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ColorVantage Inks

Arthur Bleich — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 20:16:35 -0500

ColorVantage pigment inks produce prints as vibrant as those made with Epson pigment inks - but force you to do a lot of futzing with software.

The Pantone color system is used in the printing industry to ensure that the colors used in the design process are the same colors used during production. Pantone's ColorVantage pigment inks for Epson's Stylus Photo 1270, 1280, 2200, and R2400 printers offer nice results at a lower cost than the stock inks, but you'll have to do some work to get the best results.

ColorVantage inks are about 20 percent cheaper than Epson's inks. The 1280 uses dye-based inks, which tend to fade faster than pigment inks but often produce a more vivid print. Pantone tells us that printer manufacturers can't void your printer warranty for using third-party inks.

With the ColorVantage inks installed, you can't use Epson's printer driver, which only produces accurate colors with Epson ink. Pantone supplies color profiles for Adobe Photoshop (or other color-aware software, such as InDesign or Illustrator) to give the printer its marching orders. First we printed on Epson's Premium Glossy Photo Paper, using the appropriate ColorVantage profile. Our initial print resulted in a sickly green image. Suspecting a corrupt profile, we reinstalled it and got good prints thereafter.

We also used papers from Red River Paper (www.redriverpaper.com), which are about 40 percent cheaper than comparable Epson papers. However, Pantone's profiles for the Red River papers produced bizarre colors. We couldn't get replacement profiles from Pantone, so we turned to Chromix (www.chromix.com). They gave us a target to print and return, and they gave us a set of profiles that worked.

We printed more than 150 test photos and compared the ColorVantage pigment-ink prints to Epson dye-ink prints. The Pantone photos lacked the brilliance that photographers expect from dye-ink-based printers. In a more apples-to-apples test, the ColorVantage prints came out as good as those printed on Epson's Stylus Photo 2200 pigment-ink printer. Pantone claims that its inks have a wider color gamut, but it wasn't evident to the naked eye. ColorVantage inks did show less bronzing, the bas-relief effect you might see when pigment-ink colors appear to look layered on glossy papers.

The bottom line. Pantone's ColorVantage inks and Red River's papers can save you a lot of money, but they require
a hefty investment of your time.

COMPANY: Pantone
CONTACT: www.pantone.com
PRICE: $7.95 to $14.95 per cartridge, $24.95 to $69.95 for starter kits
REQUIREMENTS: Epson Stylus Photo 1270, 1280, 2200, or R2400 printer
Cheaper than Epson ink. Good color quality. Pigment inks give long photo life. Free custom profiles.
Requires a color-aware imaging app such as Photoshop. Custom profiles may be inaccurate. Cartridge instructions need updating.

Stylus Photo 1400

Rick Oldano — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:54:57 -0500

Forty seconds for a 4-by-6-inch print is much shorter than the wait at the photo lab.

If you're spending too much time and money at the photo lab, it's time to invest in the versatile, yet reasonably priced, Stylus Photo 1400. It prints photos to rival those from a lab, in a flexible array of sizes.

The printer can do borderless prints on media from 4 by 6 inches to 13 by 19 inches, and it will print on DVDs and CDs with a printable surface. The colors it produces are consistent, rich, vibrant, and true to life, with realistic skin tones and excellent shadow detail. Our black-and-white photos had a slight color cast to them, however, so you may need to spend some time making adjustments in Photoshop. Standard 4-by-6-inch prints finished in 40 seconds at the printer's best image quality. If the Ansel Adams in you wants to go bigger, 13-by-19-inch photos printed in just over 3.5 minutes. It took a little over a minute to print on a CD, depending on how complex the design was.

The Stylus Photo 1400 uses six Epson dye-based Claria inks (cyan, light cyan, magenta, light magenta, yellow, and black), which Epson claims are "smudge, scratch, water, and fade resistant." The prints withstood our abuse - the ink didn't run when we sprinkled a few water drops on our pics, and we didn't experience any smudges or smears when handling fresh prints. And we had to be especially rough with the prints to scratch them. We printed 20 4-by-6s, 15 8-by-10s, and three 13-by-19s before we had to install two new ink cartridges. Epson sells replacement cartridges online for $18.99.

Our only two beefs: The printer lacks a card reader (although it does have PictBridge support), and the built-in automatic photo correction feature doesn't work on a Mac. Also, the printer is huge, measuring 24.2 by 31.6 by 16.3 inches, so be sure to clear space on a sturdy table.

The bottom line. You don't have to go to a lab to get top-quality prints. With the Stylus Photo 1400, you can get beautiful photos in a range of sizes, without having to leave your desk.

COMPANY: Epson
CONTACT: www.epson.com
PRICE: $399.99
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.2.8 or later, USB
Excellent image quality. Prints on DVDs and CDs. Supports a wide range of media sizes.
Built-in autocorrection for photos isn't Mac compatible. No memory card reader. Slight cast in black-and-white shots.

Stylus Photo R260

Roman Loyola — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 22:11:48 -0500

Buy extra ink if you plan to use Epson's Stylus Photo R260 as your everyday printer.

What are you willing to pay for convenience? For $100, Epson's Stylus Photo R260 is an amazingly versatile photo printer, but the cost of the machine isn't the only expense you need to factor in: Ink and paper can strain your wallet as much as - or more than - the printer itself. With the Stylus Photo R260, you'll enjoy excellent image quality, but the printer will also chug ink like it was Gatorade.

The Stylus Photo R260 handles photos masterfully, producing gorgeous images, and the six included ink cartridges consistently produced realistic tones and excellent detail. When printing at best image quality, the R260 popped out a 4-by-6-inch color photo in 2 minutes and 16 seconds - not bad, but we've seen some Canon Pixma photo inkjets finish in about 90 seconds. But when we printed a 4-by-6-inch photo in fast mode, the Stylus Photo R260 finished in a blazing 36 seconds, which is on par with other printers. Fast mode is fine for everyday use.

The Stylus Photo R260 fell down a bit when it came to printing business documents, however. There was noticeable banding in the gradient background on our presentation slides, and text printed on plain paper looked a bit faded. The sharpness of the text was average - not laser sharp, but it didn't hinder readability.

We printed 81 standard prints before we ran out of yellow and light cyan ink. While that might seem like a lot of prints, take a moment to consider how many photos you take with your digital camera, especially now that 1GB memory cards are common. At $15 to $20 each for ink cartridges, you'll pay more than the cost of the printer to replace all six.

The bottom line. The Stylus Photo R260 is a photogenic partner. Just remember to buy a few extra ink cartridges up front, or you'll soon find yourself replacing those trips to the photo processor with jaunts to the office supply store.

COMPANY: Epson
CONTACT: www.epson.com
PRICE: $99.99
REQUIREMENTS: USB
Excellent image quality. Prints on printable optical discs.
Consumes ink quickly. Mediocre text-print speed. No memory card slots.