2200 Another Opiinion

This mini-review by Leon Wittwer first appeared on thePrinter ForumofDPReview. With Leon’s kind permission I am reprinting it here because it contains some very useful information.

Mac users will find information here that isn’t available anywhere else yet, and below Leon has published some of the first ink usage and cost numbers I’ve yet seen for the 2200.

‚ Michael (Aug 11, 2002)

By: Leon Wittwer

I am running the Epson 2200 Photo printer on a Mac under OS 9.2.2 and OS 10.1.2. I was somewhat disappointed that the driver does not allow custom paper sizes. Hopefully, this will change with OS 10.2 coming out this month (August). I also figured out how to change the black ink under OS 10. I first changed the ink and turned off the printer. I deleted the printer from the printer list in print manager. I then turned on the printer and added the printer to the printer list in the print manager. The different ink was recognized.

So far, I have printed on premium semi-gloss, premium lustre, enhanced matte (formerly archival matte), and Red River 47# matte 13 inch roll paper. I printed using full color management and used the Epson provided profiles. I did not use any color adjustment in the driver.

1) All prints came out very good. The prints matched my monitor quite well and the quality was as good as or better than anything from my 1270 or 2000P.

2) I did one 1440 print and the quality was only very slight less than the corresponding 2880 print. The 2880 had ever so slightly more crispness in the detail. This was while viewing under magnification. I doubt that the differences would be visible under normal viewing conditions.

3) There is a very slight bit of metamerism. Unlike the 2000P metamerism which gave an unattractive green cast under high temperature illumination, the 2200 prints look good (if not very slightly different) under different illuminations. The changes are comparable in magnitude to what I see with my 1270 dye based prints and I consider is a non-problem for my work.

4) I don’t know about the longevity but I have begun a light fading test series for the 2200 using a 2000P sample as a reference. More in a few months.

5) I’ve printed about 5244 square inches of print, almost all of it at 2280 dpi. The vast majority has been on the Epson Premium Lustre paper. My ink usage has been 2.0 light magenta, 1.7 magenta, 1.45 light cyan, 1.2 light black, 0.85 yellow, 0.7 photo black, 0.54 cyan, and 0.33 matte black cartridges. This totals to about 8.8 cartridges. These numbers are probably not all that
accurate as some were estimated from the printer diagnostics. This comes out to about 600 square inches of print per cartridge. Assuming $10.76 per cartridge (Apple site cost, you can do better.), the ink costs for a 4×6 print will be
$0.43. The ink costs for a 8×10 print will be $1.43.

6) The two black inks is a super idea. The black using the matte black on the enhanced matte is very deep. The definition in the dark shadow areas seems better than with my 1270. This may partly be due to the light black. The photo black does a good job with the non-matte papers. I have printed some black and white. They seemed quite good, certainly better than anything from my 1270 or
2000P. Considering how good the 2200 works without the grey balancer, all the fuss over not getting it here in North America may be premature.

7) I did two speed tests. I printed a 12×16 inch image at 2880 and 1440 dpi on enhanced matte paper. Both prints took about 40 seconds from pushing the print button to beggining to print. At 2880, it took 30 minutes to print or 6.4 square inches per minute. An 8×10 would take approximately 12.5 minutes to print. At 1440, it took 14.25 minutes or 13.5 square inches per minute.
An 8×10 would take about 5.9 minutes to print. Is the extra speed worth the very slight degradation in print quality? Probably.

8) I did a resolution test on my 2200 using enhanced matte paper. I judged the resolution to be somewhere between 150 to 200 lines per inch or 300 to 400 pixels per inch. I did a 1440 and a 2880 print. The resolution was comparable but there was a significant difference. The lines at 2880 were clean and smooth at the highest resolution but the 1440 were a bit ratty and irregular. This is what the 2880 gives you. Of course, this means that you need real detail at 1/300th of an inch or so. This is at the limit of vision for many people. At 47, the average person can not focus much closer than a foot and that translates into about 1/300th of an inch (without magnification). A younger person who can focus down to six inches can see down to 1/600th of an inch unaided and would be able to see differences between 1440 and 2880. Of course, this requires an image with resolveable detail at 1/300th of an inch. That means, in practice, printing an image with up to 400+ pixels per inch that has fine details.

9) The printer (except for startup) is very quiet.

10) The Red River 47# matte paper worked will but has a bit of a glare in the dark black areas. To get better results, I purchase enhanced matte (formerly archival matte) in 24 inch rolls and cut to size for the 2000P and 2200. Cutting to size is a pain so I still use the Red River paper for prints where there are little or no deep blacks areas and where longevity is not a concern.

I like this printer. By the way, I have no connection with Epson. I’m a federal civil servant with an expensive but very satisfying
hobby.

© 2002 Leon Wittwer

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