Printing Digital Negatives/Heavier Stock Paper

[samuelingram]

Hi,

I recently bought some Digital Contact Film from Fotospeed for a fairly hefty sum. I made a digital negative in photoshop this morning and put the film in my family's standard every-day Epson printer to print, reasoning that making a passable digital negative would be less taxing on it than printing a proper photo.

I should have given it a miss after a few months ago, I put something similar through it in order to make beer labels for a home brewed christmas present and the printer completely chewed up the majority of the label paper. It seems like it can't handle much beyond simple text on flimsy printer paper. Makes me wonder why it has settings to alter the quality at all. It doesn't help that, being plastic, the film curls slightly making it easier to jam.

So I'm either in the market for tips for printing on this stuff, or preparing it for printing (rolling it up the opposite way etc), or recommendations for more professional printers that can actually handle heavy stock. Obviously the cheaper the better, but good enough that I can print some nice digital photos when I'm not making digital negatives for cyanotypes/kallitypes etc. A3 would be preferable.

Any help that you could give me would be great. I'm thinking I might be able to stretch to £200 for a printer if it will last me a while, I'm talking five years or so of mild to moderate use if that sounds reasonable.

Thanks,

Sam.

Edit: Alternatively, would a high street shop/printers be able to do it for me for a decent price.