I heard there is an Epson printer which gives output very similar to the 2000P, but is much cheaper and quicker. The only dif. is that the life of the ink is a bout 20 years as opposed to 200 odd. I would appreciate comments from someone w ho used this printer. Also what's it called, and is the visual quality as good as the 2000p?
You are probably talking about the 1280. Yes it is an awesome printer. One major drawback though you have to use epson inks because of a little computer chip in the cartrige. A printer you might want to check out is the discontinued 1200 availabl refurbished through epson with a one year warranty. They do accept third party inks. Currently I have two of these one for color and one for quadtone black and white with blended pigment/dye inks that last 75 years and an old 8X10 epson Photo 700 with regular epson inks for text or non archival prints. All the printers that I mentioned rival the prints of any of the new printers.
www.nomorecarts.com makes a continuous inking system that allows you to use whatever inks you want, including pigments in the Epson 1280. The two most popular color third party pigmented inksets right now appear to be Generations 4 microbright pigmented inks and Jon Cone's (www.inkjetmall.com) color piezography inks.
I've used both the already mentioned 1200 and the 1270. If you were going to go with a refurbished printer, the 1270 is only about $20 more and it has a newer print head that gives slightly better results. If you don't have a good photo editing software package yet, the other advantage is that the 1270 comes with Photoshop LE and the ability to upgrade to the full 6.0 version of Photoshop for $299.00. (this upgrade offer is limited though. I don't remember if it's through the end of August or September, so check before buying if this is one of your reasons for purchasing).
The downside to the 1270 is that it also uses the "chipped" cartridges. This will be less and less of a problem though as workarounds are already available, and are getting better as we speak.
P.S. - If you're only interested in 8x10 or smaller, the 870 is a smaller version of the 1270 (but without Photoshop). It's currently only $115.00 at www.epsonstore.com !
A couple of additional points: The newest Epson models (the 1280/890/780) are able to print at 2880 dpi on certain papers compared to the 1440 max for the 1270 and 2000. I've seen differing opinions on whether there is any significant difference in normal viewing between 1440 and 2880 dpi.
The Epson 2000 achieves its longevity characteristics by using pigment-based rather than dye-based inks. The downside is apparently that pigment-based inks tend to have a noticeable color shift when viewed under varying lighting conditions. This may require that color balance be set for the particular lighting under which the print will be viewed. I've heard that this can make B&W printing (with color pigment-based dyes) particularly difficult.
Michael Reichman's site (www.luminous-landscape.com) has a lot on these printers.
Yaakov,
I have been using the 2000P and because of the 'metamerism' problems or colour shift with the pigment inks, I am purchasing the 1280 (or 1290 as it's known here in Australia) as an additional printer. The output from the 1280 is stunning and colour consistancy is very good. There is no noticable colour shift in different light sources. There is not too much difference between 1440 & 2880 dpi at this size, A3+ (13"x19"), but it is slightly better, a littl e smoother, although the print time and ink consumption increases with the higher resolution.
For B&W the 1280 does an impressive job but I believe the quad system by MIS or Jon Cone would probably be better. I have always found the Epson inks to be good and I don't have any personal experience with the third party inks.
I will be using both printers depending on the final result I require. The 2000P with the pigment inks produces wonderful, sharp, archival prints (100 years +), when everything is profiled well, but it does suffer with the colour shift t o some degree. This is not a problem with sepia or quadtone prints, but remember this IS NOT a B&W printer!
The 1280, on the other hand, although producing less archival prints does a superb job with colour and B&W. I can imagine I will use this printer more for photo prints and the 2000P will be used for my girlfriend's art prints & when I print sepia/quadtones on the Archival Matte paper or third party watercolour paper. I also use my old Photo EX for proof prints which, by the way, I have found will last for more than two years if put behind glass and longer if put in a portfolio.
I hope this helps you to make a decision. In my opinion, if you can afford it, you need more than one printer to use for different output. If I could only have one printer I would get the 1280 - after all, 20-30+ years archival is not too bad and the output is excellent.
Regards
Peter Brown
Not all color pigments show metamerism. Epson's pigments are reputed to be one of the most metameric ink sets ever produced. Generations (at www.mediastreet.com) makes very nice pigmented inks that I've been using for about 6 months in an Epson 1200 with CIS; while they show some (light to medium, reputedly MUCH less than Epson's pigments though I personally haven't compared them side by side) metamerism, it is not noticeable for prints that don't have a lot of neutral colors in them (i.e. grays). Jon Cone's color pigments reputedly have almost NO metamerism; the downside is that Cone's pigments don't have a black that is as deep as the Generations black. Cone's black is supposed to be only about as black as the Epson pigmented black, which isn't all that deep, itself. This is a long way of saying that there are a lot of ink choices out there, and a lot of printers that you can choose to go with and get truly incredible prints from an Epson desktop printer up to 13" x 19" for not that much money. . . . And I haven't even told you about all the different paper choices which also can make a big difference. Check out the piezography user groups and the epson printer user group, all on yahoo groups, and start reading and learning, and experimenting.
Thanks a lot to everyone. I don't seem to be able to get the e-mails of your replies. Maybe I hit the wrong toggle when I sent the message. One other point. What's the 'best' paper to use? Thanks again
Yaakov, the server has been disabled for automatic mail forwarding from some tim e. Howard, I just aquired a 2000P and I am so far unhappy with the inks. The prints look great under artific ial lighting, but the same prints watched under day light, look awful to me. Are you suggesting that I could repla ce the original Epson ink cartridges by some from other manufacturers (J.Cone, Generations) ? Where could I get them?
Paul - There are a number of other choices, though they are complicated by the "chipped" cartridges used in the 2000P.
The only really feasable option today is to use a continuous ink supply. www.nomorecarts.com has one available for the 2000 that contains a chip that always reads 100%. MIS and Jon Cone don't make a CIS kit yet, but I'm sure they will very soon. With a CIS, you can use any archival inkset that won't clog your printheads. Inkjetmall.com and inksupply.com both have archival inks that would work, as do others.
MIS sells a cheap flushing manifold that will allow you to clean out a cartridge so that you could fill it with bulk inks. Unfortunately, I don't think a chip reset procedure has been developed for the 2000 yet (one is available for the 1270 and early 1280 models. Epson caught on though and upgraded the firmware in newer 1280's so that the reset procedure doesn't work!) There is also a software program that allows you to reset the chip on several models, but the 2000 isn't one of those models yet. Soon, there should be empty cartridges available so that you can fill your own without flushing first, and then someone will start selling other archival inks already filled into these empties. None of those are options yet for the 2000 though.
The CIS is a good option though. The one I use for black & white has worked very well, and you save a lot of money using bulk inks over cartridges. The next time the cartridges on my color printer are out I intend to upgrade it to a CIS as well.
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