The Epson Stylus Photo 1280 inkjet printer offers stunning 2,880 x 720 dpi resolution and a quick-drying six-color ink palette to produce large photo prints in crisp detail and true tonal quality. These impressive features provide you with borderless photo prints in sizes up to 13 by 44 inches.
The Stylus Photo 1280 fills nearly all of your photo reproduction needs as it produces breathtaking, quality 4-by-6-inch color prints in less than a minute and 8-by-10-inch color prints in under two minutes. Black text prints at 9 ppm. The 1280 prints photos either with borders or in full bleed.
With a 100-sheet input tray and a 50-page output tray, the printer has an automatic low-ink detection sensor to alert you as your cartridges run low. Image lightfastness (related to paper quality) is rated to 25 years before fading when stored under normal indoor display conditions.
The Stylus Photo 1280 is compatible with both Windows and Macintosh operating systems and comes with a one-year warranty and the assurance provided by the Epson Overnight Exchange Program.
The EPSON Stylus Photo 1280 ink jet printer is the ideal large format choice for superior Border Free photo quality prints of up to 13" x 44." At 2880 x 720 dpi Resolution with True 6 Color Photo Reproduction Quality create fast water-resistant prints. Hi Speed USB and IEEE-1284 connections.
1 ONE OF THE BEST EPSON PRINTERS EVER MADE
I have owned my Epson Stylus 1280 for over a year and a half now and have never once experienced any type of problem with this unit what so ever! I only use aftermarket Abacus Ink and have yet to have a glogged printhead issue. I use this printer to print images taken from my Olympus C 8080 widezoom at 8 megs.
The printouts are perfect! Epson has just released a new driver for XP which can be downloaded at the Epson site to bring this 1280's resolutions all the way up to 5620 x 720!
2 The 5th star would be Linux drivers from Epson
My 1280 died over the weekend. So I did some shopping and bought an HP Photosmart 7760. I figured I'd save some money and wait to get a larger-format printer later.
It was a bad move. The HP is going back, and I've ordered a second 1280. I used my first one hard. For two years. I used it for everything -- normal documents, and lots and lots of digital artwork on matte paper.
Amazon currently has about the best price on ink cartridges and matte paper around.
I did my own tests on the inks -- both water resistance and ultraviolet light resistance. My Bic pen that marked the sample faded in two weeks of sunlight, but not my printed image! (I put a control in my filing cabinet to compare to.) I will not buy compatible cartridges, because I've already investigated the quality of the Epson ink and paper myself. I sell what I print for $185 a page. Sometimes a little less. With framing, more.
If you are a Linux user (and if you don't know what that means or you aren't sure, you can disregard this), you are in for a tough trip. The gimp-print drivers don't come close to matching the Epson Windows drivers for color quality. Not one little bit. Bug Epson about this. There are some adjustments possible with gimp-print, but it would be entirely trial-and-error.
I don't suggest going to the HP side to fix the Linux problem. HP says they "support" over 200 printers with Linux drivers, but the one I happened to try was abysmal. It couldn't even center the image on the page, Gimp didn't work at all, and neither did OpenOffice. At least with my Epson 1280, I have a little printing support (albeit with crummy colors).
If you've used other Epson printers, the 1280 might have slightly different color rendering. I had a Stylus Photo 820 which produced beautiful blues for sky and water. On the Stylus Photo 1280 (under Windows -- we're no longer on the Linux subject), these blues were more grey. I wish the 1280 came with the 820's coloring.
One other thing I like about the 1280: you can print very close to the bottom of the page. Not all the way, but closer than many other printers. This is very helpful.
I wish Epson made an affordable six-color printer like the 1280 with a wider format, perhaps 17" or 22". In my view, they don't.
One warning; Epson claims that the 1280 can print up to 13" x 44". I haven't found a supplier for paper that size. Epson doesn't seem to sell any. At least not in matte finish.
I never print glossy stuff (longevity considerations), so don't consider me to be any kind of authority on glossy stuff.
3 Very Disappointing
I just bought the 1280 and I am extremly disappointed. I had a Canon i9100 for a couple of weeks, but returned it because it didn't print 11x14 borderless prints. The Epson did, so I bought it. Upon comparing the Canon i9100 to the Epson 1280, there really is no comparison. The Canon has vivid, and true color, the Epson prints couldn't come close to the Canon prints no matter what I did. The Canon is lightning fast. Even at it's highest resolution settings. The Epson is painstakingly slow at any setting other than draft mode. I was really hoping the Epson would work out for me, but no such luck. I'm returning the Epson and re-purchasing the Canon i9100. I'll just have to print out at 11x17 and trim off three inches when I need 11x14 prints. The $100 price difference for the Canon is well worth it.
