Epson 2200P

[Gerry Monaghan]

So you guys have had your 2200s for a few months now. Are you satisfied with their performance? Are you satisfied with ink cartridge yeilds, paper selections? Would you recommend the Epson 2200P? I finally have the volume to run mine every week so I am thinking about taking the plunge. Please advise. Gerry

[roger_ele]

I have had mine for 2 weeks, so these are first impressions;

-have only used the premium lustre paper so far, epsons profile prints light and flat, so I am still tweaking but I have got it pretty close, but thankfully the color seems to be right on. Very pretty .

-still has the "ink jet" differences in tone you get when light reflects directly off the surface, the test print epson sends with the unit doesn't show that on the matte papers so we will see ...

-black & white prints with a slight color cast - I think cooler in the light tones and warmer in the dark tones, havn't fooled with it yet, but the prints I warmed up in b&w printed beautiful.

-So far the light grey and light magenta inks go about 4 times quicker than the other inks. So far I would guess we have done around 30 to 40 8x10's (totally guessing including test prints and finished prints), light grey and light magenta are around 50% & other colors are maybe 15%~ ?

-As far as recommending it, what kind of work where you hoping to use it for?

[airubin]

startup suggestions

I'll be getting my 2200 shortly. Does anyone have tips that would be helpful during the installation and initial run through?

TIA

Alan

[KevinBE]

I've had my 2200 for a couple of months. I am pleased with every aspect of this printer. I am still trying out various papers to see which ones I will use the most. There are a lot of different papers available from Red River Paper, Inkjetart.com, and Pictorico.com. I buy most of my Epson paper and ink cartridges from atlex.com, they have the best prices I have been able to find.

Like Roger said you might stock up on the lighter inks like light cyan, light magenta and light black as these inks go faster than the rest. I also have the Matt black cartridge for printing on the Matt and art papers. I recommend getting this cartridge.

Roger, I read some printing tips on the redriverpaper.com site concerning using the 2200 with various inks and they give good advice. One tip was to set the driver to print with the black&white setting instead of color when printing black&white photos. I was amazed at the great quality work this printer will do on B&W. The driver will warn you not to do it but don't pay any attention and go ahead and try it.

I really like the Epson Luster paper and use it a lot for everyday work. I have ordered some Sommerset Velvet Art paper in hopes of using it as my archival paper of choice. Espon is offering this same paper under their name and it's archival qualities are supposed to be really good. You might approach the glossy papers carefully at first until you see what kind of results you get. There is a controversy in some areas about the "bronzing" effect produced by this printer on high gloss paper. This is caused by the pigmented inks not fully penetrating the paper. The results is that some of the ink just sits on top of the paper. I have found that this caused by the resin coating on the paper. The papers offered by Pictorico are ceramic coated and the ink is fully absorbed. I don't know if there are any other choices out there for high gloss papers that have ceramic coating. Anyway try it and see what you think. I know that Redriverpaper.com recommends reducing the ink density by 10% to eliminate bronzing. I have tried it and it seems to work very well.

[airubin]

Kevin,

Thanks for the informative reply. I'm moving in a few weeks from Manhattan to Brooklyn Heights, so I'm several weeks away from setting the 2200 up.

I purchased it on www.inkjetart.com. They are very knowledable about papers, etc.

This is another site that looks good.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0204/02042601epsonphoto2200.asp.

I'll post some more information as I get time.

Alan