Is Epson 1280/90 better than Epson 2200/2100?
nobody nowhere
bigger ink cartridges (which presumably means changing less often), and
roll paper cutter. Otherwise, quality of print is more or less the
same. Would this be right? Comments invited from those who have had
actual experience of both printers (and are not the Chief Executive of
Epson!). No academic comments please. Thanks in advance.
Nobody Nowhere
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Paul Worden
colours. The prints are waterproof (proven by me!) and have shown no sign of
fading when displayed on a stand in a brightly lit (daylight) room.
I've never used the roll cutter as it wastes paper. I've printed images up
to 1.5 metres long on roll paper. I mainly print A3, Epson Panorama at 21 x
59 and 32 cm wide roll prints.
The printer has performed flawlessly and apart the (relatively) high running
costs, it has been brilliant. Never dropped a pixel so to speak and I
haven't yet had to run a head cleaning routine (12 months.) I think it's
fairly slow - it takes about 12 minutes to print an A3 and up to an hour for
a 1.5 metre roll print.
Friends have noted how good the prints are compared to 'other' printers. As
far as I know, the Epson is the only affordable pigment printer available.
--
Paul Worden
printswes...@bigpond.com
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nobody nowhere
the same neck of the wood as you do). I take it that 2100 is exactly
the same printer as the US 2200.
In article <5dJxa.37179$1s1.5...@newsfeeds.bigpond.com>, Paul Worden
<printswes...@bigpond.com> writes
Nobody Nowhere
Bill Hilton
shortly after it came out, and have been using the 2200 (2100 to you) on a
newer computer for several months. Both are still used daily.
>From: nobody nowhere nob...@jwhite.demon.co.uk
>As far as I can tell the only virtues of the 2200 over the 1280/90 are
>bigger ink cartridges (which presumably means changing less often), and
>roll paper cutter. Otherwise, quality of print is more or less the
>same. Would this be right?
Not quite.
To me the biggest advantage of the 2200 is the much longer print life, but then
I'm selling and exhibiting prints. On the 1280 the ColorLife and Matte-HW
papers have a projected print life of around 23-26 years, the best glossy paper
(PGPP) around 9 years. In contrast, there are six papers supported and tested
by Epson for the 2200 and all have projected print life of from 45 to 90 years
or so. This is the biggest selling point to me, but if you're not concerned
with long print life then it's moot to you.
Here are some other advantages/disadvantages, as I see it.
The 2200 has swappable black inks (photo black, matte black), which allows you
to get great results on both the shinier papers (Luster, Semi-Gloss and PGPP --
Premium Glossy Photo Paper -- with photo black) and the softer or arty papers
(Enhanced Matte, Velvet Fine Art and Watercolor-Radiant White with matte
black). I've printed a wide range of test targets and gradients with both
printers on all Epson papers and the 2200 definitely does better at avoiding a
color cast when you're trying to print a black-to-white gradient (ie, will
print more neutral black and white images).
According to Bill Atkinson, one of the early Apple Computer gurus turned
digital photography guru, the 2200 is more repeatable and easily profiled.
Bill did extensive profiling of these inks for the 9600/7600 printers (same
inks, larger carriage) and said the 1280 characteristics changed each time you
run a nozzle check, making it very flakey to characterize and generate
repeatable ICM profiles for. I seem to get more consistent results with the
2200.
An advantage for the 1280 is the 2200 pigment inks stand up a bit on the PGPP
paper so if you turn the paper at a slight angle the black areas seem to turn
grey. This is called "gloss differential" I believe. The 2200 does a great
job on the Semi-Gloss and Luster papers but if you feel you need to print on
PGPP then the 1280 does a better job, though the print life is about 1/6th as
long as with the 2200.
The 2200 has separate ink carts for each of the 8 colors, while the 1280 has a
black cart and then a color cart for the 5 colors. In theory this should lead
to cheaper ink costs since you don't toss away unused ink but in practice I'm
not so certain it saves you much while printing photographs since the 8 carts
cost about $95. I wouldn't let this sway me either way.
Finally, you sometimes hear the 1280 inks have a wider gamut, but in practice
this is not an issue, the prints from the 2200 look excellent with all six
papers Epson supports. To me they look better than the 1280 prints when
comparing Luster (2200) to ColorLife (1280) or Enhanced Matte (2200) to
Matte-HW (1280). And the 2200 supports a couple of superb art papers in
Watercolor-RW and Velvet Enhanced. There are no comparable papers for the 1280
with ICM support by Epson. The only paper that looks better to me on the 1280
is the PGPP, but the print life is too short for my needs.
