>>4479001
It's a Halloween miracle, it works! Nozzle check page looks good, no banding when printing in highest quality. Ordered some photo papers to start playing around with. Smaller formats for now, but will for sure follow >>4478611's advice and get some larger sheets eventually. Thanks to everyone one that shared good info and general excitement about home /p/rinting.
One last thing I'm struggling with is using ICC profiles with Linux/CUPS. Was planning on buying Keith Cooper's profiles to unlock more papers to play around with, but doesn't seem like I'd be able to use them at all at this point.