Epson: Quality Prints on Stationery-Style Paper?

[Haystack]

I have an Epson Stylus Pro 3880.

Basically, I want to offer a boxed set of small prints, in the style of greeting cards. Epson Velvet is too expensive and over-the-counter greeting card paper doesn't yield professional quality. Ultra Premium Presentation Matte is spot-on in terms of quality, price and weight, but it has a fairly smooth finish, and I'd like something with more of a textured, "stationery shop" feel.

Does anyone have any recommendations? Or am I straying too far from the 3880's intended use?

 

[Alienjones]

Many People would just love to do what you are trying to do. Most of them have wasted a lot of time and money trying to achieve it to. The problem is in the nature of how an inkjet printer produces an image on paper, not how good an image it can produce for its designed purpose.

Liquid Ink needs a coating (Kaolin is one of the more popular) to prevent the ink soaking into the paper. Add to this the cost of ink being greater per gram of weight than gold and you arrive at why you'll never achieve your goal. Every time you add a component to a print, the cost goes up.

Lots of paper makers sell coated art paper for greeting cards. The cost compared to say, color copy paper is perhaps 2 or 3 times greater. Perhaps looking at a cheap 1200 dpi laser printer might seem at first to be a good alternative but they can't print edge to edge so the paper cost may be doubled to stay within the region of standard sizes.

Sorry to burst your bubble but better the truth than fairy tales. I print and sell postcards and calendars. It took me on a journey of disappointment before I reached the point where I could print postcards in small print runs at affordable cost. Please yourself if you believe me or not but you are not going to achieve your goal with the printer you specified.

AJ

 

[Haystack]

Thanks, I appreciate the frank advice, and take your point about inkjets not being economical. I should clarify, though, that I'm not actually trying to print greeting cards. What I'm looking to sell are small-format print sets to collectors (e.g., illustrations from rare books); a higher-end market, where scarcity factors in, so I have a bit more room. I could swing it with Epson's UPPM--the quality is good and the overall cost is acceptable--I just don't like the feel of the stuff. I'm looking for something with a little more texture, similar to stationery, but I'm not selling it as stationery. It seems like there are only a handful of choices, though, when it comes to professional-quality inkjet papers.

 

[Alienjones]

Moab is an expensive but high grade paper that has some attractive papers for your needs. You might also try Hahnemühle papers sold by HP. But I guess you've tried all of these before posting here.

Good luck,
AJ

 

[Polyprintgirl]

We use an Epson Cold Press Bright for "art prints" (mostly watercolor reproductions) that we print on our Epson 4880. We've had good results with that.

 

[Haystack]

I'd like to try that.

I've been looking at Radiant White Watercolor; that seems to be the "discount" version of their fine art papers.