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February 2006
David Em davidem@earthlink.net
www.davidem.com
Copyright 2006 David Em.
Almost every printer sold today produces beautiful color prints. But not all prints are created equal. Some printers produce truer colors than others. Some prints smudge if they get wet. Some are easily scratched. Some fade if exposed to light for a few weeks.
Epson (http://www.epson.com) has attacked these print quality issues with a vengeance. Their latest series of printers features a new set of inks that produce the best digital prints I've ever seen.
The recent history of digital printing is astonishing. Ten years ago, a high end Iris inkjet printer cost a couple hundred grand and required an engineer to keep it humming. By every measure, the new Epson printers are in another class entirely, from print quality, to color saturation, to longevity, to price.
In 1999 Epson released the 2000P, a desktop printer with sharp resolution, a 13-inch-wide bed, and a pigmented ink set that produced prints that lasted decades. Back when we used to do the Byte Best of Comdex Awards, we gave it our Best of Show award. The 2000P represented an important step forward for desktop printing, but when I tested it in our lab, I was disappointed by the prints' limited color gamut and metamerism, a phenomenon in which neutral tones noticeably shift color under different illumination sources, usually toward a sickly green.
Epson quickly replaced the 2000P with the Stylus 2200 and its bigger brethren, the 24-inch 7600 and 44-inch 9600. This time Epson got it right. All three printers produced sharp, lush prints on a wide variety of media, and they quickly became the printers of choice for professional photographers, designers and artists. But good as they were, there was still room for improvement.
The new lineup consists of the $849 13-inch R2400, the $1,800 17-inch 4800, the $2,995 24-inch 7800, and the $4,995 42-inch 9800. All four printers use Epson's recently formulated K3 pigmented inks. I tested the R2400 for this article.
The R2400 differs from its siblings in several respects. Epson considers it a "prosumer" printer as opposed to the other three, which are positioned as "professional" printers. However, all four printers use the identical inks and media, and produce virtually indistinguishable results (the R2400 uses a different printhead, but delivers the same specs).
One difference is mechanical. The 4800, 7800, and 9800 are true production printers. Each individual printer is calibrated by hand to within an inch of its life, guaranteeing not only extremely tight print-to-print consistency, but also output predictability between the three printers. This means you can proof a print on the 4800 and reproduce it exactly in a larger size on the 9800, whereas using an R2400 to proof might yield slightly different colors or tones.
Another difference is overall mechanical robustness. While the 31-pound R2400's construction is very solid, the others in the lineup are built like tanks to produce large numbers of prints 24/7.
The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) between the R2400 and 4800 is significant. The R2400 uses eight ink cartridges that hold about 12 milliliters of ink each and cost $15 apiece (I expect this price to go down by about a third, but it hasn't yet) so a complete set of inks costs $120 plus tax. These become drained after a couple dozen 13-inch x 19-inch prints, so a single print costs around five bucks in ink to produce.
By comparison, the 4800 uses 220ml cartridges (it comes with a 110ml set) that cost $112 apiece, cutting the per-print ink cost approximately in half. If you only print a few dozen prints a year, the R2400's an incredible deal. But if you produce dozens or more prints a month, upgrading to the 4800 is a no-brainer since it will quickly pay for itself in ink costs alone.
The 4800's 17-inch bed also lets you produce 16-inch x 20-inch prints, as opposed to the R2400's 13-inch x 19-inch maximum paper size. The "professional" line's warranty is pretty special too. Epson has a special direct-connect support system in place for these printers that includes dedicated personnel who will immediately deal with any issues you may have (far different from a call to the generic Epson help line, as I can attest from experience). If your problem's mechanical, Epson will set you up with a new printer within twenty-four hours.
All that said, the R2400 has one very nice feature the others don't: border-free printing on cut sheets. It has three separate paper paths that can handle almost any media, including 13-inch wide rolls and 1.3mm boards. The R2400's also twice as fast as its predecessor, the 2200, and much better at paper handling and centering images on thick media.
Color, tonal gradations, and detail are all significantly improved across the line. This is due to both the new print engine and the new inks. The new printers use an eight-color screening algorithm that's dramatically more precise than the previous generation's six-color algorithm, greatly enhancing detail. There is also twice as much ink density as before. Thanks to these two improvements, prints deliver visibly superior color shadow and tonality.