4 A real disappointment
I've had my printer now for 1.5 years, and have constantly battled with it. I've returned 3 and received 3 refurbished units, all with the same problems...(banding, ink randomly dropped on the photos, constant need to clean the print heads, etc.)...I thought it might be the USB connection, but saw no improvement when I switched it to the parallel port. I do think, however, that it has to do with the computer-printer interface, to have the same problem with 4 different units. I have 80-100 pages that printed so badly that I couldn't use them, which is pretty expensive given the amount of ink the printer consumes. Epson support was of very little help. I too have a friend who gets WONDERFUL prints off of her Epson 1280, but can't figure out why I don't get the same results...
5 everyone else's is better than mine...
i am a design student and bought the 1280 because i could print 11X17's on it. i have had problems with faint horizontal lines and leaking cartridges, jammed heads just after i finished cleaning them, etc. i have a friend at school who also uses this model, and the same epson inks and epson paper as i do, and her print quality is much better than mine. the problems i've had come and go, and when i've gotten fed up, and called epson to replace it (within my warranty period) they wouldn't, saying it's the usb port that is the problem (i haven't had any other problems with the usb port on any other electronics). like i said, it usually works well, but it seems like when i need it the most, it fails for me. i wouldn't purchase it again.
6 like a Rolls
It was silent....fast, on certain papers. Great prints, even better looking than the picture on my monitor, and I have a sharp one. The first night, I worked it to death, getting ready for a photography show and it kept pumping them out with no complaints. Time will tell, but as of now, I'm in love with it "the Epson 1280".The ink costs big $$$$$ but it's the good stuff, fade and water resistant....not proof...I made large prints up to 13" X 19" and best of all, the printer is not all that big! I am very happy with the printer and I'm not easy.
7 Great Printer
I bought this printer about a month ago and it is without a doubt the best printer I have ever owned.
I have printed my photos on a variety of paper including Epson Colorlife, heavyweight matte, and my favourite paper is Lumijet Classic Velour. All of the papers produce excellent results but the Colorlife paper is the most 'photo realistic' and the Lumijet makes the photos look like [quality] art prints.
I don't think it is noisy(not as noisy as my HP's), but it is really an ink pig.
This printer is probably the best value on the market.
8 Great printer
I found that the roll paper is much easier for printing multiple prints. There is the well remarked upon curl, but it is conveniant. To remove curl just roll the paper backwards and then place something heavy and flat on top of the pictures for a while. The printer comes with a flattener, which I have found semi-effective at removing the curl. The hardest part about roll paper is removing the curl, and loading. With premium glossy photo paper the prints are indistinguishable from standard prints IF your pic has the proper resolution (I limit my 2048x1536 pics to an 8.5x11 pic). I haven'n tried printing any panoramas. This printer has been avalible for a few years, per my info, and has been replaced with the Epson stylus photo 2200, but this printer may be more economical for text, but I can't say, as I haven't tried the 2200. The 2200 has seperate cartrages for each colour, unlike this one, which has one colour and one black, but unless you print a lot of colour this printer will do nicely. It seems that the 2200 was really designed for photos only, an assumption based of second-hand info.
The biggest annoyence I have had has dissapeared, and was the in the begining the printer was printing about 1/8" to the side on roll paper, cutting off the top, and leaving white space at the bottom and ink on the foam pad under the ink nozzles. This only occured when printing borderless, and has dissappeared.
The thing I find most annoying is the process of making sure that the correct settings are selected. I have created some "custom" settings to make this easier.
Also, printing borderless is only avalable for certain paper types, and you must select the correct paper type for the best printing. I think that this is purely software, but sometimes it would be useful to print borderless on plain paper.
These things having been said, I will say that there aren't many ways I can think of to improve this printer.
Tor
9 A digital darkroom in your own home
The 1280 prints beautiful professional like images that will rival any pro lab or competitors printers in its class or price range. Yes its a little slow and may want to use a little more ink than its competitors but when your print is complete you than can go to the next step and frame it and hang it up for display because it looks great.I have used other photo printers and achieved some good results but nothing as good as the 1280.Mind you your prints are going to come out as good as your digital images are in the first place Remember garbage in garbage out. You know by now their tons of software out than can help aid a soso image but it all starts with a great shot.If you choose the 1280 stick with epson photo paper or canon photo paper pro to achieve those great prints.Good luck and great shooting.
10 Gorgeous print quality
The print quality of the Epson Photo 1280 is gorgeous. On heavyweight matte or photoglossy paper the results are virtually indistinguishable from a print. It does consume a lot of ink, but that is to be expected. The only way to produce rich colours is by laying down enough ink to saturate the sheet which is being printed on. The only complaint I have about this printer are the ink cartridges. I would much prefer the ability to replace only the colours I've run out of as opposed to replacing the entire cartridge.
