Printer News

Epson has unveiled a new line of printers employing an eight-color pigment-based UltraChrome K3 inkset system. All of the new machines employ the same K3 inks, print heads, and driver software, but differ in size, cartridge size, and color calibration technology.

The suffix K3 refers to the fact that a full three--not merely two--black pigmented inks are...

Epson is still thinking big. The company just unveiled the 44-inch SureColor P10000 printer, which is designed for “large photographic and fine art fulfillment needs.” The 44-inch P10000 comes on the heels of the Epson SureColor P20000, a 64-inch photo printer, launched in January 2016. 

Pigment inks, CD disc printing, and moderate cost have kept me a loyal user of Epson Stylus Photo printers. I attribute this to the different set of ink colors compared to what’s found in Epson’s professional pigment-ink printers. With the R1900, and now the new R2000, besides the standard cyan, magenta, and yellow, there is red, blue, and orange ink in the set. I find this is favorable to reproducing all my favorite photography subjects, including people, flowers, and landscapes. But, you might ask, without support for black-and-white grayscale printing, how do I get by? Well, I actually use my R1900 to print black-and-white images and a good part of my testing with the R2000 involved printing black-and-white photographs as well.

I took on this review assignment because I’ve had considerable history with printing, both silver and digital, and printing with Epson printers. Over the past few years this interest has led me on an odyssey through various printers, profiling, and a considerable amount of (early) frustration. My emphasis has been on monochrome printing and those who share in this interest and who have attempted black-and-white printing in the past understand the numerous obstacles it can present. Those include, but are not limited to, unwanted color casts, gloss differential in deep black areas and some tonal borders, poor deep black reproduction (accompanied by equally poor highlight repro), a lot of poor paper surfaces, and the hassle and waste of switching from matte black to photo glossy inks. Color printers face these as well, plus the challenges of color balance, casts, skin tone reproduction, highlight bias, green shadows, and more. Of late I have printed with the Epson Stylus Pro 3800, 3880, and 4800 models, the 3800 being my studio workhorse for years and the 3880 the model that many photo schools and workshops at which I’ve taught use as a mainstay student and production printer.

A popular option for many photographers looking to print images at up to 17 x 22 inches has been the Epson 3880 printer (and before that the 3800). Essentially an affordable option to Epson’s professional level 4800 and 4900 printers, the Epson 3880 and 3800 use smaller ink cartridges and forgo the ability to use roll paper. It’s been several years since this photo printer lineup has been updated, so when Epson gave me the opportunity to review their new 17-inch SureColor P800 I was interested to see what they were able to come up with to improve an already very good printer.

Epson continued to “think big” this morning while debuting a new 64-inch SureColor P20000 photo printer. Yes, you read that right: it’s a 64-inch photo printer! The Epson SureColor P20000 is the successor to the Epson Stylus Pro 11880, which came out eight years ago.

I always find it a nice icebreaker to show my pictures to people I meet on my travels. I also make it a habit of giving a small print to people I befriend. And the small print costs me pennies. Plus, 4x6 prints are so much easier to tote around than 8x10s. The problem is producing these minilab-size prints. I've wasted numerous 4x6 sheets because of a wrong setting in my...