| 26
June 2002
Colour
One
of the major features on the Epson Stylus Photo 2100 is the new UltraChrome™
ink set. photo-i
has already done an overview on UltraChrome™.
Check it out and then come back to see what can be achieved with this
ink. All the pictures were created using the Photo Black ink, for matte
media such as Archival Matte & Watercolour, you should use the Matte
Black ink cartridge (the Matte Black ink was unavailable for this review).
For this part of the review I am purely looking at how the 2100 prints
colours. The pictures on the left are original digital files and the ones
on the right are scans of the prints - there will be a small deviation
in colour due to the scanning process.
|
|
| The
original file |
Epson Archival Matte Paper. |
1.
The original digital image file, the red flowers look day-glo on the
screen - a colour you would find hard to reproduce.
2.
On the print the red flowers actually look better than they do on screen.
All other colours are faithful to the original file.
|
|
1.
The original file |
2.
Epson Archival Matte Paper. |
1. The colours on the original file have good saturation, clean blue
sky, strong red, but with a slight hint of magenta.
2.
The red is slightly muted compared to the screen display, but the blues
and yellows are faithful. The print almost matched the screen display
and this was using the automatic settings.
|
|
1.
The original file |
2.
Epson Archival Matte Paper. |
1.
The original file has plenty of detail in the shadow areas and yet none
of the highlights are totally blown.
2.
The shadow areas in the print are equal to the screen version, but perhaps
lack bite. Any printer would have trouble matching the on screen quality,
one is reflected colour whereas the other is transmitted.
|
1.The
original image |
|
2.
Epson Stylus Photo 2100 |
|
3.
Canon S900 |
|
4.
Epson Stylus Photo 950 |
1. The original file contains cotton reels that closely match the Kodak
colour control patches and they are more interesting to look at. The
advantage with the reels is that you can see detail in both white and
black areas, and of course all the other colours too.
2.
The 2100 produced a faithfull rendering of all the colours, perhaps
the reds were not as strong as on the original (at least it is consisitent).
Detail is well held in the white and black reels. The colours on the
print are vibrant without being garish.
3.
The Canon S900 (dye ink), also displays excellent colours, although
the black blocked up. The image quality on the Canon is very good and
perhaps looks more photographic than the other prints (the Canon paper
has something to do with this).
4.
Just for comparison, I have included a print made with Epson's other
new printer, the 950. The print has a slight magenta cast to it, the
colours are clean and well defined. The black reel looses some image
detail and the white reel blows out.
Looking
at all the prints before me, the 2100 keeps all the image detail but lacks
some of the punch that the dye printers offer. I can't help thinking that
this printer is like Hasselblad quality compared to Mamiya. The Hasselblad
image looks soft, but it captures every last bit of detail, whereas the
Mamiya goes for impact. The 2100 produces colours that are sure to please
everyone.
Just
in case you are wondering how the ink is lasting, here is a screen shot
of the ink usage in one week - this includes the initial ink charging
which consumes more ink than subsequent ink replacements. Print usage
is 4 A3's, 22 A4's, 24 6x4 (roll media), 8 plain paper A4, 5 CD-Rs, and
a few cancelled prints.
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