11 Stunning for the price
I am a commercial architectural photographer working with 80mb+ files. My results using the Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper are quite good. I have printed up to 11x14 as well as borderless 8x10. The printer holds without compromise both the highlight and shadow detail. The one area that is in need of improvement is in gradients. The transition gradient on walls etc is a bit harsh with no even flow. It tends to jump from one tone to another. I have found no difference between the 2800dpi and 1400dpi settings, even when I magnify the prints. If you are serious about color I would suggest getting an ICC profile program to keep the color consistent with your monitor, it will save you countless hours of color balancing the printer.
I have used this printer for about 6 months now and there are currently other better Epson printers on then market, although if you are on a budget this one will do the job.
12 yep, it was worth every penny...
...I recently got in the market for a high-quality color printer after wanting a way to print out some of the photographs I've been doing. Most of my work is displayed on the web, but it's nice to have some large photos to put up around the house. I'm printing from 4x5" and 2x3" negatives, and I wanted something that would let me print put very large photos without spending 1k+ on a "wide carriage" printer.
My previous inkjet was a BJC-600, which is a total piece of junk compared to the 1280. Not much help when doing comparisons.
The Epson can easily be cajoled into doing a nice 26"x24" print without too much effort (two carefully-aligned 13" prints), and the image quality is stunning. Most of the images I've printed out so far have been B&W, and the prints are awesome at showing off all the tonality of the original negatives.
It's not all perfect, and I wish the printer manufacturers did a better job of emphasizing the drawbacks. The prints simply aren't going to be as permanent as a "real photo print"; the inks fade and color shift over time if they're exposed to air, and from what I can tell this fading takes place much more quickly than a standard B&W photo print would in the same environment. It's not the end of the world, but it is a drag.
The cost of printing is high, especially given the cost of ink cartridges and how quickly they're used up. Frankly, I almost think it would be cheaper to do 8"x10" or larger B&W photo prints (not considering labor), and the upfront costs for equipment would be cheaper as well. (Color's a different story, of course, and the 1280 would win hands-down.)
Another thing to keep in mind is that generating a high quality print isn't a click-n-go operation, and I doubt if it ever will be. You need to carefully consider the quality of the source material, and realize that what is printed won't match 100% what you see on the monitor without doing a lot of tweaking. Obviously this all depends on how nice you want the final product to appear... but it can take many hours to get the results you really want.
2880dpi is just a waste of ink as far as I can tell. It doesn't look any different than 1440, tho I haven't taken a microscope to the print (and if I have to do this to see a difference then it doesn't actually matter).
The only other problem I've run into was getting 13" borderless prints appears to be impossible without using their software. (I run Linux only, so I have no way to use their printer programs.) There always seems to be a .12" white border on either the left or right sides. It works fine on smaller sizes which is what most people will be using, but it's a little annoying that it doesn't easily work at 13" as well. Again, this is only a problem if not using their software, as supposedly it works fine with their print package.
Have I compared it to anyone else's products? Nope. I don't believe anyone else is selling a 13" printer of the same image quality that also accepts roll paper in the same price class. Having the ability to use roll paper opens up a lot of possibilities for larger prints and other odd sizes, so it's a big advantage for my purposes; that and the 13" carriage were the main reasons I chose the 1280.
I haven't tried it with text or any other uses, as I have a faster laser printer for that type of stuff. But for a photo printer, I think this is a very fine choice indeed. There are cheaper alternatives, and you'll want to think about your priorities before buying--I can't honestly say if the image quality is particularly better or worse than the competitors, for example, and that may be your primary concern. But I can definitely say that it's better than what I need for my own purposes.
13 faded prints
I have had the Epson 1280 for about 6 months now. Very good prints except for it really uses the ink. The ink for my HP 960 lasted longer and had good images.
A photo that I had printed after getting the new Epson of all the teachers at my daughters school faded horribly. It was hanging in a room with no direct sunlight on it. The only thing I could think caused this was the flourescent lights. It was printed with the Epson 1280, Epson inks, on Epson paper. I was very shocked and concerned.
14 Amazing Quality--Forget the rest, buy Epson
I've used several brands of inkjet printers... As far as I'm concerned, none of them can compete with the Epson.
I currently work at a [camera] store with [another kind of printer], one of the best silver-based photo printers on the market. I've shown my customers prints from my Epson 1280, and before I told them, they assumed the [store printer] printed them. The images from this printer are THAT good. That's saying a lot when you consider you're comparing a $xxx.xx printer to something that costs several hundred thousand dollars!
