Epson
Epson has introduced two top-quality photo printers aimed at enthusiast and professional photographers, with the promise of more intense blacks, a superior blue performance and a smaller footprint. Photography News gets the lowdown from Epson’s account manager, DomGurney ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE Thepleasure of prints
› Epson SureColor SC-P700 £678 › Epson SureColor SC-P900 £1086 › Epson printheadwith Black Enhance Overcoat technology › Ten UltraChrome Pro 10 inks Including new Violet › Constant Photo andMatte black inks › Expanded blue gamut › Auto sheet feeder accepts fine-art media › 4.3in LCD optical touchscreen › Printing fromsmart devices › Three different paper paths for widemedia range › Spindleless roll feed unit on SC-P700 (optional on SC-900) › Small footprint › Epson Print Layout software KEY FEATURES
PN Please could you introduce the SC-P700 and 900 printers and explain who they are aimed at? DG Yes, they are aimed at photo enthusiasts through to professional photographers. They have the technologies that have come down from our wide-format professional printers, so the quality is there, Primarily, I think the A3+ SC-P700 will appeal to the camera club members and photo enthusiasts – people who enjoy taking pictures and want to make prints at home for the best quality. They probably own a top-quality camera and spend a lot of time shooting to produce their pictures and don’t want to let it down at the end by using a low-end, office- type printer or by sending it away for someone else to print. It makes me smile when I speak to people who are entering competitions and I hear that they BELOW Three paper paths are available on both of Epson’s new printers. This is the front media path, which keeps the fine-art media or Epson’s Enhanced Matte Posterboard completely flat
are sending their prints away. They’ll talk to me and say, ‘I climbed this mountain, waited three hours for right light, and did this and did that, then I got back and spent hours editing my shots.’ So, having spent hours and hours on a picture using expensive camera equipment, right at the end on the bit they are actually going to be judged on, they’ll send the file away for somebody else to let them do whatever they do to every print. They aren’t just looking at just yours, they are looking at thousands. When I say this, the response is: ‘I didn’t think about it like that.’ That’s when cost comes into it. People say it’s cheaper to send it away. But is it? The difference could mean better scores – and even winning. PN You said the SC-P700/900 incorporate features fromEpson top-end printers – does that include the new printhead? DG The printhead was designed specifically for these printers. The core Epson Piezo head is our technology that’s shared across our
printers, but then ten channels in this format were designed for these printers. The violet ink, however, has been on some of our larger format professional printers, but the formulation is slightly different, because those printers are for the proofing of magazine covers and the like, which will be reproduced using the CMYK printing process, so the colour gamut is different. In essence, though, the violet ink is there to expand the colour gamut in the blues, but it also helps give more shadow detail, because it gives an extra gradation in those areas. PN Epson’s literature says the D-Max of new printers is greater – rated at 2.91 against the 2.8 of previous models – and there’s Carbon Black mode and Black Enhance Overcoat technology to achieve this. What are they and how do they work? DG Yes, the D-Max has gone from 2.8 to 2.91 on the new printers. It doesn’t sound much, but in scientific terms that is actually a reasonable amount and the result of a combination of technologies that includes the violet ink and the Carbon Black and Black Enhance Overcoat modes. It’s the sum of many parts rather than just being one standout feature. The Carbon Black and Black Enhance Overcoat technologies are in the printer driver. These lay down tiny 1.5pl droplets of light grey ink on the surface of the print to give a smoother finish for less light scatter, so more light is reflected off the print. By doing this, you get a glossier finish from coated papers and allow more shadow detail to come through rather than being lost due
ABOVE The Epson SureColor SC-P700 & 900 have large 4.3in LCD colour touchscreens. The screen has lots of information and you can check ink levels without having to turn the computer on. If you’re printing multiple jobs, you get a preview of the image you’re printing at that time and you can check settings of prints to light scatter. On glossy papers, it gives almost a ‘wet’ look to prints particularly on black & white prints. You don’t use these modes on the matte or fine-art surfaces I have done some comparison prints on the new printers and the older SC-P600/800 and there is an incremental difference. You will see an enhancement, with more shadow detail. PN So, the SC-P700 has the option of taking roll paper as well? DG To be fair, the SC-P600 had a roll feed with two clip-on adapters. So many times I’ve heard people say ‘I never got those’ and then you find they were thrown away with the packaging or left in the box. That was one of the reasons why we integrated a new-design spindleless roll paper holder with the SC-P700. We do get feedback from customers from all over the world who want to produce nice panoramic prints. You can technically make prints 10m or 12m long if you want with the SC-P700.
PN Do you have a favourite feature on the SC-P700/900 that has special appeal to you? DG One of the cute things for me that I like (because I am a bit geeky) is we have put LED lights underneath the lid, so you can see the print as it is being printed. Again, this is something we have taken from our large format printers. We had clients using our commercial printers saying they couldn’t check the print until it was 12in into the print, by which time, if anything was wrong, cancelling it still meant losing 12in of media as well as the ink. Now on the SC-P700/900, you can check the print while the lid is closed. And, speaking of lids, they are all designed to overlap to keep out dust when the printer is not being used, which is an enemy of printers. PN Thanks for your time and all the best to everyone at Epson from Photography News .
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6 Photography News | Issue 80
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