I received the Epson Stylus Photo R2880 Ink Jet Printer in the mail a month ago and have been busy doing what most digital photographers haven’t been doing. Printing photographs! It’s been great. The ability to print up to 13″x19″ prints at home is truly wonderful. I think my lab has missed me already. I’m not answering their calls either. How do you break up with a photo-lab anyway?

Epson Stylus Photo R2880 – $799.99 ($649.99 with $150.00 rebate at Epson website!) Price as of 07/12/2009.

Overview

• Epson UltraChrome K3 with Vivid Magenta
• Advanced Magenta Pigments
• Advanced Black and White Photo Mode
• Fine Art, Canvas, and Roll Paper Printing
• Radience Technology
• Epson Precise Color

Epson uses an advanced black and white output technology that produces consistent neutral or toned black and white prints. 8 ink cartridges with 3 levels of black comprise the UntraChrome K3 and Vivd Magenta Pigments which help to ensure you get vibrant colors, richer blacks, and unprecedented gray balance. Couple that with a permanence boast of 200 years or more in archive quality and you’ve got professional prints at home.

Notable Specs

Printing Technology

• Advanced MicroPiezo AMC print head with ink repelling coating technology

Nozzle Configuration

• 180 nozzles (per cartridge)

Ink Palette

• 8-color (Cyan, Vivid Magenta, Yellow, Light Cyan, Vivid Light Magenta, Light Black, Light Light Black, and Matte or Photo Black)

Ink Cartridge Configuration

• 8 individual ink cartridges

Ink Type

• Epson UltraChrome K3 with Vivid Magenta pigment ink

Minimum Ink Droplet Size

• 3 picoliters
• Advanced MicroPiezo print head with AMC (Advanced Meniscus Control) can produce up to 3 different droplet sizes per line

Maximum Resolution (dots per inch)

• 5760 x 1440 optimized dpi

Print Speed

• 8″ x 10″ photo2

- 1 min 36 sec (SuperFine Mode)

- 2 min 18 sec (Photo Mode)

• 11″ x 14″ photo2

- 2 min 36 sec (SuperFine Mode)

- 3 min 55 sec (Photo Mode)

Special Media Support

• Roll paper: 8.3″ and 13″ rolls
• Fine art paper: Manual – Roll paper path (rear)
• Direct CD/DVD printing

Maximum Paper Thickness

• 1.3 mm thick (Straight through, Manual — Front paper path)

Paper Capacity

• Auto sheet feeder: 120 sheets (plain paper), 30 sheets (photo paper)
• Manual Roll: 1 sheet (fine art paper)
• Manual Front: 1 sheet (poster board)

Interface and Connectivity

• Hi-Speed USB 2.0 (2 ports)
• PictBridge (1 port)

Full Spec List @ Epson

First Impression

Right out of the box you get the immediate sense that this bad-boy is the real deal. It’s build is sturdy at 26.9 lbs and you’ll have to find a fairly large area (24.3″ (W) x 31.4″ (D) x 16.3″ (H)) for the printer to call home. Set up is easy and the heads only took a couple of minutes to warm up. Was I really already ready to print? Well, almost. Installed the Epson software on the computer and away we went.

Curiously this seems to be one of the few high end printers that comes with PictBridge port and I have a hard time thinking of any professional photographers that would use it. I would have rather had an Ethernet connection but the USB2.0 ports didn’t really seem that slow so maybe I’m just being picky.

One initial complain I have with dual black ink cartridges are when you have to swap between Matte and Photo Black Inks. This is going to be more of a problem for photographers that switch between various papers on a consistent basis. I, fortunately don’t have that problem, as I usually find only a small handful of papers I like and stick with them. While I did try out many papers and found myself switching ink cartridges more often than I wanted to I did find that I gravitate to papers that dealt only with the Photo Black so this may end up being a non-issue with me after all.

Admittedly, I had a little trouble with the top-load feed for the first couple of prints. You have to allow the printer to “catch” the paper. I did get the hang of it after about four tries and no problems after that. Still, I found it a little odd.

Color Print Quality

Epson’s UltraChrome K3 with Vivid Magenta Pigment Technology really impressed me right out the gate. In fact the first print I did had multiple pinks (I do have two daughters after all) because I wanted to see the color gamut and how well it stacked up against a color that can often wreck havoc with other ink-jets. I was very impressed. I showed my wife (she’s a photographer who also worked in the lab) and she was blown away after I told her this was the “test” print . Needless to say she got to pick which photos I got to “test” out next. She was happy and so was I. These initial prints were done with various papers, all from Epson; glossy, luster, velvet fine art, presentation. We checked the prints under various lighting scenarios with no complaints at all.

Black and White Print Quality

Stunning. Simply stunning.

The Epson Stylus Photo R2880 produced fantastic neutral black and whites with a tonal range that surpasses any ink jet print I’ve run across. This really should come as no surprise as Epson has long been the leader in professional quality ink jet printing. If you poke around a little on the Internet you’ll find other reviews that say that the black and white prints rival any printer at double the price. While I haven’t tested printers at those price ranges I can say that I don’t find that claim to be overreaching in any way insofar as I can tell. When comparing the black and whites I printed with the R2880 with the same prints I’ve had printed by my lab I found them on equal standing and a couple that seemingly exceeded the lab’s work.

CD/DVD Printing

While I have little use for this function, the ability to print directly onto a CD or DVD should entice many photographers that have this professionally done or use the CD/DVD print stickers. A couple trial runs and I was very impressed with the quality.

Panorama

The roll paper attachment allows photographers the ability to print 13″ tall panoramas up to 32″ long (rolls are available in glossy and luster). It’s not a functionality I’ll likely use as I rarely shoot panoramas. That being said, perhaps it’s something I’ll have to start exploring in the future.

As an aside, the roll attachment is how you print the canvas prints on matte or satin at up to 13″x20″. Not something I normally do, but interesting nonetheless.

Cons

While I’ve completely fallen in love with the R2880 it does come with a few drawbacks.

Inkswapping – While I did state earlier that my work-flow looks as if this may end up being only a slight annoyance, it’s an annoyance nonetheless. Comparable printers from both Canon and HP have this problem solved and I feel that Epson really needs to address this as we are in an age of convenience.

Small Inkcartridges – While the cartridges themselves aren’t overly expensive ($13.29 per cartridge) a printer that is in the “wide format” category with the capability to print border-less 13″x19″ prints should come with larger cartridges. The ink price itself is a non-issue as the price per inch is comparable to other printers of this calibre but you’ll want to order multiple sets if you print often.

ICC Profile – I found it strange that Epson’s own Exhibition Fiber Paper didn’t have a native ICC profile on the printer. You actually have to download this from a third party? Further, if you’re using third-party papers you’ll have to remember which comparable Epson paper was used to profile the print.

Conclusion

The Epson Stylus Photo R2880 is near perfect. The print quality surpassed my expectations by miles. For a sub $1000 printer you really can’t go wrong here. Professional photographers, especially those fine-art photographers printing in black and white, can rest assured that they’ll get gallery archival quality prints with a wide color and tonal range. If Epson would have just attacked the ink-swapping issue I would call this printer perfect. The ICC profiles and small ink cartridges are small annoyances that are easily ignored or dealt with. As it is…

I give the Epson Stylus Photo R2880 a 4.5 out of 5!