Epson 1200, initial report

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



Greetings all--

I just got my "Epson Stylus Photo 1200" and thought I'd pass on what I've
learned so far.  I've tried to touch on everything that I've seen asked
about on this list.  Skip over the parts you're not interested in.

--Best, Bill Fernandez



WHY THE 1200?

o I want to be able to print "photographs" that are bigger than 8-1/2 x 11
inches.  This looks like the best printer for this purpose that I can
afford.



PURCHASING

o On 17-May-99, I placed my order with "www.buycomp.com" (a branch of
"Buy.Com").  (I've ordered quite a number of things from them over the past
nine months and have never had any problems.  I like that I can go to one
place and count on them almost always having what I want, at roughly the
best available price).

o The printer was listed as "usually ships in 1 to 2 weeks".  The price was
$433.95 (US).

o I also ordered two black cartridges, at $14.95 each, which were listed as
"in stock".

o Color cartridges were not on the price list.

o I chose the cheapest shipping, which was $16.48 by UPS ground to my
location in Albuquerque, New Mexico.



SHIPPING

o The ink cartridges were shipped on 18-May-99, and arrived on 21-May-99.

o The printer was shipped on 26-May-99, and arrived on 3-June-99.

o The size of the box (in inches) was 26 long, 14-1/2 wide, 11-1/2 tall.

o The shipping weight was listed as 20 pounds.

o The printer was shipped with an adult signature required for delivery
(The UPS driver knocked on my door, then when I didn't answer immediately
left the box by the door and got back in his truck and started driving off.
A few seconds later he was back to ask for the signature.)

o I learned an interesting thing about UPS.  Each day I went to the UPS
package tracking website to see where my printer was.  One day it was
listed as having arrived in "Albuquerque, New Mexico" (where I live), but
the next day it was listed as having been shipped to "Aspen, New Mexico".
When I called to ask why my package had beed shipped to the wrong town, the
person said that "Aspen" was just the name of a staging location within the
city of Albuqurque, and that my printer was on a truck that would be
delivering to my house later in the day.

o In that same phone conversation, I learned something interesting about
Buy.Com.  Even though the shipping label says the package was from
"Buy.Com", the UPS agent on the phone said it was shipped by "Ingram
Micro".  Well, Ingram Micro is one of the major distributors from which
retailers throughout the country get the products they stock.  It looks
like their deal with Buy.Com is that Buy.Com tells them what to ship and to
whom, and Ingram does the warehousing and shipping for Buy.Com.



MACINTOSH SETUP

o It took less than eight minutes to unpack the printer, set it in place,
put some paper in it, and attach it to power and to my Power Macintosh 7500
(running Mac OS 8.5.1).

o It took about four minutes to insert the CD-ROM and install the driver.

o I decided not to do the Easy Install, but to review the Custom Install
options.  I'm glad I did, because the version of ColorSync it would have
installed (v2.01) was out of date (I currently have 2.5.1 installed).

o It looks like only one driver got installed; one that uses the serial
port on my Power Macintosh 7500.  (I wonder what replaces the Stylus AT
driver that's used for Ethernet connections?)

o The body of the printer is about 22-1/2 inches wide, 6-1/2 inches tall,
and 11 inches deep.  Due to the paper infeed holder at the top-rear, it
needs to sit on a surface at least 16 inches deep, and have 12-1/2 inches
clear above this surface (unless your paper is taller than 11 inches, then
you'll need more vertical clearance in the back). The paper output tray
extends 4 inches from the front of the printer, and has extensions that can
be pulled out for a total of 12 inches from the front of the printer.



WINDOWS SETUP

o The printer connects to a Windows PC with either a parallel or USB cable.
I have neither at the moment, so I haven't yet attached the printer to my
PC.

o I had planned to connect via USB, but after seeing the flyer for the new
network adapter (see below), I think I'll just buy THAT and put my printer
directly on my Ethernet.  Then all the computers in the house can use it.




INK CARTRIDGES

o The black ink cartridge is part number S020187.  This is the same one
used in the Color 400, Color 640, and Photo 750.  The housing is an opaque,
light grey.

o The 5-color ink cartridge is part number T001 (this is the first Epson
ink cartridge part number I've seen that doesn't consist of an "S" followed
by six numbers).  It's housing is also an opaque, light grey.

o My rough visual estimate is that all six ink compartments will hold the
same volume of ink.




