Rangefinder Magazine
October 2001/Columns

Digital Photography by John Rettie
Epson and Others Continue to Help Improve Photographers’ Output

There are many manufacturers of inkjet printers, but it seems as if Epson is the one that continues to be at the leading edge in developing better and faster printers, especially for photographers.

The Continuous Inking System is a boon for those who want to use alternative inks.

Although the Stylus Photo range of printers with their six ink cartridges have been aimed specifically at the reproduction of photographs, the mainstream range of Epson color inkjet printers produce none too shabby photographs. Epson has recently introduced a new Stylus C80 general-purpose printer that has the potential to be a great printer for photographers for a number of reasons. It replaces the 980 which was a very good printer that offered high speed printing coupled with excellent B&W text printing that was almost as good as laser output.

It seems that Epson has listened to it’s consumers as the C80 goes even faster than the 980 (20 pages per minute for text printing) and it’s even cheaper $149 (with a $30 rebate). As if that’s not enough it has a new print head that uses pigment inks instead of dyes. Epson claims that the output is truly laser quality and the DuraBrite Ink, as it is called, is resistant to fading and moisture.

The most significant change though is the adoption of individual ink cartridges for each color. So, if one color gets used faster than others, only one cartridge needs to be changed at a time rather than having to throw away a combined cartridge even if there is ink left in all but one color. Most photographs tend to use up all colors at a pretty even pace but business users often have a tendency to use one color up faster than others.

Hopefully I’ll be able to try a C80 printer soon and see if it is a significant upgrade to the 980. I have been using a 980 for several months and I really like it as my general printer for text and non-photographic images. It’s fast and much more economical than the Stylus Photo 1280, which I’m using exclusively for the output of photographs.

CIS Ink System and Inks
While just about everyone raves about the quality of output from Epson Photo Stylus printers there are more than enough users frustrated by the high cost of ink cartridges. Heavy users of the 1280, for example, can easily go through hundreds of dollars worth of new cartridges every year.

Ironically, users of large professional wide format ink jet printers don’t suffer from the same hassles of changing cartridges as often or paying as much for ink despite their much heavier ink usage. They also have a wide choice of different types of ink to choose from because the printers either use separate large cartridges for each color or better yet an external system whereby ink is supplied to the inkjet heads by tube from large bottles of ink. Enterprising third party companies have helped solve this inherent problem for users of smaller inkjet printers by producing third party cartridges with different inks or external feeding systems.

The CIS kit includes tubing and a syringe for creating a vacuum before filling with ink.	CIS supplies new cartridges with reprogrammed chips and sealed feeding tubes.	Once the air is sucked out of the tubes the ink is drawn in by the vacuum.

One of the best-made systems on the market is from Continuous Inking Systems (CIS). The company produces systems tailor-made for several different Epson printers. It even makes systems for the Photo Stylus 1280, which has a small chip on the cartridges that have prevented companies from introducing cartridges with alternative inks in them.

With a CIS it is possible for users of the 1280 to use alternative inks or to use inks formulated to be almost identical to Epson’s own inks but at a much lower cost.

I tried the system on a 1280 and found it very straightforward to assemble. Air has to be evacuated, using a supplied syringe, from the replacement cartridges and then the tubes are inserted in the external bottles of ink and the tubing and cartridges immediately fill up with ink. The bottles are held in place in an acrylic holder, which is positioned beside the printer. The printer lid will not close completely because of the tubes running to the cartridges but it can be held partially open with the supplied rubber bump stops or it can be left off entirely.

Once I put the system together the printer started working perfectly without even going through a cleaning cycle. I tried it with dye inks from Mediastreet.com which are supposed to be the same as Epson’s and found there was essentially no difference in final output colors. As an aside I also tried some of the wide variety of papers sold by Mediastreet.com and found they worked well in most cases as an alternative to regular photo paper.

The print menu warns that it has not found Epson cartridges each time the printer is used for the first time in a session. After that there is no difference in operation except that the ink level warning always starts out full at the beginning of each session. As the Epson system for displaying ink usage relies on the amount of ink potentially used rather than what is actually coming out of the cartridges, it is entirely possible that one could have a warning saying the cartridges are empty after a long print run. It would then be necessary to turn the printer and computer off to reset the counter to give a cartridge full reading.