I printed some images on the R2400 that I'd also printed on its predecessor, the 2200. I'd been very satisfied with the 2200 prints, but when I compared them to the R2400, some differences were dramatic. The R2400 prints are clearly more saturated and detailed than the 2200 prints. In fact, the 2200 prints, which I liked a lot, all seem flat by comparison. Especially noticeable are the richer reds. All sorts of fine detail information is there that had not been visible previously. The overall Dmax, or dynamic range, of the images strikes me as improved by close to twenty percent.
There is so much more sharpness and expanded color range to the R2400 prints that I wasn't able to match the prints I made with the 2200 - they're that different. There's another factor at play here. The K3 inks use three blacks (Black, Light Black, and Light Light Black) to generate a near-perfect neutral gray scale. This is fantastic for producing gorgeous black and white prints with deep blacks and almost no metamerism.
Eliminating metamerism also produces color images that more accurately reflect the original image file. The previous inks skewed off in the lower ranges of the gray scale, producing warm tones that weren't really supposed to be there.
I generally advocate open-source computing solutions, but when it comes to inkjet printing, I strongly recommend using a printer, inks, and media that are certified to work together. Inkjet prints, whether dye- or pigment-based, involve complex chemical interactions between the paper, the surface treatment, and the inks.
Untested combinations can yield undesirable results down the line, such as premature fading or discoloration. Fortunately, Epson provides a wide variety of media to print on that ranges from extremely glossy to matte surfaces. Four in particular stood out in my tests.
If your goal is to emulate the look of standard photographic prints, Epson's Premium Glossy and Premium Luster papers are excellent choices. Both these papers can use the R2400's 5760 x 1440 resolution setting for extra-sharp detail, and colors really pop with both of then. As its name implies, the Premium Glossy is highly reflective, while the Luster's lightly textured semi-matte surface is virtually identical to traditional photographs of the type used by portrait and wedding photographers.
If what you're after are matte-surface Fine Art prints a la Rembrandt or Warhol, try Epson's Velvet Fine Art, which features a bright white surface and great weight. Another good choice is their UltraSmooth Fine Art paper. UltraSmooth is a little yellower than Velvet, and so doesn't quite have the Velvet's dynamic range, however it delivers a longer life. According to print longevity expert Henry Wilhelm (http://www.wilhelm-research.com) UltraSmooth prints can last up to a whopping three hundred years.
These papers are pricey, averaging between two to three bucks for a 13" x 19" sheet. On the other hand, the combined ink and paper cost is considerably less than you'd pay to have a third party produce a similar print. Another interesting Epson-approved surface is PremierArt canvas, which you can use with the roller attachment.
There are nine K3 inks, but you only use eight of them at a time (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Light Cyan, Light Magenta, Black, Light Black, and Light Light Black). That's because there are two distinct blacks, Photo Black is for printing on gloss and luster surfaces, and Matte Black for matte surfaces. You can use the Photo Black on matte surfaces, but it will come out much flatter than the Matte Black, which produces a rich, velvety black.
The two blacks are interchangeable, but unfortunately this process is not automatic - you must physically switch out one cartridge for another. This is no big deal on the R2400, but for the "pro" printers, it requires time and expense. About ten minutes and forty bucks of ink are wasted every time you switch the larger cartridges.
This is better than the half hour and $120 in ink the previous generation of printers demanded for a simple ink switch, but it still seems extreme. Why there's not a ninth ink slot has something to do with the way the imaging engine's been designed to manage eight inks. Maybe Epson's engineering and marketing teams don't talk to each other. You'd think they'd have figured this one out from the last go-round.
The Matte Black delivers stunning results, but it has a major drawback. All the other inks, including Photo Black, are encapsulated in resin, which both protects them from abrasion and merges them on to the surface of the paper. But the carbon pigment Matte Black's made of hits the paper with no protection, making it extremely vulnerable to scuffing. To say that the black areas in Epson matte prints are fragile is an understatement, particularly on papers that have been treated to have a bright white surface such as Velvet Fine Art.
One strategy is to immediately put matte prints under glass, but I don't consider that much of a solution. If an image is really going to last 300 years, it's got to be able to defend itself against careless framers, bombing raids, hurricanes, and other fates that befall artworks in the real world.