Basically I would get the 2200 if the price is not a concern and especially if
you need longer print life. If the 2200 isn't the printer for you (if you
don't need the print life and are unhappy with the higher price) I'd look
carefully at the Epson 1280 vs the Canon S9000 (or whatever its replacement
is), these printers are very similar in features and in results, with the Canon
offering a couple of things that might be important to you (separate carts and
much faster print speeds). But you can't go wrong with the 2200, I feel.
Bill
John Marshall
jets stuck open. I replaced it with a 2100. Prints from the 2100 are
stunningly better than from the 1290; the tonal gradation is superb and,
well, there just seem to be more colours! Having 7 inks does the trick,
and there's less waste.
--
John
>+<
<nob...@jwhite.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> As far as I can tell the only virtues of the 2200 over the 1280/90 are
> bigger ink cartridges (which presumably means changing less often), and
> roll paper cutter. Otherwise, quality of print is more or less the
> same. Would this be right? Comments invited from those who have had
> actual experience of both printers (and are not the Chief Executive of
> Epson!). No academic comments please. Thanks in advance.
> Nobody Nowhere
I purchased a CIS for my 1280 which I suspect will reduce my per print cost
dramatically. For my thats the most important as I only use the printer
for promo pieces which don't need to last a long length of time.
--
Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur. (Horace)
nobody nowhere
this discussion? As to longevity, how can these claims be verified?
Would you post an article in 26 years time, to see if the claims were
justified? :-)) I know that there are tests, however.... What would
sway me one way or another would be if the resolution, and in
particular, lack of a magenta/red occasional colour cast, on some parts
of the picture, which I think might be there (would you confirm?) will
be noticeably better with the 2100, at least on some of the Epson
papers, eg. semi-gloss, etc. Thanks again for your further comments.
In article <20030518090026...@mb-m11.aol.com>, Bill Hilton
<bhilt...@aol.comedy> writes
Nobody Noweher
Bill Hilton
>Would you class the Epson "Photo Paper" as "PGPP" for the purposes of
>this discussion?
No, Photo Paper is a pulpy, cheaper paper good for proofing but not much else.
Pretty short print life too. PGPP has a much smoother, glossy finish.
> As to longevity, how can these claims be verified?
Read Henry Wilhelm's book "The Permanance and Care of Color Photographs" (all
700+ pages of it) to understand the methodology. The longevity numbers are all
extrapolated and depend on certain assumptions about display time (12 hrs
daily), light intensity, temperature, humidity, and assume the print is
displayed under glass, but in the end they are just estimates.
http://www.wilhelm-research.com/ for Henry's web site
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,105461,pg,1,00.asp for a summary of
Wilhelm's recent tests on inkjets.
Note you can modify his assumptions for viewing light intensity, time under
display, temperature and humidity and come up with pretty much any number you
want, as shown by this article by someone hired by Kodak to counteract
Wilhelm's low rating of 14-18 years for one of their common print technologies.
The "researcher" came up with over 100 years, but assumed (among other things)
you'll get tired of the photo after a while and keep it in dark storage :) And
the temperature was lower, the light intensity less and the humidity 20% lower
...
http://www.kodak.com/cluster/global/en/consumer/education/imageStability.shtml
The good thing about Wilhelm's results is that he tests every paper and process
to the same tests, removing the marketing and advertising departments from the
decisions. But it's still a guesstimate.
>What would
>sway me one way or another would be if the resolution, and in
>particular, lack of a magenta/red occasional colour cast, on some parts
>of the picture, which I think might be there (would you confirm?) will
>be noticeably better with the 2100
The 2100 ships with something called the "Grey Balancer", which was omitted
from the 2200. Supposedly it helps you get true neutrality without a cast in
your greyscale images. You should be able to do a Google search on "2200 grey
gray balancer" and find a lot of links, but right out of the box the 2200 does
a much better job of generating neutral greyscale than the 1280 does (at least
this is true for the two printers I have).
Bill
mike schmidt
glossy paper than the 2200. On matte , they're about equal. The better print
on glossy is due to dyes vs. pigments (I'm an ink chemist). What you gain
out of pigments (2200) is better life and better blacks.I still prefer the
2200 in spite of my observations on glossy paper.
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