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08/08/2004 |
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Stylus Photo 875DC Don Bradbury takes a look at Epson’s photo-enhanced printer
Photo enhanced? Well yes; the latest incarnation of the Epson Stylus Photo printer incorporates a Compact Flash memory card reader, or to be more precise, a PCMCIA slot, so you can print directly from the camera’s memory card via an included adapter - provided it’s Compact Flash and not SmartMedia. With that proviso, it means hardcopies direct from your printer, without the need for a PC. Neat!
When coupled with Epson’s 4-picolitre variable droplet ink technology and 1440dpi resolution, excellent prints are to be had. A magnifying glass still reveals discrete colour drops, of course; we’re not at the miraculous stage of ink jet printing yet. Setup
That roll holder, in the absence of directions for fitting - which I gather should have been in the review pack but weren’t - puzzled me for a while. In the end, after a bit of fiddling, it slotted into place nicely, leaving me wondering why it had proved so difficult. It’s always the same isn’t it? Do it once and it’s easy; until then …. Continuous printing The purpose of the paper roll and it’s delivery mechanism is to enable continuous prints, with neither old-style white edges not white spaces between images on the roll. In other words, the printing, once you’ve set it up for that particular style, gives you standard prints as you’d expect to get them from a film processor, with edge-to-edge colour. The technique is somewhat wasteful of paper, it has to be said, as you have to feed some blank paper to make it reach the print heads. And, of course, you necessarily get some waste at the cut-off end, too. Good idea, though, and it works nicely with the provided software. The only other drawback is that you really need a guillotine to chop the prints out of the strip neatly. I used mine, and the end result was very acceptable. Colour stability I found the 875DC’s print quality a little fussy when it came to paper brand. Unlike my old four colour Stylus Color 600, it certainly didn’t like the usual generic photo glossy paper I threw at it (ImagePro). But on more appropriate Epson paper, most folks would be hard pressed to tell the difference between these and good quality prints from film (with the unaided eye). That’s in terms of colour reproduction; longevity of the ink dyes is another matter, of course. Epson now have their ten year guarantee of dye stability in force if you use their own special glossy paper, but I read in the press that it’s recently been discovered you need special care and print storage conditions to achieve that even now. Things are improving in that direction though. Ink dyes cannot be expected to last as long as the better-processed Silver Halide process can offer, but developments are afoot to make the life of ink jet dyes more respectable. Software Provided you have chosen to load Epson’s PhotoStarter, their PhotoQuicker software detects the insertion of a memory card and instantly springs to life. It reads the card, lets you make some adjustments if needed, and offers to print an index sheet or select images for printing. For the digital photographer, that’s great. The huge benefit of immediate hardcopy without having to go to the shop, film in hand, and wait for processing, is hard to beat. It’s just that, personally speaking, most of my prints are only made after I have at least cropped the image, even if I need no other adjustments. That would require the PC. In conclusion This printer is not as small as it might be, partly due to that integral card reader, but it looks good, is easy to use, produces nice colour prints, is fairly quick, and is very quiet in operation. If you have the need for direct printing from a card reader, this could be the printer to go for. Otherwise, especially if you’re in the habit of tweaking your prints on the computer before producing hardcopies, there is good competition out there. You might consider something a little less expensive, not to mention cheaper to run. The growing trend towards integral chips in ink cartridges (as in the 875DC) ostensibly to give better feedback to the user, means that the compatibles market is only just beginning to produce cheaper alternatives to the manufacturer’s own.
That could save you around £80 for adding such a dedicated device to the Desktop machine. I spoke to an Epson techie, and while he wouldn’t guarantee every conceivable type of Type II PC Card device in it, I used an IBM Microdrive (with adapter), and Calluna and Toshiba PC Card drives, for example, without difficulties. |
This
inkjet printer is photo enhanced in other ways, too. It uses six
colours rather than the customary four. That’s a growing trend
among inkjet manufactures because it makes for smoother gradation of
tone, and a more realistic colour reproduction all round.
The
printer is USB-only, and it’s very easy to set up. That’s in all
respects but perhaps one. The printer, besides the standard A4
support plate, features a paper roll adapter accepting a 100mm
glossy photo paper roll, the application of which I’ll come to in
a mo.
Incidentally,
that PC Card slot can be useful for other things besides being a
simple memory card reader. Windows adds it to Device Manager as a
drive, and therefore lets you use it for PCMCIA services on your
Desktop machine. That’s neat as it means you have the facility to
use your standard laptop PC Card devices on the Desktop PC, too.