Pluses: Fine, fine resolution. The printer is relatively fast at 1440dpi mode, VERY fast at 720dpi mode. 2880 mode takes a while for enlargements, but that's to be expected. I like the fact that the printer uses 6 color inks to get a better range of tones. And of course, the ability to print borderless prints up to 13" wide is great.
Minuses: Nothing I can think of that really matters. The only minus I can think of is that it takes up a lot of room on my desk, but it's worth it. Nobody sells the printer cartridges for this printer locally because nobody sells this printer locally, and the color cartridge is specific to this printer and the 1270. Luckily Amazon sells them at a good price.
I highly recommend this printer!
15 Photo Quality Excellent
This is, for me, a replacement for the older wide carriage Stylus Photo EX. It's quieter than the photo ex, and still slow (go for coffee while making big prints), but the results are worth the wait. Compared to a friend's Canon S9000, the photos have much more "pop" - better contrast (settable in the epson driver utility), exellent shadow detail, and overall, just look more like wet-processed photos than the Canon. I also like the paper roll holder on the Epson for panoramics, or continuous 4 x 6's. One other thing - my friend's canon is very fussy about the type of paper -- use the wrong one and the ink beads up and looks spattered. The epson is VERY tolerant, and I can use Kodak Premium Photo paper, or any of the other brands (like Konica, Ritz) that I've tried, and get really good looking prints. If you are looking to make photos, this is it. if you need a one-printer-does-all for printing your web-pages, email and memos, look elsewhere.
16 sublimation??
100 times better than the old 3000. BEST IN THE PRINT SIZE IT WILL ALLOW.
17 I have printed over 7000 11x17 prints
I bought this printer 1280 about a year ago for a profesional use, I sell prints of my artworks mostly 11x17s and 8x10... So I bought niagara ink flow system ... , it comes with separate ink bottles (6 of them) which sits next to the printer and bottles attachted to the cartriges with tubes. I did save about $2000 on inks within 4 months, I normally spend $1000 plus a month on regular epson cartridges I use 2 a day which gives me 45 to 50 11x14 prints. So this was a great relief only bad thing was that the quality declined, generation inks from mediastreet was no match the actual epson inks. If you going to use high wolume printing DO NOT BUY a printer that has no individual color cartridges it is simply pain to throw away the whole cartridge when you only run out of magenta. Wait for the Epson 2200 coming end of july 7 individual colors with 80 years lightfastness, perfect for photographers and artist who produce prints from their originals, I will be the first one inline to get one.From amazon.com if they sell it.
18 I produce my gallery prints on this printer
There is only one way to improve the already superb quality of prints you get from this outstanding printer. At maximum resolution and unidirectional printing, the quality is better than the C prints I was selling before. The printer has been very reliable. Even 310 gm/sq meter water color paper feeds flawlessly.
I am a professional gallery photographer, and I produce archival prints up to 13x19 on water color paper using the Generations Microbright archival pigment-based inks from Inkjetmall.com. Although Epson does not support this use of their printer, the colors, texture and brilliance of color are outstanding. With the Continuous Inking System, six four-ounce bottles sit on the desktop beside the printer, feeding ink to a permanent cartridge through little plastic tubes. This rivals the Iris printing system for smoothness and texture and detail and ability to print on quality art papers. If only it could print 16x20. . .
19 Great printer but an ink gobbler
This printer makes truly beautiful borderless photos. Quality, even on an untouched digital photo from a low end camera beats anything I have seen from a photo lab.
Only one problem. It is truly an ink eater. It came with two brand new cartridges. I printed two 4x6 and one 5x7 borderless photo. My ink is already 1/4 gone. Needless to say I will be very careful what I print.
20 Excellent printer
I did a lot of research before I decided to go with this one. A big part of my decision was the reviews at Amazon. To put it simply, printing out pictures was easy and the colors and clarity are extraordinary. I was very impressed. Set up quickly and easily. I know some people said they had problems with the roller or never used it, but that was the first thing I tried and it was GREAT! I am extremely pleased that I bought it (for picture printing mainly). It DOES use up ink quickly tho! One more feature that I liked is that you can go all the way up to that 13" size and that the ink is somewhat archival (they say up to 25 years under normal conditions before fading occurs...I also saw a review in a scrapbooking magazine which gave it high marks as well, and also featuring a water resistant/non-streaking feature), which is very important to me, and which you cannot find on a printer of this price. I did go out and buy the $[money] HP Appollo printer for every day use (GREAT deal, really good everyday printer). Def buy it!