FIRST PRINTS

o I ran Photoshop 5.0.2, opened a Macintosh PICT file of a woman's face
that I use for testing (500 pixels wide, 750 pixels high, 72 dots per inch
resolution, 24 bit color), and printed using the default settings, filling
an 8-1/2 x 11 inch sheet of ordinary copier paper. Printing took about 70
seconds.

o The print looked reasonably close in color and tone to what was on my
screen (an old 17 inch monitor adjusted using Adobe Gamma to a gamma of 2.2
and a 6500K white point).  It had a regular pattern of fine, light,
horizontal lines that I assume match the scan lines of the print head.  The
print also warped/rippled the paper, indicating that a lot of ink was put
down.

o I opened Photoshop's Levels dialog and lightened the gamma.  I opened the
Epson print dialog and moved the slider from "speed" to "quality".  I
didn't time this print, but it was reasonably fast.  The print was lighter
(because of my gamma correction), and the horizontal bands were gone in all
but the dark red areas.

o Remember that at this point, I'm using automatic settings on plain copier
paper just to get something out of my new printer.  Doing everything
"right" to get photo-quality prints will come later.




DRIVER FEATURES

Clicking around in the printer setup dialog I found a number of interesting
features:

o You can specify that 1 to 4 "pages" be printed on each sheet of paper.

o You can print a "watermark" (large, faint text printed at a diagonal) in
various colors.  There were a number of standards like "Confidential", and
you can add your own.

o It looks like there may be a high speed multi-copy mode.

o You can specify a date and time for something to be printed.

o The driver has a preview mode, which shows in a large window how the
printed page(s) will look.

o There's a "PhotoEnhance 3" mode, that lets you print in sepia tone, or
sharpen an image during printing, or apply "digital camera correction"
(whatever THAT is).

o You can make any number of settings (resolution, dithering, color
correction, etc.), then save the overall configuration.  These saved
configurations appear on a menu in the Print dialog so that you can easily
restore the print driver to an oft-used, custom configuration.



ACCESSORIES

o No computer cables were included in the box.

o The printer came with one black, and one color cartridge.

o A paper sampler was included.  Titled "Epson photo quality media pack",
it contained:

  Epson Photo Paper , 2 sheets, 8-1/2 x 11 inch
  Epson Photo Paper , 3 sheets, 4 x 6 inch
  Epson Photo Quality Glossy Film, 1 sheet , 8-1/2 x 11 inch
  Epson Photo Quality Ink Jet Paper, 3 sheets, 8-1/2 x 11 inch

o The CD-ROM (when viewed on a Macintosh) contains:

  The printer driver (named "SP 1200")
  Adobe Photoshop 5.0 LE
  Vivid Details Test Strip 2.0
  Genuine Fractals 2.0 LE



WARRANTY

The warranty card says that, for one year, if Tech Support can't help you
with your problem, you can ask them to deliver a replacement overnight, or
you can send it in for repair.  The replacement must be secured with a
credit card (in case you don't ship them the broken one), they will replace
it with the same model or one with "equivalent features", and may be new or
refurbished.  They pay shipping both ways.



NETWORK ADAPTER

There was a flyer in the box for an interesting-looking network adapter.
It looks like a small box that: plugs into the parallel port on the
printer, and has an AC adapter that plugs into the wall, and has a 10Base-T
Ethernet connector.

It's called the "Axis 1400 for Epson printers".   The flyer says it works
with the: 700, 740, 750, 850, 1200, and EX.

The flyer says check their website at www.epsonsupplies.com (I did, and
it's not listed), or call Epson Accessories at 1-800-873-7766.


==============
end of report
==============





============================================================
Bill Fernandez
User Interface Architect
Bill Fernandez Design

PHONE (505) 346-3080
FAX   (505) 346-3090
EMAIL bill@billfernandez.com
WEB   http://www.billfernandez.com
============================================================
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Please: Stay on topic. Trim quoted messages.
http://www.leben.com/lists for list instructions.



[Index of Archives]     [Yosemite News]     [Yosemite Photos]     [Scanners]     [Gimp]     [Gimp Users]
  Powered by Linux