Epson Announces New Printers and Inks

May 10, 2005: Epson has released details of five new inkjet printers and a revolutionary new pigment ink set that promises to match the colour gamut of high-quality dye-based inks and provide up to 80 years of lightfastness.
The entry-level model in the printer line-up is the Stylus Photo 2400, which provides border-free printing for output sizes up to A3+ wide. With a maximum print resolution of 5760 x 1440 dpi, this model uses Variable-Sized Droplet technology and produces 3.5 picolitre Ultra Micro Dots. It supports cut sheet, roll and think art papers in a variety of surfaces and is supplied with Epson’s Raw Print software. This model is due for release in May.

Six new models have been added to the Stylus Pro series of large format printers: the Stylus Pro 4400 (up to A2+ wide), Stylus Pro 7400 (up to A1 wide) and Stylus Pro 9400 (up to A0 wide) and the Stylus Pro 4800 (up to A2+ wide), Stylus Pro 7800 (up to A1 wide) and Stylus Pro 9800(up to A0 wide). The Stylus Pro 400 series models are designed to produce high quality, durable prints and line drawings for architects, engineers, graphic designers, retailers and print shops and use four ink colours. They are also Epson’s fastest ever large format printer range and come with built in USB 2.0 and FireWire IEEE1394, Macintosh and Windows drivers, HDI drivers that allow seamless integration into AutoCAD specific printing environments and Optional Ethernet and Postscript support for versatile and easy connectivity and integration.
The Stylus Photo 2400 and the three Stylus Pro 800 series models are designed for high-quality photo printing and use Epson’s new UltraChrome K3 inks. These revolutionary pigment inks build on the success of the existing UltraChrome ink set and consist of nine cartridges: cyan, magenta, yellow, light cyan, light magenta, light black, photo black and matte black plus a new light-light black ink. Individual inks will be available in two cartridge sizes – 110 ml and 220 ml – to suit different types of printers. Improvements to both the pigment and resin chemistry result in enhanced print glossiness, dramatically reduced metamerism and bronzing and higher scratch resistance – plus a higher D-Max reading on gloss papers.

UltraChrome K3 inks also deliver significant improvements for B&W printing, yielding neutral greys, outstanding shadow detail and impressive overall tonal rendition. They also offer controllable colour toning and up to 200 years lightfastness on suitable papers. Released concurrently with the new printers and inks is a new advanced printer driver that gives complete control over tonal rendition, gloss differential, colour toning, brightness, contrast and highlight and shadow intensity. It also features a simulated feedback window that allows users to pre-view the effects of adjustments they make.
Full details of the new releases will be posted on Epson’s website at www.epson.com.au and the new products may be viewed at the Epson stand at Photo Imaging World in Brisbane from 13-15 May.