u/ma_RTINGS

A couple of weeks ago, I made a post on r/magicproxies where I compared Magic: The Gathering card proxies printed on affordable tank printers to proxies printed on high-end photo printers such as the Epson ET-8550 to determine if the price increase was worth the quality increase.

We pushed the subject a bit further and we recently published an article that could be of interest to anyone who wants to start printing playing card proxies at home or if you're simply wondering if you really need to upgrade your printer. We used a microscope to better showcase the differences between proxies printed on different printers and papers since they could be subtle.

Link to the article: Printing Playing Card Proxies At Home: You Don't Need An Expensive Printer For Great Results - RTINGS.com

I have been lurking on the subreddit for a while and one thing I noticed is that a lot of people talk about the Epson ET-8550 printer as the “holy grail” to print great looking proxies. I was wondering if a high-end photo printer is actually that much better at printing proxies.

TLDR: More expensive printers might not always be worth the step up depending on the quality you aim for. Even though the high-end photo printers performed better, some less pricey printers still perform really well for printing proxies and the increase in price might not be worth it for you to purchase a high-end photo printer.

I work at RTINGS and I have access to many printers and we do have an Epson ET-8550 and other high-end photo printers, but also more affordable tank printers in our inventory. I wanted to put them head-to-head to see if the increase in price of a printer made a significant difference on the quality of MTG proxies. I selected two high-end photo printers and two more affordable tank printers:

• High-End Photo Printers:
  • Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550
  • Canon PIXMA PRO-200S
• Affordable Tank Printers:
  • Epson EcoTank ET-2980
  • Canon PIXMA G3270

To evaluate the quality of prints I selected two types of “neutral” photo paper (by neutral, I mean paper made by a brand that is not associated to the brand of the tested printers). The papers I selected were the following:

• Koala Double-Sided Matte Photo Paper (48 lb - 180 gsm)
• Koala Ultra Premium Photo Paper Glossy (66 lb - 250 gsm)

Both these papers are more suited to be used with dye ink instead of pigment ink per the manufacturer. The Epson ET-2980 and the Canon G3270 both use pigment black ink and dye color ink. The Epson ET-8550 has access to both pigment and dye black ink but uses dye color ink. The Canon PRO-200S uses dye ink for both black and colors.

I installed the necessary drivers to print on the specific types of paper at the highest quality possible with each printer. To remain unbiased, I did not use the custom settings. I decided to simply print using the auto settings at the highest quality. This means that it is possible to tweak the brightness and contrast and color correct the files before printing them, but I did not do any of this. Just a quick note that looking into the settings, it was possible to manually select a color profile and adjust the brightness and contrast and color settings on every printer tested (even the more affordable ones).

I selected two cards from Scryfall. One is a low DPI artwork (Gideon, Ally of Zendikar) and the other is a higher DPI artwork (The Creation of Avacyn).

For comparisons purposes, I took pictures using the same camera and lens of each print of the cards trying to show as best as possible the differences that I see by eye. I also used a microscope to pinpoint certain areas of interest to identify how they differ from each printer. Disclosure, having the perfect focus with the camera and the microscope was not always easy, so some of the blurriness that can be seen on photo can be caused by the focus rather than the printer itself. It is hard to convey by photo what I see by eye.

From my first observations by eye, all printers produced great looking proxies when you looked at them individually either on matte or glossy paper. Differences get more noticeable when you compare the prints from a printer to another one.

When looking at an overview of the card, the most noticeable difference can be seen on the glossy paper prints. The prints coming from the Epson ET-2980 and the Canon G3270 appears to have some sort of a bluish taint to them and the black is not as rich. This is most likely due to the fact that the printers use a combination of the cyan, magenta and yellow to make black when printing on glossy paper since the pigment ink is not as suitable for this application. This bluish tint is absent from the prints printed on the matte photo paper, most likely because the printer uses the black pigment ink in this case.

Even though the text looks sharp and the artworks looks good on the prints from the Epson ET-2980 and the Canon G3270, we do notice an increase in quality when comparing it with the prints from the Epson ET-8550 and the Canon PRO-200S. However, I must say that the Canon G3270 gives really good results that are not far off from the Epson ET-8550.

When looking at the cards, I would say that the richness of the blacks that we get with the high-end printers is really eye pleasing. Especially with the Canon PRO-200S. The high contrast that we get really makes the artwork pop and the text looking sharp. Also, when working with low DPI artworks, a high-end photo printer will help make the artwork look a bit better. When looking at Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, it seems like the card looks grainier when printed on the affordable printers compared to the high-end printers. The text is also sharper on the high-end printers.

I made a montage of photos taken under the microscope as well. Here is the order from left to right as they appear on the pictures attached to the post:

• Real MTG Card
• Epson EcoTank ET-2980
• Canon PIXMA G3270
• Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550
• Canon PIXMA PRO-200S

Edit: It seems that the images from the microscope were too big for the post. Here is an Imgur link instead

The Creation of Avacyn (Matte and Glossy paper)

Gideon, Ally of Zendikar (Matte and Glossy Paper)

The text looks sharper on the high-end printers compared to the affordable ones. Especially on the Canon PRO-200S. However, like already mentioned, the Canon G3270 does a pretty good job. Of course, nothing compares to the real card where the text is looking extremely crisp.

We see how much the DPI of the artworks matters when making a close up on the face of Gideon. Basically, the differences are not as obvious between each printer. The details are not as easily discernible. I was surprised by how dark the Gideon’s face looks on the Epson ET-8550. I was also surprised that it seems to look the best on the Canon G3270.

When we look at Avacyn’s face, we can see a clear upgrade between the printers. The Epson ET-8550 and the Canon PRO-200S both look better mostly because of the black that seems to allow sharper lines around the edges around the face. Even though, the Avacyn’s artwork looks better on the high-end printers, I was still very impressed by the Canon G3270.

To conclude, I would say that the high-end photo printers do have a higher printing quality, but I’m still not sure if this increase in quality is worth the increase in price. I was really surprised by the results I obtained with the Canon G3270. In my opinion, I would be perfectly content with using this printer to print proxies. It seems like the perfect balance between price and quality. Although, I understand that for some, having the most beautiful looking proxies possible is a must.

I’ll repeat that I did not tune the brightness and contrast settings for any printers. This means that it might be possible to obtain results that are a bit better with each printer.

Anyway, let me know what you think and if the increase in quality is worth the increase in price!