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The term "industry standardÓ is thrown around a lot, but living up to that reputation can be another thing altogether. While the Epson 2200 is not their newest member of the Stylus Photo family, with all of the attention being given to digital photography these days it seems appropriate to revisit and review a product that is just "that good.Ó After overcoming a few early issues with OS X, Epson has a winner for those who really need an excellent archival ink printer. There is a price for this quality, but if you are looking for outstanding professional grade ink jet output, this is your printer.
This is not the printer for everyday home use by most people's standards. It is, however, a truly outstanding professional-grade device that, when configured properly and used with the correct papers, produces extremely lifelike output from nearly any good quality source. It is important to note that downloading the ICC profiles from Epson is a must, in my opinion, unless you are comfortable enough with the task of creating your own. The 2200 is capable of many things in a variety of sizes, but you must have the right tools in order to produce the quality output of which this model is capable.
First and foremost, and when using the appropriate ICC profile, the prints look excellent. Proofing, photo prints and nearly anything you can send to it comes out looking equal to the source. When all of the elements are there (ICC, good paper, good source image), it is challenging to create a bad print. The 2200 can produce output in a wide range of sizes from 4X6Ó to 13X44Ó with excellent results. The only slightly off area I found was in the center third of the 11Ó and 13Ó papers after prolonged use; however, this was easily remedied by a simple recalibration with the software provided.
Another nice feature of the 2200 is the range of connectivity options as it comes with USB, FireWire and Parallel port options. In addition, the roll feed/cutter option allows for 4X6Ó proofs to be produced with ease, but roll paper in this size does not uncurl easily.
On the down side, the 2200 is hardly a swift printer, but that is not what this printer is meant to be. Epson claims that the 2200 can print an 8x10" image in just over 2 minutes, but when all of the settings for quality output are in place, I found this to be about 40% of the overall time. Even as a professional, seven-color ink jet printer, it may be cost prohibitive for some people given the $699.00 US MSRP and archival ink pricing averaging 10 - 12.00 each color.
While choosing the right paper is paramount (I preferred the Moab Kokopelli pro-glossy), some brands of ink jet papers don't perform as well with the 2200 compared to often excellent results from, for example, the Epson R800 (and is essentially the same printer shy of maximum paper size and the addition of a "glossÓ colorless ink for sheen). I also found that the 2200 would simply not print from some consumer applications, like iPhoto, with any regularity and that the best way to print those images was to export with printing from Photoshop.FINAL THOUGHTS: This is simply not the printer for everyday use and/or the average consumer. This is a pro's tool for creating professional quality output from digital photography and 2D/3D applications. The Epson Stylus Photo 2200 raised the bar for ink jet printers across the board and, again, sets the standard by which all future ink jet printers will be compared.
[Editor's Note: the UGN offices have found this printer to give its best performances when printing via Adobe Acrobat. To solve the software problem Dan mentions above, you can print from virtually any application by first producing an Acrobat PDF file. These files will also print up to twice as fast as the native program and you'll see a marked increase in performance when using FireWire as opposed to USB. Epson seems to have utilized Adobe's print engines to their fullest extent.]
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