Another solution is to coat the prints with a protective spray that also gives them additional UV protection. There are several products on the market for this purpose made by companies such as Krylon, Milano, SureGuard, and PremierArt (http://www.inkjetart.com/premier/print_shield.html). Epson and Wilhelm recommend the PremierArt Print Shield spray. I tried it and achieved mixed results. On the plus side, I saw no noticeable optical difference in the prints after I sprayed them, and Wilhelm maintains that Premiere Art spray will add decades to a print's lighfastness.
However, the surfaces were still very easy to scratch. In the past, I've sprayed pastel drawings with Krylon spray with very good results, so I'm not sure what the problem is. I may test some of the other sprays, but they're all extremely toxic, so unless you have an extremely well-ventilated dust-free workspace to spray in, I'd think twice before engaging in the exercise.
The Premium Glossy and Luster papers are another story entirely. They are extremely durable and are dry from the instant they come out of the printer. In fact all the media dry very quickly and are water-resistant. I ran water from the tap over both gloss and matte prints and they didn't run or smear.
With the K3 inks, the Gloss and Luster surfaces show almost no "bronzing" (a metallic color effect that occurs from dense ink viscosity), which is quite a breaktrhough. I was able to see some gloss differential under very direct angled illumination, but this is much improved as well.
On the R2400, only the Gloss and Luster papers can print at the new 5760 x 1440 resolution. The option's not available for the matte papers because the ink smashes down the fibers on soft paper, so the best driver resolution setting is 2880 x 1440. Practically speaking, the difference is academic. I can only see the difference through a magnification loupe.
Producing Fine Art-quality color prints involves considerably more than pressing the Print button. Epson's documentation provides some pointers, but when it comes to the nitty gritty of software settings, display calibration, and other workflow elements, you're on your own once you get past the basics.
Every serious designer, artist, and photographer uses Adobe's Photoshop CS2 as the front end to manipulate and massage images prior to printing. Photoshop's Help offers some general suggestions for managing printers, but they turn out not to be at odds with most recommended professional workflows. Obviously you want to produce the best possible finished print with the least number of proofs -- the material costs add up quickly.
I won't go into the ins and outs of monitor proofing here, but it's essential. If your displays aren't calibrated properly, you've no way of making accurate adjustments to your image. I've taken to using two different displays to proof pictures. I'm using Hewlett-Packard's (http://www.hp.com) $599 L2065 LCD for gloss papers and Eizo's F980 tube for proofing matte papers. The LCD better simulates the black and white points and color saturation of gloss media, while the tube gives a much better sense of the more muted light reflectivity of matte surfaces.
A major issue is color space representation. Very few displays are capable of showing more than the gamut-challenged sRGB color space. If you're happy with sRGB, you can default to the "Epson Standard" driver setting (it's their version of sRGB) and achieve very predictable results. The R2400 driver now also has an Adobe RGB setting that provides a richer color space. I was surprised how well I was able to model this space with the HP L2065.
Another avenue is to assign specific .icc paper profiles within Photoshop. This method should produce a superior result, but I found it to be much less predictable. I suspect this has to do with the fact that the R2400 isn't calibrated to the same level of precision that the pro printers are.
I achieved very good results with both methods using images with high levels of saturation, but subtle images were more difficult to nail, often requiring many proofs before I produced a print I was satisfied with.
Professional photographers are moving to a workflow that involves shooting RAW images and converting them to Kodak's 16-bit ProPhoto RGB format that's so wide no current camera can shoot beyond it. This is a wider space than Adobe RGB and light years beyond sRGB. Epson also offers a true 16-bit RIP for the pro printers.
Eventually these issues will be resolved when 16-bit double-precision color is managed directly through the OS, something that might occur in Windows Vista later this year, however fully implementing that will require another generation of printers.
Epson's four new printers and the K3 inks they use represent a significant step forward in the history of digital printing. The combination of their color density, tonal range, detail, and media flexibility is unmatched.
Despite a couple significant flies in the ointment such as the need to switch blacks and the abrasion resistance of matte prints, every one of these printers delivers an incredible price/performance value. They work with Windows 2000/XP and Mac OSX 10.2.4 or later. Highly Recommended.