 Epson is a market leader in affordable, quality, color
inkjet printing. The A2-capable Epson Stylus COLOR 3000 is Epson’s top-of-the-line
model.
My office chose an A4 Epson color
printer last year. It was clearly the best choice for fast, economical color output. We
quickly moved into an Epson 1520 mid-format model for larger output with similar
quality.With this experience of the Epson line under my belt I was keen to see where Epson
was headed with this new printer.
Installation & Setup
Installation and setup was straightforward. This is a big
printer so it takes up just about a whole desktop. The CMYK ink system consists of 4 very
large ink cartridges. Each holds 100ml of ink to give capacity for long print runs of full
graphic images. These go into their own slots behind a front cover on the left-hand side
of the printer. The ink then makes its way to the print-head via 4 thin plastic tubes.
After installing the cartridges, the printer automatically went through its self-priming
routine which took about 5 minutes.
Test Rig
To qualify performance, the system this printer was tested
on was an Intel 200MMX Pentium with 128 megabytes of RAM, 500 megabytes of swap space and
at least 300 megabytes of free hard disk space. Scanner used was a Microtek ScanMaker E6
Prints
I scanned a favorite picture of my 3 year old son, Hugo.
This picture contained combinations of subtle skin tones and shading to qualify it as a
good test. I soon had a draft quality, full A2 print coming out of the printer. This was
just on bond paper but it still impressed. I tried quality print settings and ran into
trouble. I tried to print an A2 @ 720dpi. After generating a 250 megabyte printer file
over a 45 minute period without the print starting, I aborted the print job. This printer
can go up to 720 x 1,440 dpi so you can expect the print files to double again for this
resolution.
Fine Tuning
A call to the technical support people
sorted out the problem of long waits for the giant spool file. After a very long wait in
the support queue, a very helpful person suggested the following procedure:
- Check the PC BIOS setting for the printer port was set to EPP
(mine was OK)
- Print directly to the Epson driver by turning off the Windows
printer spooler
Start-Settings-Printers-Epson 3000-Properties-Details-Spool settings-Print directly to
printer
- To enhance the quality of the 360 dpi printing, turn off
"fast" setting in advanced settings of Epson printer driver.
Start-Settings-Printers-Epson 3000-Properties-Main-Advanced-More settings-uncheck high
speed
This made such a difference. The printer files generated
without the Windows spooler were about 30% smaller and the rest of the process was also
much faster. By printing 360 dpi quality so that the print-head lays ink when it moves
from right to left but not on the way back, you remove visible banding evident in the
default bi-directional print mode. Printing A2 at 720 dpi was now not necessary in most
cases. These adjustments should also work for owners of other Epson Stylus printers such
as 600, 800 and 1520.
My prints were now not only impressive but reasonably
quick–A2 size @ 360 dpi in 6 minutes from Photoshop.
PostScript
With the printer sent for review came
with an Adobe Postscript driver add-on. This came with ink value corrections built in to
adjust the Epson inks to print on Epson media to give accurate output. During installation
the Epson printer driver got modified and software was downloaded to the printer to
upgrade it to work with the modified driver. The download of software to the printer can
only be performed to a printer once. The software cannot be re-installed to another
printer. The printers listed in the setup for this product included the Epson Stylus 600,
800, 1520 and the 3000.
Using Postscript adds about 50% to the normal printing time.
The results are worth the wait. For really top quality output, skin tones and other hard
to match colors become very close to the original.
I then produced some 720 x 1,440 dpi images on Epson Photo
quality paper. The images were of very high quality and 200 % enlargement of a snap shot
showed the printer was more than a match for my scanner. I rate the print quality very
close to photographic quality.
This printer is not aimed at people wanting CAD plots at A2.
There are cheaper solutions for colored line drawings. It is aimed at people needing
higher quality output than plotters can produce. With CAD programs now able to add raster
images to line work however, this printer would be of interest to CAD people doing high
end presentation work. It is also a popular choice for graphic artists for proofing larger
sizes.
The large capacity ink reservoirs are an
essential feature of the COLOR 3000.
This printer uses a lot of ink.
Graphics printers use a lot of ink. If the cost of the ink
is a problem and you are adventurous, you can get excellent results using 3rd
party ink refills. Office supply companies can usually supply quality ink that brings the
ink cost of printing down to below one fifth the cost of Epson brand ink replacement
cartridges.
Summary
Great printer, expensive but just the thing for the very
serious mid format sized prints.
- Getting up into the price range of a plotter,
but way ahead in print quality.
- Postscript option worthwhile for serious color
work but watch that once only installation!
Andrew
Johnson
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