Note that I am speaking not from a perspective of a all out photo print specialist but one who wants accurate colours at a fair cost which will last for years.(10yrs and counting....)
Kind of late to reply here but. I print A4 pics like printing documents.The L series is really cheap (ink wise) and the prints to me are as close in clarity colour to the naked eye as photo printers. I am using the L200 and also L350. I don't even use the photo ink printers. Unless you want very deep blacks or very accurate colorus, these printouts will fool any viewer but the pros.
With these printers, the cost now comes from the paper, and Epson paper other than its matt is expensive, about 2x more than canon.
If you use others brands even reputable ones like Ilford,canon etc most will not give good colours.
I have wasted quite a lot of different photo papers on the Epson ink tank printers only to find the colour are not accurate,especially skin tones. Epson will hate me for this but i finally found that Illford Super Premium Pearl Paper which costs just 50cents a piece will give colour that matches the original Epson paper with the same paper weight of 255g/m2.This paper can be bought at Popular.
The cheaper option is Matt paper from either canon or epson but matt to me isn't attractive and the paper weight is only 170g/m2 for just 10 cent less per piece at 40 cents.
These papers aren't archival but I have prints laminated 10 yrs ago and they look like they have been printed yesterday. Others I put in polypropylene sleeves that look new even after 3 years. I buy clear holder files from Daiso as they state their file material is polypropylene. (photo safe plastic)As a rule of thumb, storage sleeves and containers should not have any smell as these fumes actually degrade the pics. Eg bookwrapping plastic.If you put pic in cheap frames, put a piece of aluminium foil between the backing and the pic and place away from direct light.My Wedding pic I printed on regular canon glossy paper 10 yrs ago behind glass are slightly faded but slightly better than my friends studio taken pics on exposed canvas.
But beware Epson ink tank printers are cheap to run but the loading mechanism always fails. The repair cost 100 bucks for a 200 dollar printer.I had 2 epsons and they both failed on the 11th and 14th month. My canons only failed after 4 years and another is still running 6yrs and counting.(at this time of writing I hear canon will be coming with their own ink tank printers!)
I strongly encourage others to print as " a print on hand is better than a hundred in the hard drive". (My own made up idiom) If my hard drive ever fails, at least I have hundreds prints that might fade a little, but no worry about HD crash and virus. Especially when an A4 costs only 55 cents( paper and ink)
