interactive review
Epson Stylus Photo 2100
page 13

page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Bundled software and printer drivers

The printer interface is similar to other Epson printers, you will not find too many surprises here. I think Epson could have come up with something visually more exciting than the same old look, perhaps in the next upgrade. Nevertheless, let's have a look at the interface and see what's new.

The Epson Stylus Print Properties	Five paper types plus CD-R (2100 only)

Select Print and then choose the 2100 from the printer list (if the 2100 is not the default), and then click the Properties button. On the Main Menu box select a Media Type, on the review printer there were five paper types. All of them, with the exception of the Watercolour, have been tested in this review. Below the paper types is a choice of Color or Black. For photographic printing, including monochrome, leave the setting set to Color. The Black setting should only be used for text printing on plain paper.

The three mode settings	PhotoEnhance options

On the Mode settings you can choose between Automatic, PhotoEnhance, or Custom. For the vast majority of my tests I used the Automatic setting. Once you have defined your Media Type, the Mode setting will choose the best settings for that paper type. When in Automatic the DPI will vary according to the paper type chosen. Selecting Quality will give you the highest DPI and Speed will give you the lowest DPI. The PhotoEnhance offers five settings (see screen shot). Standard will give a standard photo quality print, the other settings will alter the image quality to give acceptable results for the image types. This feature is probably more useful for some of the Epson entry level printers, but not for the 2100.

The Custom mode setting is probably the setting you will be using the most on the 2100. Select Custom and then press the Advanced button. The Advanced Menu opens, from here you can select all the settings including Media Type etc.

The Advanced Menu	Three dpi settings for GPPW & PSPP

The DPI will vary depending on the Media type. The settings available for each media type are as follows;

On the right side of the Advanced Menu are the Colour Management options.

Colour Management Options	The Colour controls

The Color Controls give you basic adjustments to the print - adjusting these will not affect the image data, these are only applied to the print. However, using the Gray Balancer software should eliminate the need to use these settings. The PhotoEnhance4 settings give more options than the same on the Main Menu. No Colour Adjustment - use this setting to turn off the Epson profiles. You would need to define the profile you are using in your imaging application. sRGB matches the colours to other sRGB devices, such as scanners. ICM will automatically adjust the colours to match your screen (your monitor must be calibrated).

Utilities Tab	Ink levels after two weeks testing

The utility tab gives you all the maintenance options, such as ink status, Nozzle Check, Head Cleaning, Head Alignment, and Print Options. The options include a box that you can tick to let the printer know that you have the Auto Cutter attached (surely Epson could have made this an automatic process).

Epson Photo Quicker 3.1

Photo Quicker is a one stop printing solution. This software will give you a variety of layouts and let you resize, rotate, tweak, etc. The software will recognise the printer in use and will display the options to match the Media type. This is a fun and simple to use application. However, I am again puzzled as to why this has been included with such a sophisticated printer. This is a software item that is better suited to entry level printers. Having said that, using the roll paper holder with the batch printing feature made printing an entire folder of prints a breeze. For the social/wedding photographer the ability to place multiple prints on one sheet will be useful.

Photo Quicker 3.1 with batch printing	Watch the picture change with Photo Enhance
Select paper and layout options	Select Media type and press Print

I don't normally like these all singing dancing software packages, but Photo Quicker did add an element of fun. You will either love it, or loathe it!

www.photo-i.co.uk