9 May 2020 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I subscribe 0330 333 1113
Technique
Epson’s EcoTank ET-7700 A4 printer
with its high-capacity ink bottles can
be a false economy, but the A3-
format ET-7750 makes more senseMatthew
Richards
Matthew began his care
broadcast engineer for theBBC
in London and for companies
across Southern Africa. He
then became a technical
author, before moving into journalism and photography,
for which he’s enjoyed assignments in the UK and
worldwide. He currently specialises in reviewing
cameras, lenses and photographic accessories.
G et you r
b e s t- ever
prints
What you see isn’t always what you
get in the translation between screen
and print. Matthew Richards reveals
how to make your prints charming
H
owever big, bright and
beautiful your computer
screen, there’s always
something magical about
seeing photos in print. Whether they are
arranged in an album, framed on a desk or
hanging on the wall, paper prints have real
retro charm. Moreover, the high resolution
of a photographic print, compared with
even the latest 4K ultra-high defi nition
monitor screens, does full justice to the
levels of fi ne detail and texture that you
can capture with today’s digital cameras.
Rather than sending your digital photos
to an online print lab, creating your own
photo prints at home can have several
advantages. First, you’ll get your prints
within seconds or minutes, rather than
having to wait for anything from a day to
a week or more for them to turn up in the
post. Second, you have full control over the
process and can fi ne-tune the results. In
most cases, the cost of paper and ink for
inkjet printing at home also work out
cheaper than using a lab, especially when
you factor postage into the equation.
However, you need to buy the printer
itself, and it pays to pick a good one.
Coming up trumps
Researching the perfect photo printer to
suit your needs can feel a bit like playing
two separate printers. Canon led the way
in multi-purpose printers for document
and photo output, with a revolutionary
fi ve-ink system. It combines pigment-
based black for deep, solid text on plain
paper, along with dye-based CMYK (cyan,
magenta, yellow and black) inks for photo
printing. The resulting Canon Pixma
range of printers has been so successful,
that the idea was later copied by Epson
and, for a while, by HP. Considering that
only four inks are actually used for photo
printing, the gamut (or colour space) and
tonal range can be impressive, thanks to
the careful selection of ink colours to
maximise photo quality.
For the most part, especially in A4 photo
printers, Epson has stuck with the more
traditional method of adding light or
‘photo’ cyan and magenta inks to the usual
CMYK line-up, creating photo printers
that run on six inks. In theory, this shouldTop Trumps, with a baffl ing range of
features and specifi cations to take into
account. At least a couple of factors have
become simpler. Dye-sublimation printers
have largely been dropped and inkjet is
the only print technology worth buying for
home photo printing. Second, while
Canon, Epson, HP and Lexmark
used to be the fab four in inkjet
manufacturers, it’s become a straight
fi ght between Canon and Epson for
seriously good photo output. Even
so, there are plenty of models to
choose from, with a range of
strengths and weaknesses.
Most of us don’t relish the
thought of buying and running© GETT Y IMAGES/ TETRA IMAGES RF
From the
archives
There are fewer ad pages due to the
pandemic, so instead please enjoy
this lockdown-friendly feature
from 2018