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Unless otherwise noted all contents and images on this site are copyright © 2001-2008 Roger Cavanagh
and may not be used without permission.
Labelled with ICRA
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Unless otherwise noted all contents and images on this site are copyright © 2001-2008 Roger Cavanagh
and may not be used without permission.
Labelled with ICRA
This isn't intended to be a full review, just some thoughts and comments. A little while ago I decided to cheer myself up by buying a new printer. I got the Epson Stylus Photo R800, which is one of the most recent additions (end March/early April 2004) to the Epson line-up. It isn't a wide-carriage printer - maximum width is 8.5" - but it has a roll feed attachment and you can use the Epson panoramic paper (the size of two A4 sheets end-to-end).
The R800 uses the Ultrachrome inks, which exhibit much less metamerism than the pigment inks in my other printer the Epson Photo Stylus 2000P. There are eight cartridges - one for each colour: cyan, magenta, yellow, red, blue, photo black and matte black, and a new gloss optimiser.
Red and blue are used instead of light cyan and light magenta. They are supposed to give an improved gamut over the 2100/2200. The gloss optimiser (GO) is like a varnish that is sprayed over the coloured inks. It's certainly a good thing that the inks are in separate cartridges as my usage over the last weeks has shown that CMY get used up about twice as quickly as the other colours and the GO. The cartridges are, of course, expensive at almost GBP 90 for a full set, but they seem to last reasonably well. While I'm not sufficiently obsessional to count the number of pages, I reckon I had made several dozen prints before the first cartridge ran out. The printer utility gives a good read-out showing ink levels. From my 2000P, I've learned to ignore the initial promptings to change the cartridge and continued printing until the printer refused to print. It's a nice touch that the driver software provides words and pictures on how to change the cartridge - it even moves the print into position automatically.
The print quality on Epson Glossy Paper Photo Weight and Premium Semi-gloss is fantastic. Alain Briot who has reviewed the R800 on The Luminous Landscape site wrote about the quality thus:
"Glossy prints made on the R800 are beautiful and show no bronzing whatsoever. To the naked eye Glossy R800 prints look just like glossy chemical prints."
The GO evens out the surface of the print, so there are no irregular reflections and no "etched effect". Everyone I've shown prints to has said the same thing: words to the effect "they look just like real photos". The results on matte paper are also excellent. I bought a sample box of fine art papers - mainly Hahnemüle - and the prints are delightful, even without custom profiles. (The GO is turned off by default for matte papers, and I haven't experimented as there seems little point.)