hey im looking into upgrading to a wideformat printer. has anyone ever delbt with the Epson Stylus Color 3000. I will be using this printer to do film positives for screen printing and i will also be printing heat transfer on it aswell.
please give me your input all comments are welcome good and bad .
Re: What do you think of the Epson Stylus Color 3000?
I have one. It prints great films through photoshop, but I haven't yet figured out how to get good film printed from illustrator using ghostscript, but it has to be possible.
As for transfers, I haven't tried printing those with it.
Re: What do you think of the Epson Stylus Color 3000?
I wouldn't recommend FastRIP, or FastANYTHING for that matter. Most of the products are relabeled versions of other software already on the market, most of the time for less. Also, the original versions come with better support and less security.
You can print films with no halftones directly from Illy. It's all a matter of what your settings are for your Epson. I can let you know the settings they are hard to explain if I am not walking you through them.
I wouldn't recommend transfers with the dye ink that is standard in the Epson 3000, you'll need pigment ink.
Re: What do you think of the Epson Stylus Color 3000?
Brad, do you know how to tell illustrator that it is to be printing on an ink jet transparency? That option in photoshop is what makes my films print slowly and opaquely, but I don't know how to tell Illustrator (CS2) that it is printing on a specific medium.
Re: What do you think of the Epson Stylus Color 3000?
I use Illy CS1 and print directly to my Epson 3000 with no RIP software and the positives are great.
I second the comment about transfers. It's dye ink so you'd want to find another alternative that has pigment inks.
Honestly I ONLY use my 3000 for film output.
When you go into the print menu in Illy (at least in CS1) click Print Setup on the bottom left corner. Then it'll open up the printer selection (windows menu) and click the 3000 and preferences. Then you can edit the epson settings. You'll want to select "Ink Jet Back Light Film" and also change the actual setting on the printer to Back Light Film as well.
If you don't want it mirrored you'll have to uncheck "Flip Horizontal" which seems to automatically uncheck.
It might be different in CS2, so I hope maybe I've helped you out.
Re: What do you think of the Epson Stylus Color 3000?
That sounds like a good price. When they came out I think they listed for around $1,200. I've had mine for over 5 years now so I have no idea what I actually paid for it.
But 390 sounds good so as long as the printer is in tip-top shape.
A NEW epson R1800 is around $500.00 (I think) and that's only 13" wide. So you'd be getting 16.5" width for less. And it really is a workhorse of a printer.
Last edited by adawg2252; January 17th, 2008 at 05:50 PM.
Reason: added R1800 info
Re: What do you think of the Epson Stylus Color 3000?
Probably. I'm not sure though. If you can print from illustrator I wouldn't see why not, but search around and I'm sure someone is out there that can help you.
What do you think of the Epson Stylus Color 3000? 
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