For those primarily interested in black and white, or with a more modest budget, the 78 are still excellent options. If you frequently change between photo and matte black inks, the savings in time and ink will pay for the difference in price in short order. You’ll pay a premium for the new technology, mainly due to the advanced print head, but if you want the absolute best, it’s worth the extra. With a significantly larger gamut and improved print speed, the new printers are a great option for anyone printing vivid colors or portraits. The new Stylus Pro 79 printers from Epson bring some nice enhancements to the digital photographer interested in high-quality output. With the larger range, skin tones take on a new level of accuracy, and the improvements in the greens and blues will be welcome by anyone printing landscape images. The addition of green and orange inks has really expanded the color gamut of the 7900. The front panel tells you which ink is active at all times (#9). While there is still a minimal amount of ink waste in the switchover, it’s not the expensive and time-consuming task it was with the 7880. Because both inks are installed at all times, it’s a simple button push to select which ink you want to use. Switching from photo to matte black is no longer the chore it used to be. Epson is also claiming an improved black density with the 7900, giving a Dmax of 2.6 on their Premium Luster paper (the 7880 is rated at 2.55 with the same paper). Output in this mode is very good and one nice feature is the ability to fine-tune a print for just the toning effect you’re looking for. You can fine-tune the settings to produce toned prints if you like.Īs before, the Advanced Black and White Photo mode (#8) is available to produce neutral or toned prints using all three black inks while minimizing the amount of color ink used in the print. Epson’s Advanced Black and White Photo mode uses all three blacks (black, light black, and light light black) to produce excellent quality monochrome prints. There is essentially no bronzing or metamerism on the prints. Part of this is due to the way Epson encapsulates the inks. Compared to prints from the 7880, tonal transitions are visibly improved, especially in areas like sky or skin tones, and color shifts in different lighting sources are virtually unnoticeable.īlack-and-white printing on the Epson pro series has always been among the best of any printer available, particularly with their Advanced Black and White Photo mode. Combined with the variable dot size, the final prints look very much like a continuous tone print. The new print heads have an improved screening algorithm that Epson calls AccuPhoto HDR Screening that improves dot placement to produce much smoother tones. Compared to the HP Z3200, it’s significantly faster, outputting a 16x20” print in the SuperFine mode (1440dpi) in just under 4 minutes, while the same print in SuperPhoto mode (2880dpi) takes about 7 minutes. The Canon imagePROGRAF iPF6200 still holds a slight edge in print speed, but the difference is minor. Moving up to SuperPhoto doubles the print times and uses significantly more ink, so I reserve this for times when the output quality is critical.Įpson claims the 7900 is twice as fast as the 7880 and in my testing, I found that speed difference to be pretty accurate. In general, I found that SuperFine is a good choice for general printing, while SuperPhoto is used for final exhibition-quality prints. There are three quality settings for output that are suitable for photo printing-Fine (720dpi), SuperFine (1440x720dpi), and SuperPhoto (2880x1440dpi). This option is not yet available to Windows users. If you’re on a Mac, you have the option to print in 16-bit mode. For exhibition-quality printing, I’ll choose SuperPhoto for increased resolution. For general printing, I find the SuperFine setting provides excellent results. You have several quality options in the print driver.
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