Customer Reviews

Epson Stylus Photo 825 Inkjet Printer

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

Okay, here is how it is: This is the best photo printer this side of your local photo lab, but it doesn't come without some disadvantages. This printer does not use the Epson DuraBrite ink, which the Epson C82 does. It does use a five ink system, but it is housed in a single cartridge. That is pretty lousy because the ink tank is rather small. You must understand though, if you have a decent digital camera, you will not know the difference between this and a professional development.

The digital film readers that are included in the unit are pretty cool as they are pretty expensive when they are not in the Epson box. The little read out screen for picture selecting is a bit difficult to get used to, as it is definitely no LCD screen. But, for the price, who would expect a monitor. If running without a computer is a must, then the selection screen is sufficient. If at all possible, use your computer and import that way, it is much easier. There is also a reel on the back for 4x6 paper rolls.

Overall, the printer is rather affordable for the output. The pictures are top shelf and text is almost laser quality. It is well worth the money and puts out better pictures than any machine I have ever encountered. This replaces the Epson C82 as my favorite photo printer on the market.

epc

This is a photo printer, so I have nothing to say about it's ability to print text (that's not why I purchased it). I printed a couple of scanned pictures and hel them to the originals and was amazed. I purchased this one to replace an Epson 785EPX, which has served me well this past year. With 5760 dpi-whoa!

The only issue is the printer doesn't print well on HP glossy photo paper. It will however work with Kodak & IBM photo papers (glossy). I use my HP5550 (no slouch when it comes to photo printing) when I want to use my HP photo paper.

Whats also great is that it accepts all media cards-compact flash, sd, smartmedia and sony memory stick.

For the price, you can't go wrong.

We purchased this along with the Olympus Camedia D-550 3MP Digital Camera for our trip to Paris. We are thrilled with both. The camera took great photos (especially in night mode) and this printer makes them look 10 times better than they do on the computer screen. For anyone else who fell for the rebate offer, we use the camera in the higher quality 3X2 mode with a 128MB card and have been very satisfied with the quality of the photos.

So far, I've tried four photo papers. The Epson premium glossy that came with the printer made did quite well. It's a thrill to be able to print large, glossy 8X10 photos on demand! We also picked up a pack of the normal glossy Epson 4X6 with perforated edges. The perforations were handy (much better than trimming with scissors), but as noted by another reviewer, the trace of what looks like perforations is visible on the photo if you look *really* hard. Certainly not anything that I would notice if I weren't looking for it and I won't let this stop me from finishing up the pack of paper. However, I may steer toward the premium glossy paper in the future to avoid this.

As for the heavyweight matte paper that came with the printer, ugh! It sucked the life out of my photo. Perhaps it could be appropriate for some printing activities, but not photos. Don't waste your ink.

The final paper that we tried was the Kodak Ultima heaviest weight 4X6, using the "premium glossy" and "borderless" settings. Although I have to do some trimming, the color on the Kodak paper wins out over even the Epson premium glossy for richer, more satisfying colors in a side-by-side comparison of the same photo printed on the two papers.

Overall, it's a great printer!

The EPSON 825 is a terrific photo printer. I purchased one recently after spending $7 at a Kiosk printing out an 8X10 from a digital photo I had taken.

Initial setup of the printer was simple enough. Some of the diagrams could have been a little clearer but this did not cause a significant amount of hair pulling. The software setup was uneventful although there are many separate software setups.

The reason I picked the 825 was the borderless 8X10 feature. I enjoy giving gifts to those close to me commemorating events we've shared. I must say that after a bit of experimenting I was able to generate prints that are indistinguishable from those generated from in store kiosks. On top of this I didn't have to do any cutting which is something I can't say for the kiosks I've used. If you've had to trim these and don't have a special paper curter this is a big bonus.

Tips for borderless printing:
* Use EPSON Premium Glossy Photo Paper (Borderless 8X10)
* A decent photo program. My camera does not generate images at the same aspect ratio. I think you'd want to look at Adobe Elements. I found the included software a bit difficult to use to crop and size precisely.
* In the printer settings make sure you select:
- Best Photo
- Borderless
- Paper Type
- Paper Size
* In your photo program make sure you've set your image to fit the page.

I tried Kodak Premium Picture Paper (High Gloss). There were no significant differences although I couldn't find in 8x10 size.

Unfortunately the EPSON Photo Quality Ink Jet Paper (MATTE) is completely unsuitable for printing photos.

The printer is not fast. With my photo and the options I set it takes around ten minutes to do a print. I find this acceptable but you'll have to decide if this is okay for you.

I think the quality more than makes up for the speed.

This printer does a great job and considering the price it is a great deal.

Good Luck!

I bought this with an Olympus 3 mexapixel camera hoping to never have to wait to have film processed again. Using the printer was a snap. The controls are easy to figure out and it is very user friendly. The problem was the images. The color wasn't quite right and I kept getting small bands that looked like perforations when I viewed the picture at a certain angle. Customer support wasn't able to solve the problem so I returned the printer and ...got a HP7530 which I'm very happy with.

