Printing

As previously stated, the printer took 7 min 40 sec to churn out an A4 print. I am now going to time an A3 print. Turning the printer on for the first time since last night, the head travelled backwards and forwards creating a fair amount of whirring noises etc. This process lasted for just over 2 min 25 sec. This process charges the inks and cleans the heads etc.

The print started printing after 1 min 18 sec. The printing is very quite although not quite as "quite" as the Canon S9000. I also rather like the fact that you can open the cover and see what's going on under the bonnet. Whilst I am waiting for this print to finish (13 x 19 inch) I should tell you that this is printing on Glossy Photo Weight using all the automatic settings. Epson has just e-mailed me saying that the Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper is not compatible with the 2100, this paper was developed for Dye based inks, the media recommended for this printer is the Glossy Paper Photo Weight. The A3 print has just finished after 19 min 55 sec. and it looks great. There is a 1/8 inch border on three sides with a 1/2 inch border at the base. Will have to look up borderless printing option. I am going to print the same on a mixture of A4 media and will scan in the results, I will also print the same on an Dye based Epson printer (875 DC) just for colour comparison.

Original file (downsampled)	Premium Semi Gloss	Glossy Photo Weight
Original detail	PSG detail	GPW detail
Epson 875DC	Premium Glossy Photo Paper	PGPP detail
Canon S900	Photo Paper Pro	Canon detail

As you can see from the sample prints, the Premium Semi Gloss has a cleaner tone, the Glossy Photo Weight has a slight tendency to green although quite near the original. The 1:1 scans are slightly soft compared to the original - but a very fair rendering of colour in the prints. There is a slight micro-banding visible under high magnification on the original prints, you would need to look very hard to see it. For your curiosity I have also printed the picture on both a Canon S900 (90 seconds print time) and on a Epson 875 DC (3 min 15 sec. this is the only other Epson printer in house at this time). The Canon prints seem to have more initial impact than the Epson prints, this is due to higher contrast - compare it to the original. The 875DC not the most up to date printer still puts in a respectable performance, although the colours are O.T.T (over the top).

Looking at the prints I have made today, the overall impression I get is that the 2100 has a lot of subtlety which may not come across in my sample pictures. The printers 2880 dpi does a good job of hiding the print dot, the prints look and feel like traditional photographs. The colours are as near as can be to what I am seeing on screen, this is due to the wider gamut of the UltraChrome inks. I will over the next week be adding more and more pictures to these pages, at the end we should have a good idea of what works and what doesn't.

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