21 Disappointing
I purchased this because everything I read was positive, but I haven't had a positive experience yet. The first printer I had printed Beautiful photo quality prints, when it printed. Unfortunately it would frequently quit mid-print and I would have to turn off the printer or it would hang for days. I went through all options with an Epson Tech.(who was very helpful), I ended up sending it back to Epson and they sent a new one. Unfortunately, I am still having the same problems and this printer doesn't give me near the quality as the first one. By now I am just frustrated and tired of wasting paper and ink! I will probably be moving away from the Epson line because of this. Highly disappointing!
22 and im picky...
As an architectue student, i am very picky about what I present to my professors, employers, and clients. Throughout my educational career I have used the several 11 x 17 Printers... the HP 1120, Hp 1220, and the HP 2500. These printers combined to not come close to the quality of the Epson 1280. This is perhaps the best purchase for my computer I have yet to make... It spits out image after image with out flaw... perhaps the only flaw to the printer is its speed... but heck... ill sacrifice printing speed for quality any day!
23 Digital that looks like 35mm
I own a Nikon 990 camera and with this printer photos look like they were taken with my 35mm. Consumables are a bit expensive, but I save a great deal over developing costs so it's pretty much a wash.
24 Review of Epson 1280 Inkjet
This is a great printer if you want to print photographs. Ditto if you want to print larger than letter/legal size. The former is of little value for someone designing games however. The latter is helpful to be sure but not 100% necessary.
So far I have had a great deal of difficulty doing certain things. Some of this may be passed off as "still in the learning curve" but some is imo not that easy to explain away.
1. I have been unable to get files with business card sized playing cards to print correctly on Avery business card stock. The margin settings just do not give "what you see is what you get". For example printout appears to "stretch/skew" the attributes of my .bmp files about 5 percent larger whenever I am using the business card stock. This is not good because printing to business card stock must be absolutely precise. Mysteriously, when I print to heavy (110lb.) paper/card stock, I do get "what you see is what you get". I wasted a lot of ink trying to get the thing to print on the Avery business cards. Finally I gave up and printed to the card stock. Playtesters can simpy cut the cards it's not a major task. But I need to solve this problem if I intend to DTP.
2. Which brings me to my second point, which I was well aware of based on the many reviews I read. This machine will eat up ink, fast. It's simple, most use of color only puts color on like 3% -5% of the page. But when you are doing counters, cards, maps, etc. for a game you are printing on 100% of the page, or close to it. I've already had to order a replacement color ink cartridge. I shopped around on the internet carefully and decided to play it safe and ordered from Amazon, which was still about 20% cheaper than ordering from Epson. I've heard bad things about using so-called "compatible" inks and I don't want to wreck a machine I just bought trying to save another 5 or 10 bucks on ink. On the other hand you needn't buy Epson paper. I've used card stock, Avery label paper, and Avery business card stock and all printed fine in terms of print quality.
3. Another problem is I have discovered that you can do "full-bleed" margins (0.00) only with certain paper types and only with certain paper sizes. Guess what? You can't do full bleed with 11" x 17". And can only do full bleed for the most part by using paper settings like "glossy photo" - I guess Epson never thought of anyone finding an application for full bleed other other than printing photographs. Now this is not a huge problem. In the case of my 22" x 34" map, I can just print eight 8.5" x 11" instead of four 11" x 17". Or I can trim down the map so that it has some margins, since you can set 11" x 17" to a very small margin setting, like about 0.10. I've done that and printed some 11" x 17" and it looked fine. Colors generally match what you see on the screen. Like most printers you will seem some variation - browns for example are usually a bit off from what you see on the screen.
So I would say an excellent printer for photographers (many professionals use this and their clients can't tell the difference from a traditional darkroom photo). For game designers I'd say very good, but with some limitations like I've noted. Unless you have a pressing need to print 11" x 17" (or 13" x 19" which the machine can do) you may well be better off spending [$] less and getting, like, the Epson 890 (think that's the model number).
25 Epson Stylus 1280 is a fantastic printer
I have both the 1270 at home and the 1280 at work. Pretty much the same printer. I can print fantastic images on almost any size paper, roll photo paper, 11x17, envelopes. Easy to use and quiet. It is rather large, so make sure you have enough space, but, it's got to be large to do all the things it can do! I've had 8 different printers, and the 1280 is the best.
26 Excellent Printer for Your Money
I highly recommend this printer. The quality is excellent. The set up is quite easy. At 1400dpi you can get an exceptional photo output. Even though the printer can print at 2800dpi, I would not recommend you choose this option. With the naked eyes, you can not make out the difference between 1400dpi and 2800dpi. You will waste a lot of ink and time at 2800dpi.
