The Photo Printer

Some years ago I tried out a color-ink jet printer. I scanned in some photos of mine just from the paper-prints, enlarged them, altered some colors on them and then I printed them out on the ink jet printer.
The quality was not exactly like a photograph, far from actually, but it was still amazing for me, that I could produce something that looked like a color-photograph, using a computer. I realized, that I had great control over how my photograph should look, and I could print the result on a DIN A4 paper, that had a surface a bit like a normal photograph.
On the next computer fair in Copenhagen (I live in Copenhagen) I went to see, if I could get an even better printer. In the beginning I thought that I might needed a color-laser printer. But it turned out, that a color-laser is very good for a lot of graphics, but not so good for printing photographs.
Walking around on the fair seeing a lot of printers, I realized that I had to stick to the ink jet-printers and the best I saw was an Epson called Photo EX and that was even a DIN A3 printer (It was also produced as a DIN A4 printer called Epson 700 I believe).
I bought the printer and was VERY pleased with the results. Actually what came out of this printer almost looked like a photograph.
Since then I've learned that other photographers also find that the line of Epson photo-printers are among the very best, if not THE best at the moment.
My current printer is called Epson 1290 (1280 in the Americas) and is a successor of the photo EX. This printer can print on Super A3 which is 13"x19" big. The Epson 1290 is not the direct successor of Photo EX; first came the 1200 then the 1270 and now the 1290.
The Epson 1290 is a six-color (Cyan, Light Cyan, Magenta,Light Magenta, Yellow and Black) printer. These six colors are one of the reasons that the printer can produce very nice pictures. Because it has the light colors included, it can make the lighter areas of the photograph look more smooth, than a four color printer can.
It produces very nice pictures - in my opinion better than any normal enlargement from a negative.

Since the first Epson Photo EX, paper and ink has developed a lot too. Archival performance, that means how long a print will last until serious and clearly visible fading occurs, has of course also been an issue. If professional photographers are going to sell their work, they must be sure that the print will last for more than a few months.
Also as an amateur that perhaps give away framed pictures as gifts can be interested in the longevity of these prints.
To really address this demand from customers Epson has produced a printer called 2000P which is very similar in appearance to the 1290 (1280), but which uses pigmented ink that - on Epson paper - will last for up to 200 years! More than any traditional prints!
Epson has also just released a new paper for the 1290 (1280) called ColorLife, which I believe is tested to have a "lifetime" of around 27 years before serious fading occurs. That's good enough for me!

Follow some of the links below to read more about the Epson line of printers.

• Epson UK
The Epson UK site describing and presenting their line of photo printers.

• The Luminous Landscape
A review of the Epson 1280/1290 by M. Reichmann.

• The Luminous Landscape
A review of the Epson 2000p by M. Reichmann.

• Computer Darkroom
A review of the Epson 1280/1290 by Ian Lyons.