Printers

The first desktop printer with Epson's new UltraChrome K3 ink set, the Stylus Photo R2400 produces long-lasting, exhibition-quality colour and monochrome prints. This latest set of pigment inks deliver much richer colours and a wider colour gamut than Epson's previous ink sets and can match - and on some papers, better - the performance of printers with top-quality dye inks.

The new inks have a higher density than previous inks and unlike the R800 and R1800 printers, which apply a gloss overcoat to create a smooth surface finish, Epson has encapsulated the R2400's pigment particles in the glossy resin. This gives a very smooth surface for prints on glossy papers without adversely affecting prints on Epson's ultra-smooth, long-lasting Archival Matte paper.

The company has also reworked the screening algorithms for black-and-white printing and expanded the tonal gamut of the R2400 by including a selection of four blacks in the ink set. As well as the regular 'Photo' or 'Matte' black inks, and the light black that was introduced with the 2100 model, there's a new 'light light' black ink that covers the gap between black and light grey. The printer driver can sense whether the Photo or Matte black has been loaded and will then list only the papers suitable for that ink. So you get only matte papers when the Matte Black ink is installed, and glossy or semi-gloss papers with the Photo Black cartridge.

Ink cartridges are individually replaceable and you can swap between the blacks at any time, although Epson advises against frequent cartridge changing as it wastes ink. It also takes several minutes for the printer to adjust settings when you swap from one ink to the other. It's better to save the shots you want to do on each type of paper and print them in a batch.

One key new feature of the R2400's driver is an Advanced B&W Photo setting, which eliminates the need for the 2100's Grey Balancer application. This facility has controls for adjusting the colour toning (neutral, cool, warm and sepia), tone, brightness, contrast, shadow and highlight tonality and maximum optical density of B&W prints, giving photographers far greater control over the appearance of the print than ever before - and much easier access to these settings.

Advanced B&W Photo is much easier to use than the old Grey Balancer and produces a better looking print. We were delighted by how effective the controls were and found we could easily produce excellent B&W prints straight from a coloured original with the Advanced B&W Photo controls alone. However, you can only save your settings by returning to the Properties page and saving all the properties settings.

Full colour image files that were converted for B&W printing using the channel mixing method we outlined in the last issue gave us some spectacularly good monochrome prints, proving that the R2400 with the K3 ink set will satisfy the most demanding of users. It also delivered outstanding colour prints on both glossy and matte papers. Inspecting prints under high magnification revealed superb detail, coupled with excellent half-toning and colour smoothing.

Print colours were fully colour stable within 30 minutes and prints emerged from the printer dry enough to tolerate careful handling. The printer was able to handle heavyweight papers, including Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm. Print surfaces had above-average resistance to minor abrasion and showed no apparent signs of bronzing or surface discontinuities. It took 4 minutes and 16 seconds to produce an A4 print using the Best Photo setting with High Speed off, and 7 minutes 47 seconds for an A3 print with the same settings. An A3+ print took 9 minutes and 27 seconds. With High Speed enabled, print times were reduced by about 40%.

A full set of inks costs $189 and a 20-sheet pack of A3 paper can be had for around $87. Ink usage was relatively conservative; we were able to print 47 A4 photos before half the inks ran out, giving an approximate cost of an A4 print on Premium Photo Glossy paper at around $4.40. An A3 print on similarly-priced paper costs roughly $8.00. Tests of Epson's UltraChrome K3 inks conducted by Wilhelm Imaging Research (www.wilhelm-research.com) using the Stylus Pro 9800 printer - the first to use the new inks - gave a print permanence rating of 34 to 68 years for unframed colour prints on Epson papers and 60 to 210 years for B&W prints. Framed prints should last at least 30% longer.  [24]

Maximum resolution: 5760 x 1440 'optimised' dpi
Interfaces: USB 2.0 (Hi-Speed); IEEE1394
Paper sizes: A3+, A3, A4, A5, A6, Letter, B5, Legal, Executive, Half Letter, 10 x 15cm, 4" x 6", 5" x 8", 8" x 10" (weights from 64 to 255gsm)
Ink cartridges: T0591 (Photo Black), T0592 (Cyan), T0593 (Magenta), T0594 (Yellow), T0595 (Light Cyan), T0596 (Light Magenta), T0597 (Light Black), T0598 (Matte Black), T0599 (Light Light Black).
Power consumption: approx. 18 W (operating); 1.3 W (sleep mode)
Acoustic noise: 47 dBA (operating)
Dimensions (wxhxd): 615 x 223 x 314 mm (615 x 457 x 737mm when printing)
Weight: approx. 11.7kg