The CIS system costs $125 for Epson printers without the chips, plus ink which can be as low as $8 a 4 oz. bottle A system for the 1280, including replacement chips for the two cartridges, costs $225. For heavy users who cannot justify paying for a large format printer, a CIS could pay for itself very quickly. Hopefully future printers from Epson might include their own continuous feeding systems for an additional cost, as it is what a lot of photographers find much more practical. Many people would rather pay more up front for a printer and save on the cost of cartridges which have to be disposed of so quickly after producing a number of prints. Obviously for those who only produce a handful of prints over several months a continuous feed system is a waste of money, as the initial investment would never be recouped.

Epson has moved part way to a solution with it’s new C80 and its individual cartridges for each color. It’ll be interesting to see what improvements it will make in the next versions of the Stylus Photo range of printers.

Epson Colorlife Paper
At the same time I tested the CIS system I also got to try out the latest Epson ColorLife paper. Without changing any parameters the improvement in print quality was immediately apparent. Images have a lot more depth to them and the paper feels even more photographic like than other photographic papers. The only problem is that the ink does not fully dry immediately and it feels sticky for about 24 hours. It is also not waterproof, which is a shame. Epson has also introduced some new Premium Bright White paper that should prove more than good enough for proof printing of images. I have been using Epson Photo Ink Jet paper for proof prints for some time and it looks as though this new paper is even brighter and less opaque even though it is considerably less expensive.

Nik Sharpener
Just about every image produced on a digital camera or scanned from a photographic original needs some sharpening to obtain the best quality image. Although cameras and scanners offer built-in sharpening it’s better to use an image editing program to do the sharpening after capture. Regular users of Photoshop know that the Unsharp Mask sharpening filter is most efficient for sharpening images despite it’s confusing name. Its usage however is largely one of trial and error as it has only three parameters to adjust. What’s more the sharpening is done visually on the screen so one is relying on the image as it is viewed on the screen while in most cases the final output will be on a printer or even in an offset printed magazine or book.

Nik Sharpener Pro provides more sharpening options for digital images than Unsharp Mask.	Photographers will feel right at home with a variety of photographic type filters in nik Efex Pro.

A German company has developed a specialized sharpening tool called nik Sharpener, which is a comprehensive set of image optimization filters for automatic image sharpening. The tool works as a plug-in from within Photoshop or any other program that is 100% compatible with Photoshop plug-ins.
The program automatically analyzes the image and makes sharpening adjustments based on the content, the origin of the scan and the desired output. The popup menu shows the settings being used and gives warnings if an image is likely to look unsharp. It allows one to adjust the image size, desired look and other parameters so that the program can choose the optimum settings for sharpening. Because of this the sharpened result visible on the screen can sometimes look wrong yet it is correct for the desired final output.

The program even includes a detail protection option that will selectively sharpen some parts of an image more than others to avoid moiré patterns or halo effects. One of them is appropriately called “fence ‘n foliage protection” as this is often part of a landscape image that can be easily oversharpened. In order to test the artificial intelligence of the program I deliberately ran it on a badly out of focus image and it correctly warned me that the image would be blurry even when I adjusted the output size down to a thumbnail print.

There are several keys to getting a properly sharpened image. Initially one needs a good quality image, as no program can sharpen a bad original. Next it is important to do all the image editing and adjust the image to the final size required, before any sharpening is applied. The manual advises one to save several copies of an image if it is to be used for different final outputs as each image can be sharpened according to the different parameters required.

If you do a lot of digital image editing, nik Sharpener Pro could be worthwhile. However, it’s a pricey bit of software at $329.95. There is a less comprehensive version, called nik Sharpener which retails for $129.95.

Nik Efex Pro
Sunshine—how often have you wished that dull photo taken under heavy cloud cover could be brightened up. Believe it or not a filter called Sunshine in Nik Color Efex attempts just that. And it does not do a bad job in most cases. It selectively brightens areas of an image giving the illusion that they are lit by sunlight. Obviously, it cannot totally replicate an image as if it were truly shot in sunlight but it’s good enough to brighten up many a dull looking image.

John Rettie is a photojournalist who resides in Santa Barbara, CA. He has been using a camera as a professional for 31 years, a computer for 21 years, and has combined his knowledge of both for the past eight years. Readers can contact him by e-mail at john@johnrettie.com or by snail-mail c/o Rangefinder.