Epson ET-8550 Review: Is It Good for Art Prints?

The ET-8550 is the cheapest way we know to print 13 x 19 at home. Instead of cartridges it fills from 70 ml Epson 552 bottles, and genuine bottles were $21.99 each on Amazon at the time of writing (the five-color combo was $109.95 for 350 ml). That is about $0.31 per ml, against about $0.84 to $1.76 per ml for the pigment cartridge printers artists usually compare it with.

The ink is the trade-off, so be clear about what it is. Epson calls the set Claria ET Premium. Photo Black, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Gray are dye inks; the sixth bottle is a pigment Black used mainly for text on plain paper. Dye ink gives glossy prints a deep, saturated look, but it is more sensitive to light and air than pigment. Epson cites Wilhelm Imaging Research ratings of more than 75 years for color and more than 100 years for black and white prints under glass, with the footnote that ratings apply to specified media and that Epson does not guarantee print longevity. Third-party papers, cotton rag included, are not covered by that number.

Paper handling is better than the price suggests. Epson rates the rear straight path for media up to 1.3 mm thick and specialty paper from 102 to 300 gsm, and lists its own Velvet Fine Art Paper among supported media. That covers most 300 gsm matte and cotton rag sheets, fed one at a time. Heavier 310 to 350 gsm sheets are outside Epson's stated range.

The P700 is the printer to buy when longevity is the product. Its UltraChrome PRO10 pigment set is the same one in Epson's 17 in P900. If you also want to print 17 in wide or cut running costs, our Epson P900 vs Canon PRO-1100 comparison covers the 17 in pigment printers, where the Canon's 80 ml tanks bring ink cost down to about $1.69 per 13 x 19.

Canon pigment at 13 in. Assuming it uses ink at about the same rate as Canon's 17 in PRO-1100 (about 2.0 ml per 13 x 19, from Canon's published yields), ink runs about $2.36 per print. That is an estimate, not a Canon figure. Our P700 vs PRO-300 comparison covers how the 13 in pigment printers differ.

Most artists should spend the difference on the ET-8550. The 13 x 19 sheet is where print sellers make money: it lets you print 11 x 14 and 12 x 18 art prints and gang up several small prints per sheet. If you only ever print cards and 8 x 10s, the ET-8500 does the job with the same ink.

Same ink type, different economics. If you are choosing between two 13 in dye printers, the ET-8550 wins on running cost by a wide margin and adds a scanner. Our best home printers for art guide ranks the PRO-200S as the pick for vivid color.