A great printer, but not an all purpose printer
Written: Feb 20 '04
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Pros: Excellent prints on Matte, watercolor, fineart velvet and premium luster papers.
Cons: Price may be a factor, not all purpose printer (but it's not made to be)
The Bottom Line: Highly recommend if you've done your homework and know how to use it. Not an all purpose printer so you'll need another one for everyday text use.
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| hawklady99's Full Review: Epson Stylus Photo 2200 Inkjet Printer |
Let me first say I've had 4 Epson Printers (700, 1520 the 1280 and now the 2200) but I've also had the Olympus P-400 and now the HiTi 640PS. So I'm not averse to trying non-Epson products if I have a specific job to do.
That being said, I'm a photographer and I wanted large format printer for my customers who wanted poster sized prints for framing. I'd already read up on the printer on several forums so I knew about the issues with the gloss prints and UltraChrome inks. (metamerism/bronzing) where some colors of the ink sit on top of the paper and when looking at the print from the side you can see the difference. However I knew that my prints were going to be framed under glass so that was not an issue. I like the color rendition on the matte, watercolor and fine art papers better then ath egloss anyway, and under glass you can not tell the difference from the gloss prints.
The printer does a wonderful job on all three of these paper types and the Premium Luster paper prints are incredible. I believe that some of the problems people were experiencing with the printer were due to the learning curve of color management that is essential to printing photos from a computer and inkjet printer. I print from Photoshop CS, previously Photoshop 7. Color management from this software to any printer is a little tricky. I'd recommend that anyone who is new to digital printing take the Epson online 12 week course. It's only $30 and you can go through the videos on your own time. There's a wealth of information that can get you started on the right foot and can help you avoid mistakes and a lot of wasted paper and ink.
I do not use this printer for printing regular text items on plain paper. It's reserved for photo print making only. Anyone who wants a printer that can do actual photo quality prints and bulk text printing would be hardpressed to find a printer that fits. You'd also be wasting the relatively expensive Ultrachrome inks on plain paper. (It would be like buying a Hummer to take kids to daycare.) If speed is what you're looking for I'd also say that you're not interested in true color rendition (accurate matching of color from print to actual subject) either and this is not the printer for your application.
I'm extremely picky about color rendition of my prints and with the right color management you can get incredible prints from this printer. I've routinely sold large format prints from this printer to my customers.
It's definitely not for everyone, and the price seems prohibitive if you've not researched pricing and features on real photo printers well. Epson sets the bar pretty high and Canon and Hewlitt Packard just haven't caught up yet. They can print faster prints, but they are not comparable in quality and color rendition.
If you want high gloss prints with the look and feel of Kodak prints then you want to go with a dye sublimation printer and Olympus' new P440 is the one to buy if you want prints up to 8x10 in about 75 seconds. It supports color management. If you only need to print up to 4x6 then the HiTi dye sublimation printer is a very reasonably priced alternative. Both are very user friendly and less complicated than the Epson 2200.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 650
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
hawklady99
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Location: NY
Reviews written: 58
Trusted by: 8 members
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