phil barnes photography

I recently picked up an Epson Stylus Photo R2880 and have been using if for about two weeks.  I chose the 2880 for its black and white printing capabilities and for its archival print life because of the use of pigment-based  inks.

Overall Impression

Overall, the 2880 appears to be an improvement over the Epson 2200 that it replaced.  The prints look better and the colors are more saturated, and the black and white prints are neutral and look excellent (despite not having the driver set up correctly).  Good on Epson for a well executed black and white printer driver.  The two test images I made (one color and one black and white) printed flawlessly on Epson’s Ultra Premium Presentation matte paper.

Glitch

I’ve had trouble a few times so far with paper misfeeding causing the printer to go into extended head cleaning cycles and wasting significant amounts of ink.  The printer eventually sorts itself out, but on one occasion after clearing the paper path the printer continued to make noises and act randomly until I finally turned the printer off.    So far this has happed three time consuming approximately half of my inks.  I’ve heard of this happening reading 2880 reviews before buying the printer, but it seemed isolated so I was not all that concered about the problem.  I contacted Epson about this and they agreed to send me a set of replacement set of inks without really acknowledging if they were aware of this problem with the 2880.  I seemed like they were willing to give up a set of inks rather quickly.  I problably will not have this for long if this is what I can expect regarding ink consumption..

Paper Handling

After setting up the printer and making a few test prints I ran into trouble trying to print on a sheet of 13 x 19 Watercolor Radiant White fine art paper because I could not select this paper type in the Epson printer dialogue.  It turns out that with the 2880 (word to the wise) fine art papers have to be loaded into the sheet feeder located on the back of the printer, not into the bulk sheet feeder accessed on the top of the printer.  Once I figure this out, and selected for this path in the paper set up dialogue, I was able to select a fine art paper.  One major difference between the 2200 I used previously is the numerous paper paths the 2880 has.  This gets complicated when selecting a paper to use.  Some papers, like the thick fine art papers, require the rear paper path, which is also the path for roll paper.  On the paper setup screen there approximately 20 separate options for paper size, path, and/or boarderless, all of which have to be selected correctly to get the pritner to function.  In comparison, with the 2200 this was simple because there was only one  paper path to deal with.  I have heard of others complaining that they were not able to print on fine art media.  I imagine that not have everything set correctly was the problem.  Also, not having the correct paper path selected seems to bump the printer into confusion mode where it defaults to it head cleaning routine.

Print Quality

Overall, despite the glitchy character of the 2880 so far, prints look really good.  Saturation is good and the colors are great and should get better now that my monitor has been calibrated correctly.  One of the prints is rather dark, even muddy, but again this may be due to bad monitor calibration.  I need to redo this print to confirm this.  I thought possibley that something was not set correctly in the driver prior to printing but I don’t think this is the case.

Black and white prints look fantastic, despite not having he dialogue set up correctly.  I mainly purchased the 2880 for its capability to print neutral black and white prints.  Tones are neutral without color casts and gradations are  are smooth.  So far the only limitation on detail that can be produced are my files.  The black and white driver Epson has provided is very good.  One thing I’ve leared is that you must let the printer do the color management (not Photoshop) when making black and white prints for optimal results.  I ran a few test images with PS color management on and off which showed clearly better tones when you let the printer manage things.  Eventually I would like to try using Quadtone rip with the 2880 to see if there are any advantages.  I used QTR with the 2200 and was able to get pretty good results with just black and light black inks.  I understand QTR now support the 2880, so that is probably the next thing I’ll try regardin black and white printing.

Print Handling/Mechanics

Prints come out of the printer acceptably quickly.  Some have complained the printer is slow.  I say if you need to print at high speed you are using the wrong printer.  Maybe you should send the work out?

I’ve experienced a few glitches with the paper not feeding correctly.  Both with the fine art papers and with matte papers fed through the bulk sheet feeder.  With the fine art/roll sheet paper path it seems that it is critical that the paper is lined up square and inserted all the way into the printer for it to work reliably.  I understand there needs to be a high degree of precision so that the paper feeds straight, so the printer rejecting the alignment does not seem unreasonable.  Still, it is annoying and makes me think Epson could have refined this more.  Also, the rear path is akward to use and the width adjustment does not work precisely.  The printer also had trouble accepting 8.5 x 11 matte media on a few prints.  I’m not sure if it was because I did not have the correct paper type selected that this happened. Also, when this happended it corresponded to the printer going into a round of head cleaning/ink wasting.  I am hoping this is an isolated occurance.

I have not printed onto a CD/DVD and doubt I ever will.  Regarding roll paper, I’d like to make some nice panoramic prints at some point.  Being able to use roll paper will be nice.

The driver setup is bit of hassle, but that was just a matter of learning how it worked.  One issue I always fussed with on the 2200 was that oprints would not center on the page.  I always assumd that was a driver issue since the 2200 was not well supported in OS X 10.5.  It is nice to have prints come out where I want them on the page.  As I mentioned before, the paper selection is cryptic with all of the numerous options for apparently the same paper type.  Unfortunately, there is no real explanation of all of the options in the somewhat limited documentation provided for this printer.  Better documentation of this would be nice since it seems that more than a few have come to the conclusion that their printer was defective becuse they could not select the proper paper type in the Epson dialogue box - a problem that I had at first.  I even called Epson support for help at first whcih turned out to be fruitless.  I eventually figured things out on my own - others might not.

Conclusion and Soforth

Overall, the printer does what it should.  The paper handling is finicky but is not a dealbreaker.  I am concerned with the printers dendency to clean the heads when it is confused.  This wastes precious ink, and one of the issues that makes printing a very non-good deal.  In my opinion alot of focus should have been put into this by Epson.  Why a printer would be allowed to leave R&D acting like this is beyond me.  From what I’ve there may be a driver issue invloved in this.  Epson has yet to acknowlege the issue but they have to know about it given how easily they provided me with a replacement set of inks.  Hopefully a driver fix will sort this problem out or this romance will be breif.