Base10 has been in the market for a photo printer of late. What use is it, after all, to take photographs and not be able to display them with some permanence? Anyway, I purchased the Epson R2400. This printer is not for the average consumer. It is big, expensive and sports no advanced connection features like Picture-Bridge. What it does is print photographs from high-end graphics programs. And the output is stunning. The machine uses reformulated inks that include three shades of black. This makes the output particularly impressive when printing B&W which is Base10's favorite activity. Even the color is very good. They say these inks will last over one hundred years if printed to archival papers. Base10 also bought some Ilford glossy paper and again, the results were outstanding. Experimenting with more types of Ilford paper is definitely on the to-do list.

The drawback? Prepare to just eat through ink cartridges. Even Base10's limited printing depleted his inks by a third, at least. While ink is not cheap, the trade-off for a product that beats the heck out of any optical print may be worth it. Base10 suspects that even with practice, anything he could produce with an enlarger wouldn't come close to this quality. Needless to say, we won't be printing everything as 8x10 either.

- posted by Base10 @ 7:24 PM