online photo printing services, but I'd like to be able to tune my colors, etc. I'm quite knowlegable in photographic technique from both the camera and darkroom ends. From what I've read so far I can either spend many dollars on a color Postscript printer and have almost garanteed support through its internal PS support and lose a bit in output quality or I can spend less and use Ghostscript but deciphering which printers are supported well is next to impossible. I'd find a printer that uses archive quality inks with separate ink tanks for each color if possible. I'd also prefer to get a 6 or 7 color printer. What are known working setups? How good is the print quality? Are any of the larger format printers supported? Being able to print an 11"x14" image or larger would be nice."

EPSON

[kju]

As already told, EPSON is currently the way to go.

I recently bought an Epson Stylus Color 880. I use it with gimp-print (very nice print plugin for gimp letting you choose the sort of paper, the resolution and other things just like under windows) and it gives fantastatic results. Of course like all the cheaper photo quality printers you need patience, a photo of the size of German DIN A4 (210 x 297 mm) needs about 15-20 Minutes.

I read in the docs that EPSON was very supportive to the guys from gimp-print and supplied them with docs. I recently read the same about EPSON scanners, giving out even not-yet-published docs. So EPSON seems to be very nice to the linux community, so give them back and buy EPSON! Show the other manufacturers that open support for linux can be very good for their revenue stream.

Epson good and bad.

[narrowhouse]

I agree that the epson printers are probably the best solution for a not-ultra-expensive printer under linux. The only downside I have found is that the "head charging" tends to make ink go pretty fast. The prints are excellent though(I think they are better than under windows with epson's own drivers).


Insert pithy comment here.

gimp-print: excellent quality for many printers.

[stevek]

As a small contributor and regular user of the gimp-print printer drivers, I have to say you _can_ get excellent photo quality output out of commodity inkjets from Linux.

gimp-print integrates not only with The Gimp, but also with ghostscript and CUPS, so you can use it for everyday printing.

It has support for Epson, HP, Lexmark, Canon and other printers.

I have an Epson Stylus Photo 870, and it works great with this reasonably priced model.

See our website [slashdot.org] for more info.

HP announces improved printer support - Spring2001

[tmontes]

This [hp.com] is a press release where HP is announcing (among other things) Linux-compatible drivers [...] for more than 30 HP Deskjet color inkjet printers, including models from the 600, 800 and 900 series. What kind of quality and functionality one will get from these is something we'll probably have to wait and see...

One word. EPSON

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Epson seems to have the best ones going right now. Especially since most Epson's are supported under gimp-print (what you want for photos under linux). It seems, right now, that they cooperate the best, but that could be changing with ESR at HP. I have always liked HP printers, but the newer ones are having a rougher time with support for Linux. Epson also has some of the best Large format printers too. Check out the linux printing website. [linuxprinting.org] for a list of supported printers. Most printers appearing here, but not on a distro's web site will eventually appear on a distro's HCL. If it isn't supported out of the box, you can find help getting it to work on here. Also, if you have a USB printer, check out the linux-usb website. [linux-usb.org] There you can find out if you can even use the USB on linux. If it's supported under the parallel port, usually you can get it to work on usb also, but not always. Check here first. Quote from the big section of suggested printers on linuxprinting.org :

Big

Most of the medium format Styli, including the Photo 1270, (a 13x19 format CMYKcm printer), and the Stylus Colors 1520 and 3000 (both 17x22 CMYK printers) are supported well. The Epson 2000P has preliminary support only; it doesn't work well yet. The large format printers (the 5000, 7000, 7500, 9000, 9500, etc) are not supported, although the 7500 may work soon. Good luck!

Re:One word. EPSON

[hgayosso]

ESR is not the one that went to HP, it is Bruce Perens.

Warning with Epson printers...

[cmowire]

The only warning is that some of the Epson printers have support under Linux, but only for the 4-color mode, not the 6-color mode.

I have an Epson Stylus Photo 750, but I'm using it under Win2k, not Linux.

My Epson Photo 1270 Prints Great

[Bruce_NetPD.com]

I have an Epson Photo 1270. It produces great prints from Gimp Print. The prints are indistinguishable for real photos. The 6 color mode is supported as well. I believe around 10 different quality options are offered. The alignment, clean heads, and check ink level functions are supported in Linux as well. I have tried using it via Paralallel and USB, the USB printing is much faster. I have never had any need to install it under windows. Congratulations to the Gimp Print team on a great job. By the way my HP 895Cxi would only produce very poor images under Linux. Its prints were similar to a color dot matrix.