27 Excellent prints, but...
I love the high-quality output of this printer. It's now realistic to go all digital with photography given you have a good camera. Using Epson's Semi-Gloss Photo Paper will result in a print comparable to taking film in to be developed. In some cases, better. I'd give it 5 stars if it weren't for the following:
It's expensive to maintain the ink. Ridiculously, it has one cartridge for all colors (except black) so if you are heavy on the yellow, you can't replace it separately, and have to buy all. And they run out fast. And... it's painfully slow. At full resolution, it seems to take 20-30 minutes to print an 8x10. (Never timed it though)
28 I was blown away
My fiance and I are both art directors and we bought this printer to primarily update the work in our portfolio's. Both of us were somewhat skeptical about the level of quality we would receive, being used to having high quality proofs in our books. Well it's amazing, but this printer produces very high quality stuff. Frankly, it's not easy to differentiate between the Epson print and a C-print sitting in a portfolio.
It's not the speediest printer in the world, but then I didn't expect it to be. If your like me, you won't bother to print on the "fast" setting much, when you get used to the primo quality of the "quality" setting.
The other thing I like is that it's really not that big of a printer considering it will print 13x19 paper. I had expected it to be much larger, but it fits pretty nicely in the exact spot my laser printer occupied.
Also, despite being a photo printer, it does text pretty well. I haven't printed out that much text, but the things I have printed on the "quality" setting, have looked pretty good to me.
The output I get from my Canon S300 digital elph are also great. I have pics up in my office and everyone is shocked when I tell them it's not an actual photo, but an epson print.
29 Perfect photos for pro photographer!
I am a comercial photographer with very high standards. My photos generally appear in high quality print or magazines. The printer I purchased had to measure up to that quality and it has. Even I felt it overwhelmed my expectations. I had some idea what to expect based on reviews and opinions I had read and heard but it exceeded all of what had been said. Good job Epson!
The ink is very expensive and that is my only gripe about this printer. A Continous Inking System will solve that.
30 Wish I'd bought a cheaper model
The printer works. It prints great pics. But, I wish I'd bought a less expensive version. We chose this one because of the wide carriage thinking we'd print out big pictures. Now, several months later, we still haven't even bought the paper to do that. We thought we might use the roll printing option, but haven't used that either.
31 Awesome
After several months of research I decided to purchase Epson's Sytlus Photo 1280 printer. If you want photographic quality prints this IS the printer to buy. I have tried printing from several sources, notably pictures taken with my digital camera,
and the color match is perfect. Both Epsons includes software 'Film Factory' and Adobe Photoshop Elements have more that enough features to satisfy mosts users. Setup and installation was easy and flawless. This is my second Epson printer ( the first still works great but I needed a quality photo printer as well )
Amazon.com responded to an email I sent concerning promised delivery by Dec 24th within hours! And they came thru with flying colors ( no pun intended ). While product selection is always important, so is WHERE you make your purchase. Both Epson's and Amazon.com's support can't be beat!
32 The Epson 1280 Printer is a great digital photography tool.
Just a couple of weeks ago my wife got me the epson 1280 printer
for a christmas gift. I had a couple of freelance jobs to print and I used the 1280 printer. Its quiet machine and it prints a nice color and Black& white photograph. I haved looked at other printers and I was not pleased with there product. Only one thing I wished it came with more software where you don"t have to buy .Thats why I am pleased with the epson 1280 printer.
33 The Epson Stylus Photo 1280 was a great purchase.
I usually only purchase tools from Amazon.com but recently I started shopping around for Photo quality printers. I was set on purchasing a Epson photo quality printer based on their 6 color ink system that provides a better range of colors and blending over the typical 3 color systems of the competition.
The customer product reviews through Amazon.com is a great source information. I read all the customer reviews on the Epson Photo 890 and the 1280 before I decided to go with the 1280. The 890 had a 100% satisfied ratting mainly do to it's excellent photo quality printing and price. The 1280 had a 90% satisfaction ratting mainly do to a couple defective printers that needed to be sent back. This is unfortunate for that customer but it has no effect on the printer's quality or capabilities. I then chose the 1280 because it has the ability to print on every size paper from 4x6 to 13x19 which best utilizes the full capability of my Sony 3.1M pixel camera.
At home the 1280 set up went very smooth because I followed the easy step directions exactly and I was soon printing excellent looking photo prints. The 1280 is much faster then I expected the 4x6 prints take less then a minute and the largest I have printed so far (11x14) was about four minutes. It is now apparent that the only limiting factor to printing excellent looking photos is the photographer.
34 Excellent Printer!
I am a graphic designer and have previously owned few printers past year. This printer satisfied me the most amongst others with my needs of a printer. Although quality of the printed images are fabulous, the speed can be a little faster. The size is not too small, not to big. Just perfect! This printer i believe is a good investment for those who need excellent quality print jobs.
