Hi Everyone: Life just got really busy, so I'll be in & out of PDML, but I did want to mention I just got my new Epson R2880 with some Premium Luster paper & some 5x7 glossy. I've printed up a flurry of prints, so here are my impressions:
1) Wow! This is really the 1st time I've ever seen my prints done on a quality printer & it should be said I don't have a lot of experience with printing or color theory or management, but I'm not blind, & this thing prints great. The black & white really pops. Also, the articulation between monitor & printer appears, so far, to be virtually the same. In Lightroom 1.4, my color management is Profile: Stylus Photo R2880; Rendering Intent: Perceptual; 300 ppi, Print Sharpening: High; & that seems to be working just fine so far. 2) The machine itself is as quiet as a church mouse when printing. As reported, the R2880 is just a tad slower than the Epson R2400, but I never really had a fast printer (other than my little HP document printer), so I really don't notice the slower speed, and the quality is so good, I don't really mind. Set-up was very easy, but before the printer arrived I had downloaded the User Guide & read it from cover to cover, so I knew what I had to do once the printer arrived. 3) I had every intention of buying the R2400 & was just about to click it into my shopping cart, but Amazon alerted me to the R2880 for a lot less. I put the R2880 into my shopping cart, then I dashed about the net reading reviews & forums, then about 3 hours later, I decided to go with the newer technology--so far I'm glad I did. Hope it stays that way! :-) 4) The prints need to dry for 15 minutes & the dye cure for 24 hours, as the literature states, and this is good advice. I was just a tad concerned about what I was seeing (color & brightness, but I was also getting tired--of course, I was up until the wee hours having a wee lot of fun printing a whole lotta prints), but the following morning, the prints look great--and I'm seeing detail in the prints that I missed on the monitor. Kind of fun to discover tiny new details--though in one print some very slight cloning boo-boos showed up that I hadn't really noticed on the monitor. :-) 5) Sharing pictures on the web has been a lot of fun--a kind of fun I'll gladly continue, but for me photography has always been about the print, and now I feel complete. Already, I can tell that my approach to making an image has changed--I'll be shooting for the print. I want to experiment with all sorts of papers (as you'd expect) & sizes & matting & framing etc. I've always wanted to get to the point where I might see an image and shoot for size, paper, matting, & framing. Hopefully, I can now begin to cultivate that kind of photographic eye! Cheers, Christine -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