First of all, let me echo the opinions of some of the other reviewers: this thing makes some of the best photos I've ever seen IF you are priniting direct from a digital camera CF or other memory card. Photos from of your hard drive don't look nearly as impressive, but they are ok in their own right. Documents print fast and clear, and I haven't had any problems with black and white media.

One of my biggest complaints is the way the paper loads from the top. For some reason Epson continues to keep this crappy design flaw, creating space issues, jamming issues, and loading issues. I used to have a HP printer and although anything in color looked like crap, the paper loaded from the bottom and never once did it jam. While my old printer was maybe twice the size of my new Epson, the way the paper sticks up in the back makes the printer tice as tall. If I want to load it with new or different types of paper, I have to drag the whole thing out. It's amazing how a company could put so much quality and so many features into a single printer and fail to acknowledge simple design issues for convenience.

Another design flaw is the use of large color ink refills, instead of individual colors. Obviously Epson is recouping some of their costs for producing such a fantastic affordable printer. This means that individual photos will cost more than some other printers, but it shouldn't be a problem for most home users with moderate needs. Professionals with specific high power needs should look elsewhere. This is a printer for the average consumer and while the pics are professional quality, pros might require more speed, efficiency and reliability.

Regardless, this is still a fantastic printer. Speed and quality more than make up for a few inconveniences, especially for the price. I did a good bit of shopping for a printer and this one seems to do everything well, and those with a digital camera considering the purchase of one of those tiny little photo printers that HP and Canon make should reconsider. This printer makes photos that are easily as good, plus allows you to do all the things a PC printer should do. I also like that you can make a variety of sets and sizes for your photos including immaculate 8 x 10's. My family can't believe they came off of a printer, especially when I tell them how much I paid for it.

Bought this printer a month ago for $... online after comparing with the Canon line and I say-if you're looking for beautiful images and flexible formats, buy it! Yes, it uses ink quickly-what printer wouldn't when printing 8x10 color top quality photos?? I printed about 30 4x6 color photos and 10-15 8x10 color photos and several black & white 8x10's before I began to run out of color ink (cartridge registered 30% left, blue ink was running out noticeably in printouts). But once I figured out what settings work best when combining my scanner/computer/printer, every photo was beautiful; you couldn't tell it came out of a computer.

I use this printer primarily for prints and negatives scanned in on my Epson Perfection 1325 scanner (another fabulous piece of hardware). It was necessary to scan in images at a minimum of 800 (recommend 1200 and higher) dpi to print quality images. I printed both snapshots and fine-art quality black and white photos and loved the results.

As far as papers go, I started out with hp 4x6 paper and it was abysmal!!!! Don't ever buy it. Am now printing my 4x6's on Kodak premium heavyweight glossy paper with exceptional results. Also love the Epson heavy matte paper, results in beautiful colors and rich, textured images. Even gives decent prints on normal letter paper, if you just want to print off some photos for fun.

Overall: pros-beautiful images, relatively quick printing speed, in limited trials with directly printing digital images from a flash card with on-printer keypad loved ease of use and quick results, used with Adobe Photoshop Elements software easily, no problems with text quality (comparable to my old Canon BJC-250 inkjet), relatively inexpensive ink (color cartridge under $... at Office Depot)

Cons-hmmmm.....didn't much like the software included with the printer (i.e. FilmFactory and PhotoImpression which is inanely stupid) for lack of flexibility when working with images. Remember that the USB cable is NOT included. Have to always print at highest quality for good results on photos (why do they bother to include a lower photo setting??)

The 825 works great both with Mac OS X and with Linux (I don't know about windows or Mac OS 9).
The best feature is the ability to print directly from SD, Compact Flash and other cards (adapters included); the pictures (4x6) look better than those produced by the Epson-supplied software, or the Gimp. The Mac OS X version of the software supplied by Epson could be improved -- many features seem disabled in OS 10!
I don't know how it compares with other photo printers, but my first color cartridge was used up very quickly.

This printer probably has the best quality of printing photos I have ever seen when you print direct from a memory card. Printing from the computer is ok. It doesn't go through ink as fast as I had expected and the ink is cheaper than I was paying for my Compaq printer. But the huge problem with this printer is trying to feed the roll of 4x6 photo paper into it, it jams up constantly and just keeps printing on nothing, certainly not the paper and the red jam buttom seems like it is constantly on. Also, I normaly have a Compact Flash memory card and it works fine but I put a digital camera memory stick in the reader and the printer refused to work. When I put the memory stick back in the camera it said FORMAT ERROR and all the pictures were gone. Big mistake for Epson!! I liked the printer until that episode. Right now the memory card reader isn't working at all and Epson is reimbursing me.

The print quality was poor for text and nominally acceptable for graphics. I have to "clean the print heads" before every print-out to prevent vertical line streaking.