35 The best just keeps getting better!
This is my fifth Epson inkjet printer. They have all been rocksteady and all have delivered the best performance (image fidelity) of their successive generations,...provided they are feed appropriate coated stock. While they are competitive with other mainstream inkjets, Epsons are not at their best as plain paper printers. They really shine with premium media. This model is incredible. Stunning color gamut. Tabloid size capability. Fast and quiet. The photographic quality output is virtually indistinguishable from continuous tone without magnification.
36 Absolutely outstanding
I replaced my Epson 1520 with the 1270 (now 1280). I did this to get higher quality prints that would last a long time without fading.
The prints have been nothing short of outstanding. The premium glossy paper is unbelievable in print quality. However, I prefer the heavy weight mat paper due to lower cost. Images are outstanding and the paper is much lower in cost. As for the printer, I have gone through five color ink cartridges with no problems. Sold black areas are black with no banding. This is one of my quality tests of a printer. Banding is unacceptable. The Epson passes with flying colors with an occasional need to use the automatic nozzle cleaning utility. I print 10 by 15 inch prints and measured an output of 22 prints per color cartridge, with about half of the back cartridge being used. This is more surface area of printing than my older model 1520 (which was also nice but not nearly as good).
Bottom line is that I see no way to improve this printer.
37 Pleased
I have owned the Epson 1280 for about three months now. I use it often to print photos I take with my Olympus E-10. For the money, I don't think you can beat this printer. I have tried others, Lexmark and H.P. and they don't compare. It prints very very high resolution photos but it does use lots of ink at the highest resolution. You will get fantastic prints using photo film but if you are looking for something more archival, I recommend only matte photo paper. Epson states in this format the archival life is about 20 years but I think 8 is probably closer to being correct.
There are better printers, but you would have to look in the professional range such as the Epson 5500 with the same resolution and archival qualities. It's also [much more]. For the money, ... I think without question this is the best photo printer on the market.
38 Amazing printer
With price that you pay, this printer is definetly worth it. However, it seems that there are different kinds of Epson Stylus Photo 1280 InkJet Printer. I have currently purchased htis printer on line but my printer doens't look identical to the image of the printer on every site. Excluding some small flaws with my printer, this printer is highly recommended for designers especially who's planning to print an excellent quality layouts.
39 Epson 1280
I have recently purchased the 1280 and have printed some 50 prints, mostly 8x10s (including borderless) but also a few 13x19s. The results are simply stunning! The blacks are true blacks which are hard to get from inkjets; on glossy paper, they're as good as a Cibachrome print. The reds jump off the page. The yellows are very good to excellent. The blues/cyans are a bit less stunning. I have printed mostly underwater images, and those with a lot of blue water in the background are not the best. However, I may need to play with them more since one particular image with more cyan-colored water than deep blue was very pleasing.
Most of my prints were made with the Epson Heavyweight Matte, which I used for the longer longevity (my prints haven't been around long enough to tell if the claims are really true for 20+ years). The results are very good to excellent. I've also used Epson's Borderless Premium Glossy Photo Paper (rated to only 10-15 years I believe)...the results equal photofinishing processes on glossy paper. These glossy prints are astounding coming off an inkjet print. Many of my friends and colleagues have been equally impressed. I've looked at other printers' output and checked a number of websites critiquing this and other printers. The bang for the buck is definitely worth it. It does take a little effort getting your monitor and printer working in synch, but the results are well worth the time. I was up and running with only about 10-12 test prints using different printer settings to sufficiently match my monitor.
Downsides are that the printer is relatively slow for a print (15-20 minutes for an 8x10); but then its a LOT faster and easier than a real home darkroom setup. You can start fussing with the next image while its printing out. See also my comments on the blues above, but they are definitely very acceptable--I haven't printed any blue-sky images yet. I do wish the printer could take up to 16" width paper (a standard, fairly large photo format), rather than only 13" wide paper. These minor criticisms aside, this is one outstanding printer for the money. Enjoy!
40 This is an incredible printer
I use the 1280 printer in conjunction with my Olympus e-10 Digital Camera and could not be more pleased.
Finally, I have the ability to take a photograph, print it out at home, and get professional quality.
The only draw back is the amount of ink used. This is still by far, the best printer on the market for the price.
You will not be disappointed.
41 Overated Hype
Reading your reviews and Epson's tech data leads one to believe this is the best thing since sliced bread. The only comparison I can make is that the faint horizontal lines on all of my prints remind me of sliced bread!
After using all remedies offered, lines persist and the printer is a bust! Does not even compare favorably with my HP 882C DeskJet quality. This is a poor product in my book.
