On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, Karim H. Karmali wrote: > Kevin, I recently read your posting on the Nikon Discussion group and was > hoping you could offer some advice. I have the LS-2000 but am still trying > to decide which printer to buy. I am giving consideration to the Alps > Dye-Sub, Epson Ex, Epson 700 Photo and HP Photosmart printers. What made > you decide to purchase the EX? Hello Karim, I am currently learning how to answer those very questions! I will offer what I can; just know it is coming from a fellow learner. For the Ex, I went to several search engines and searched up reviews for color printers. Usually, the reviews were of the gloss-over variety, meaning no common metric for objective comparison. That said, what common message there was, said, "Epson Photo Ex is best". That's what backed up my decision to purchase. The Alps printer was held out in two reviews as the standard against which the others were compared. I thought that was interesting, but the same reviews didn't review the Alps itself. I couldn't find the Alps reviewed anywhere, unfortunately. The 700 has the same print mechanism and inks as the Ex, same resolution, but is a narrow-carriage version (this is my recollection). The Ex lets you go as large as 11-7/8" x 44". Several reviews said the Photosmart had excellent quality, on par with the 700 and Ex, but there was some slight lack. I saved the summary sections of two of the reviews I read and they are pasted below, at the end of my response. > Also, what settings are you using with Nikon > Scan to maximize image (printed) quality? Lastly, what are the > specifications of the images you are printing e.g. DPI. Currently I've been scanning RGB, 12bit, 16x, 2700dpi. I've been experimenting with CMYK, as some colleagues have advised both scanning and printing in it. I'm using Photoshop 3, and with it I can pretty much only view the 48-bit files produced by the Nikon, so invariably I downsample to 24-bit. I hear that Photoshop 5 supports more manipulation of 48-bit files, so I am pursuing an upgrade. For printing, I've tried several experiments varying from 360 to 720 dpi. Epson claims the printer performs at 720 x 1440 dpi. I've not yet found a rational explanation for this claim, or whether it will accept image data of this resolution and print with any difference from lower resolutions such as 360dpi. My speculation is that the extra factor of two comes into play when the Epson chooses to interpolate lower resolution image data. It reminds me of scanners that quote 600x1200 scan resolution. All but a few scanners that claim a double-resolution axis are using a fine stepping mode that doesn't yield much different data than 600 (this according to a review of scanner software in Publish magazine recently). Bear in mind that when scanning at 2700dpi, you'll need to resample the image size to the output page size, and sometimes this causes reinterpolation of the scanned image (a thing you don't want to do too often, as you can eventually lose detail). With NikonScan, you can specify the target image size and dpi, and that's a good idea. If you change only the units and measurements, it will compute the upscaled dpi. This is ideal, because then, if you have no plans to modify image size in Photoshop, you can pretty much avoid having to resize your image, all the way through to output. For an 8.5x11 print (7.5x11.25 image area), the computed dpi is about 345. Good luck, Karim, hope you make the best decision for yourself! (Review summaries follow). -kevin prichard Epson Stylus Photo EX (http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/special/techex98/dig.html) A versatile, large-format, high-quality photo printer, the Epson Stylus Photo EX prints text, graphics, and realistic photos on standard- and tabloid-size paper at resolutions as high as 1,440 by 720 dpi. A child of Epson's second generation of photo-centric printing, it showed the best combination of image smoothness, realistic colors, and accurate detail without posterization, and it's even marginally faster than the competition. In our labs, the Photo EX even managed to portray depth in photos, an area in which other printers were lacking. In a close-up shot of the face of a dog, the Photo EX clearly showed detail in the dog's dark eyes. Though competition is steep, if you're looking for rich and vivid photo output, you can't beat this fine printer. Epson Stylus Photo EX (http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/firstlooks/9810/f981014a3.html) Though it's the most expensive of the large-format photo printers, the Epson Stylus Photo EX proves its worth. If you don't need to print on 11-inch-wide media, consider the Epson Stylus Photo 700, which uses the same printing technology as the Photo EX and sells for a compelling $280 (street). In this narrow-carriage version, the Photo EX's printer still provides the best print quality at competitive speed and is able to print on 44-inch-long panoramic media.
