Epson Stylus Photo R2880 A3 Photo Printer

Epson is having a very strong reputation among the photographers community and Epson seems to be determined to keep it up with its latest A3 stylus photo range. The following review is on the R2880 A3 Photo Printer which is Epson’s flagship professional photo printer, which has an eight coloured print engine including three different blacks for added subtlety. This printer comes as a direct replacement to the R2400, which was successful too. The R2880 is having a solid set of features and specifications.

Inherited the predecessor looks:

The Epson Stylus Photo R2880 A3 inkjet Photo Printer has a very familiar look. No wonder! Because it looks much like the Epson R1900 or the Epson Pro 3800. Epson has followed the sleek and stylish looks of its new range of printers. It has got great looks but the construction can be said as a little clumsy. When all of its trays are folded up, it occupies very little space and much more compact when compared with its competitor HP B9 180. The parts feel solid. A CD/DVD printing option has been included, which is the most welcome part and a roll media holder had also been included which we felt as incomplete without a cutter.

Paper trays:

The straight front paper path is quite misleading. This path is specially for the broad media and is about 1.3mm thick. When it is activated, the print head moves to a higher position to allow for the extra thickness. If you use normal Photo media then the nozzles will be in the wrong position thereby producing slightly blurry looking prints. For printing in fine art or any other special media, the single sheet manual rear holder has to be used. To do this, you have to feed the media in until it meets resistance, and then apply a small amount of downward pressure for about 3 seconds until the printer pulls the media in, which seems to be not the most intuitive method of loading media. The CD/DVD input tray is located behind the front panel.

Ports:

The Stylus Photo R2880 has two USB ports in the rear, with the help of which you will be able to connect two computers to the printer. It would have been a better option for Epson to have included an Ethernet port. This would have made the printer small office friendly. A PictBridge has been included in this A3 printer for the risk loving people, who would like to print directly form their cameras without any small editing.

Compatibility:

The Epson Stylus Photo R2880 Inkjet Photo Printer is compatible with Windows Vista, XP, 2000 and for Mac users, Power PC or Intel based Mac running OS-X 10.3.9 or later.

Easy installation:

The installation of Epson Stylus Photo R2880 is quite simple. Since the printer does not have any bulky in-line transformers, all that you will have to do is, simply plug in the two pin plug to the mains and turn on the printer. To insert the eight inks, just open the top cover. Remember to shake each cartridge well before you use it which is done just to get the pigment ink into circulation which otherwise tends to sit in the bottom of the cartridge. Once the installation of the inks are over, the drivers and the other software has to be installed. As in the case of most of the installation processes, the installation is automated by wizards. All that you will be having to do is, plug in the USB (2.0 or 1.1), when you are prompted to. The whole process of installation might take a maximum of ten minutes.

The eight-ink colour cartridge:

You will be finding nine inks in the UltraChrome K3 ink set ( Light Light Black, Vivid Light Magenta, Light Cyan, Light Black, Matte Black, Photo Black, Cyan, Vivid Magenta and Yellow), out of which only eight, excluding any one of the two black inks should be loaded. You can use the photo black for printing in glossy media or use the matte black for the matte media. Each time you swap the cartridges, the printer purges the inks from the print head. In order to clean the heads in an effective manner, the inks have to be sucked through the nozzles. Since this process of cleaning is very wasteful, it is not ideal to keep swapping your inks. This can be said as one of the major drawbacks with this printer. Another notable drawback with the inks is that, the cartridges are of lower capacity. Each one contains 11ml of ink, which is fine for an A4 printer but not for Stylus Photo R2880 which is an A3 unit.

You will be shocked to see how fast the ink levels fall, but you must remember that a substantial quantity of ink from the first set will be used to prime the system. However, the subsequent cartridges should be able to produce a higher print yield.

New interface:

Epson has managed to bring in a new interface, giving a brand new look. One of the most interesting facts is that, it works seamlessly with photoshop. For instance, if you make the selection “photoshop manages colour“, the properties of printer automatically switches off the colour management off. This is a very handy feature as it will save many users from accidentally double profiling their prints. The interface is very user friendly and looks much better than the previous one. If you love making lot of tweaks in the colours before printing, you will love this new interface.

Loaded with new set of features:

Some of the latest set of features that are included in R2880 include UltraChrome K3 ink set with Vivid Magenta, Epson new LUT technology for ultra smooth gradations Roll and Fine Art media support, Front feed for specialist rigid media which is up to 1.3mm thick, CD/DVD printing using inkjet printable discs, Dual USB 2.0 ports connect 2 computer to the printer and a Front PictBridge port for direct printing from a digital camera or photo viewer.

Colour prints quality:

Epson has added a new colour to the UltraChrome K3 set, called as vivid magenta which claims to expand the colour gamut, especially the blues and magenta. The prints have vibrant and stunning colours. The images are almost accurate, additionally, the dark colours are electric. As far as the colours are concerned, we are fully impressed. They are slightly darker than that of the original print, which is mainly due to the over saturation of the colours. The prints are nothing less than excellent.

