Buying from actual paper makers

[guanaco]

I was reading some post and read an aswer from another user. The answer gave a

list of acutal paper makers to the post. I found interesting that as the post

pointed out none on the list were epson, HP, cannon, etc.

 

If my epson paper is not made by epson than is it possible to find the same

quality of epson paper but maybe for lower cost if buying from the actual

paper maker?

 

I am a beginner and was wondering, I know that staying with epson paper and

inks for my printer (R1800) is an advice I have read over and over on

different posts. So is it even worth trying some of these "other" paper

companies? Is the quality of these "other" paper brand names better than

epson's standard. I know their is cheap paper out there and I am only

wondering on papers that would be rated equivalent to epson's quality. thank

you for your time

[oskar_ojala]

The paper business is a billion dollar industry, where mostly big corporations churn out literally tons of paper each minute. This paper then goes for various uses, everything from toilet paper to printer paper is manufactured by these companies. Since I'm not in the biz, I'm not actually sure what is special about printer paper regards to normal fine papers that are made.

 

To answer your question, there are several brands of photo papers with high quality. Searching the archives and the net will reveal many options equal or superior to Epson's offerings. Naturally, these are also matters of taste.

[bruce_watson1]

<i>If my epson paper is not made by epson than is it possible to find the same quality of epson paper but maybe for lower cost if buying from the actual paper maker?</i>

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Short Answer: No.

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Long Answer: There is no single source from whom you could buy. Even if there were, they wouldn't deal with you directly unless you are ordering by the freight car load.

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The way it works is a handful of companies make the paper. They sell it in huge rolls - on the order of 1.5 m wide by 1.0 m diameter and larger.

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These rolls are shipped to a coater to apply an inkjet receptive coating as specified by a company like Epson. This is typically done under a non-compete non-circumvent agreement so that this coating is available only to Epson.

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The coated rolls are then shipped to a rendering house who will slit and cut the rolls down to smaller rolls and sheets, and package same. This is how you get your box of 50 13x19 inch sheets. These get crated and shipped to distributors. Again, by the tractor-trailer load, not a box at a time.

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None of these companies are going to deal with you directly unless you have a really large checkbook. That said, they couldn't sell you Epson's coating without Epson's permission which you aren't likely going to get.

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If that's not bad enough, Epson is under no obligation to use the same vendors forever. The contracts are complex with various times, weights, volumes, quality targets, etc. Basically, Epson may change paper vendors, coating vendors, and rendering vendors at any time. And they do -- they keep the pressure on to lower costs by making vendors bid for every contract.

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Bottom line: you never really know who made the paper unless you are in the middle of the supply chain, and even then you won't be sure.

[Spearhead]

Epson makes a lot of margin off their brand name. Virtually identical papers are available from a host of other vendors. Epson buys their paper, and I do know that some coatings have nothing to do with Epson "specifications." There are other papers with the same coating.

 

I always recommend that people look at Inkjet Art and Hawk Mountain for a variety of papers that are as good as or better than the ones labeled Epson, although Inkjet Art does also sell Epson-branded paper. Crane Museo papers (available from Inkjet Art) are excellent. I believe that Hawk Mountain does their own coating.

[bruce_watson1]

I just used the Epson name because it was convenient. Sorry for the confusion. The same is true of other vendors. Some may do some parts of the process themselves, but very few have the resources to handle all of it themselves. And there's no reason they should. The current system is optimized (in it's way) to maximize utilization of the machines. Said another way, to keep consumer costs down.

[jtk]

Epson sells some good papers and some mediocre ones. I like Moab papers (Entrada and Kayenta ), though the new ownership (Legion) is worrisome as product names are changing and previous Legion-branded papers have not seemed in the same league. Using an Epson inkjet printer you have dozens of paper choices, some of which (Moab Kayenta and Costco Kirkland for example) are better than their Epson equivalents and a lot cheaper.

[kelly_flanigan1]

There are paper makers, coaters, then converters; then the folks like HP, Epson, Dietzgen, Universal, Kodak, Oce, Rexem, and dozens of others that label it; that sell it to distributors, then to you. If you buy directly from the paper maker you need fork trucks and giant racks to handle the uncoated mill rolls. The roll cannot be picked up by one person. There are a zillion "standard" paper sizes; the convertor slices and dices the products, boxes them, leabels them. Often many brands are converted by one company. The average person on photo.net buys just a drop in the bucket of a paper makers output. You might be more successfull getting a discount on toilet paper. Its a musical chairs game. One chap can be a major source for the canavas base, another for mylar and backlite bases; another for papers and vellums. A coater can be coating for many different convertors; some to the same spec; others different. In lower grade inkjet there is less markup, more players, and a HUGE amount of relabeling, custom packaging. The major brands have many sources. Here I buy 1 to 2 tons of paper a week; in lower grades its sold by the pound, freight matters. In small dinky amateur sizes the box and marketing cost more than the contents. Folks would often do better to cut down larger sizes than seek out buying directly; unless you really buy alot. You can get your own custom labels; acme, roadrunner, goober if you really want to when you sell paper; its trivial.

[fred_bonnett2]

As of a couple of years ago Epson's "Professional Media Photo Paper" was manufactured by Hammermill under the lable "Hammermill Super Gloss". It cost less than half of Epson's price but had to be bought in lots of 1000 sheets.

[brian_ellis19]

"I like Moab papers (Entrada and Kayenta ), though the new ownership (Legion) is worrisome as product names are changing and previous Legion-branded papers have not seemed in the same league. "

 

I don't know about the product but a few weeks ago I called Moab/Legion with a question and got into one of those circular voice mail systems that wouldn't allow you to leave a message or talk with a human being unless you knew their extension (the operator was out and her message put you back into the circular system). So I posed the question by email and at the end tacked on a note complaining about this telephone system. Within five minutes I received a phone call from the president of Legion profusely apologizing, explaining what had happened, etc. etc. I was pretty impressed. If this is typical of Legion's response to customer complaints they should be o.k.

[jtk]

Brian, that's good news. I emailed, got voicemail...but neither name or number of the caller were recognized when I called back. New York number. I prefer to think of them in Utah :-)

 

Who's a good dealer for the newly labeled products?

 

I've been happy with Moab direct and inkjetart.com, but that's apparently history now.