I’m after some recommendations for decent printers for copying and printing watercolours. Mrs A is really quite talented and needs an A4 colour printer to scan and print her artwork. I’m liking the instant ink idea from HP. Needs to be able to scan, handle 225 or better 300 gsm. Looking at 200 copies/ month. The HP envy 7134 seems to fit the bill but I’m sure that you will know better.

Help me Obinners wan Kinobi, you are (possibly) my only hope…

HP officejet 9015?

I’ve just bought an HP Envy based on STW’s praise of the instant ink arrangement. They are really on the ball with new cartridges, the first set arrived almost immediately (as presumably the printer ships with 1/4 full demo carts). The second set arrived before I had got around to switching the first colour cart (mostly printing b&w text docs).

I cant really speak for the quality if it’s good enough for art but for ease of set-up and running costs it’s a blinder.

If you want good photo quality try this one Epson EcoTank This is a fantastic multi-function printer that will handle printing, scanning, and copying. And, it’s one of the only printers that has an on-board CIS ink system (“EcoTank”). This means that ink is sold inexpensively in bulk bottles, rather than in pricey plastic cartridges.

HP envy user on the free ink plan, its cost me £2 for going over the plan in 10 months. Not sure how they make money but I’m pleased with printer and plan

Why an all in one? A separate flatbed scanner would probably be better quality. And more options to adjust settings, or scan different shaped things etc.

I’ve got an HP OfficeJet Pro 9019. Works great as an office printer, not so good for quality prints – we have an A3 Canon Pixma Pro 100s for those duties, which is fabulous. Would need a separate scanner though

Think carefully about scanning watercolours, especially if you’re going to re-print them again. The paper texture will be captured as shades of grey, which might not be what you want when printed.

Thanks for the input folks, much appreciated. The scanning of textured paper hadn’t occurred to me. Thanks for the heads up.

HP Envy 5640 here – it’s been faultless. Scanning quality is good enough to reveal the texture of normal printer paper so no need to go any higher, for me. And Instant Ink is cheap as chips.

If you want to print out pictures then Instant Ink is incredible value as it charges you per page not on the amount of actual ink.