LUT technology:

Epson has included a new technology known as Look Up Table that automatically generates a LUT for a specific ink technology in use. This technology converts the RGB signal into correct values for each ink thereby optimising the gradation, grains, colour gamut and colour inconsistency.

Black and White prints:

When the UltraChrome K3 were introduced by Epson a couple of years back, it revolutionised the way black and white prints were produced. Totally neutral black and white prints could be produced. Epson also offers traditional fiber based media that feels like traditional photographic paper. One problem which Epson has not dealt with, is the swapping of Photo and Matte Black inks. When you change media types the residual black ink has to be sucked out of the print head which the printer does and in this process the colour ink is also wasted. The black and white prints are also excellent, there is not a slightest hint of colour cast. Another way to print out the black and white prints is via the advanced BW printing mode. This will allow you to add a colour tone or even make some adjustments with brightness, contrast etc.

CD/DVD printing:

Epson had first introduced the CD printing option in SP2100 in the year 2002. This feature is now available in the Epson Stylus Photo R2880. The Easy Print CD software, an application that is used for the printing of CDs has not got the changes that it had expected to have got. Yet, it is an useful application that does the job for you. Just pull the CD/DVD tray down and the print head is raised to the upper level and then place your CD/DVD tray in the slots, then just align the arrows and activate the print button in the software. A disc takes about one and half minutes to complete. The quality of CD prints are professional looking.

One thing that you will have to make sure is that, you use professional looking CDs. Though the UltraChrome ink does not penetrate through the media, printing over a non-coated media will not work and the ink would refuse to dry. In Easy Print CD there are a number of options to add fancy text, a few items of clip art and a selection of royalty free background images. You can of course use your own images, just browse to your images folder and make your selection.

Print Speed:

An A3 print takes around six and a half minutes to get printed and A4 prints take around two and a half minutes. It is certainly not the fastest printer, but the quality is an important factor consider too.

The software bundle:

The software bundled with the printer includes Epson Creativity Suite incl. Epson Easy Photo Print, Web to Page, Epson File Manager, Camera RAW Plug-in for Epson Creativity Suite, Epson Print CD User guide in HTML format and Adobe® Photoshop Elements 5 (PC) / 4. This package of software is standard for most of the Epson printers and most of the applications seem to be fine. Epson Photoshop Plug in, a new verion is available as a free download and will support a limited number of previous Epson printers.

As the photoshop elements have been included in the bundle, overall, it is an excellent application that would suite a beginner.

Verdict:

If you are a semi or a pro and advanced amateur and if you do not require high volume output printer, but still looking forward for using a wide range of media types and also good quality black and white prints, Epson Stylus Photo R2880 A3 inkjet photo printer is the one for you.

Technical Specification Details

Manufacturer	Epson
Model Name	Epson Stylus Photo R2880
Printer type	Photo printer
Printing Technology	8-colour inkjet photo printer
Dimensions (HxWxD)	214×616x322 mm
Weight	12.0kg without AC cable/bundled ink cartridges
Supported Media Type	Premium Glossy Photo Paper, Premium Semigloss Photo Paper, Glossy Photo Paper, Archival Matte Paper, Enhanced Matte Paper, UltraSmooth Fine Art Paper, Velvet Fine Art Paper, Watercolor - Radiant White, Matte Paper Heavy Weight, Double sided Matte Paper, Traditional Photo Paper
Print margin	0 mm top, left, right and bottom - via custom setting in printer driver. Otherwise 3 mm top, left, right, bottom
Standard Media Capacity	From 64-90 g/m² for plain paper (Premium Glossy Photo Paper = 255 g/m²)
Maximum media size	A3+, A3, 12×12 in, US-B, B4, Legal 8.5×14 in, Letter 8.5×11 in, A4, B5, A5, Half letter, A6, 11×14 in, 20×25 cm (8×10 in), 11×17 in, 13×18 cm (5×7 in), 10×15 cm (4×6 in), 16:9 wide size, 9×13 cm (3.5×5 in)
Operating System Supported	Windows 2000/XP/XP x64/ Vista Mac OS 10.3.9/10.4.x/10.5.x with USB
Printing Method	A3+ Colour Inkjet Photo Printer
Print Resolution	Up to 5760×1440 optimised dpi Up to 5760×1440 optimised dpi on suitable media using RPM
Droplet Size	Variable-sized droplet technology with Ultra Micro Dot for 3 pl minimal droplet size
Nozzle Configuration	Epson Micro Piezo Print Head of 1440 nozzles; 180 nozzles per colour
Ink System	Epson UltraChrome K3 ink
Ink Cartridges	9 individual cartridges
Printer Interface	USB 2.0 (Hi-Speed) Dual Port for PC and Mac connection USB cable required for PC/Mac use
Power Consumption Operational	AC 220-240 V
Noise level	40.0 dB
Software bundle	Epson Creativity Suite incl. Epson Easy Photo Print, Web to Page, Epson FileManager, Camera RAW Plug,in for Epson Creativity Suite, Epson Print CD Adobe® Photoshop Elements 5 (PC) / 4 (Mac)
Warranty	One year, extension up to three years