42 Satisfaction guaranteed
Originally, I purchased the H-P 1218 Photosmart printer and experienced paper jams right out of the box. Additionally, that printer was ergonomically ugly and featured a confusing menu. I sent it back and bought the Epson 1280 and my printing woes have been laid to rest. First of all, this printer just looks sleek. The set-up was easy, software and hardware. Loading paper is simple. Print-outs look gorgeous - to my unprofessional eye - and I haven't experienced a single jam. Admittedly, I haven't tried all of the features, like the 4" roll attachment, but so far I am a happy camper.
43 Great Printer if you use it carefully
The printer produces gorgeus prints under optimum conditions. But if you use non-Epson paper, the results are terrible. If you don't load paper perfectly, the printer will bend the corners. It uses ink unbelievably fast.
For every day printing, it's no better than a $200 printer.
For printing photographs up to 11x14" on Epson paper, it's spectacular. The borderless printing on 8x10" and 11x14" paper is very handy. It's great in combination with a 3 megapixel or greater digital camera.
44 Brilliant printer
The first prints I made from this thing were great, and I've been very happy with the results ever since. I have gotten better prints when using Epson papers than other brands, which seem to leave the ink sitting more on the surface. One problem is that I haven't been able to get the roll-paper feeder to allow perfect edge to edge printing; I still have a white edge and have found no guidance in the manual. Also, the roll paper maintains a tight curl. However, the quality of the output is the most important thing, and that's just fantastic.
45 Awesome indeed!
I'm blown away by the print quality. This is the first time that the traditional darkroom has been challenged by the computer "lightroom". I'll still use the darkroom for black and white prints, but the ease of use, printing options, and print quality in this Epson 1280 have me in awe. Oh, the delight of being able to produce this quality at home!
46 Disappointed
Influenced by glowing reviews on a digital camera site, I ordered this printer. Received it quickly, but the printer did not work - the cartridge carriers did not move into position for me to install the ink cartridges. Called Epson tech support (long-distance toll call). They had me try various things, but nothing worked. Finally the support person decided that the sensor must be broken, and told me to return it.
I shipped it back and am now out $37 for S+H and insurance, plus whatever the long distance call will cost me. Overall a disappointing experience.
47 Photo quality is even better than studio produced
This printer really rocks. After I ruturned HP Photosmart P1200 pritner due to constant paper jam problems, I was looking for a quality photo printer to produce photo taken by my Fuji FinePix 4700 digital camera. Well, the wait is over. This printer prints unbelivable quality pictures. I printed 4x6 roll, 8x10 or you name it. No matther what the size of the paper format is, the print quality is the best I've ever seen. The setup took only 10 minutes. Just follow the manual carefully making sure not to load the driver through Windows rather do it via Epson install software. I've used for a month now and still haven't had a paper jam problem I was getting with HP photosmart printer. I highly recommend this printer. It is a little pricey but I think it's well worth it.
48 I think it's great...
I don't want to belittle any of the other brand names that are out there, but, trust me, this particular printer, in combination with the epson 1640su photo scanner really does everything you'd want -- the options available; the results of printing whether on glossy or matte paper; whatever...everything you've probably let some professional do in the past, you can definitely do yourself -- and what could be more rewarding than doing something yourself -- go for it.
49 E-Mail Purchasing
I received the Epson Photo Stylus 1280... Upon setting up the printer, it did not work at all (on/off switch had no effect). A call to Epson resulted in the tech's judging this particular item to be defective in manufacture; he promised immediatereplacement...
50 Wonderful Printer
I have had my printer for only a short time, I had reviewed several brands but what really cought my eye was the fact that you aren't limited to 8.5 X 11.0 inches, I do a lot of graphic work and the photo's I print on this printer are the best I've seen anywhere, no , not even the slightest streaking, it is a wonderful printer and I highly recommend it to anyone that needs high quality photo printing.... Jim
51 Nikon 990 + Epson 1280 = Holy Cow
Look Mom, no film!!!
The Epson 1280 prints so extremely well, it is difficult to believe. Slide in a piece of glossy photo paper (up to 13" wide), and watch (yea yea it takes a few minutes) a digital photograph become *real*. Paired with a Nikon 990 digital camera, this is pretty much a professional studio setup without the nifty dark-room.
The only drawback is the "shorter" lifespan of the prints (10-15 years) as opposed to the 200+ years of the Epson 2000P. The 2000P does not have the resolution of the 1280, or the more reasonable price point. I just figure that 10-15 years from now, I'll just click again. In the meantime, I'll enjoy a bunch of framed prints around my home and office of my *amazing* digital photos... at least, I think they're pretty good. ;-)
