Erik DeBill
New member
For the last year or two I've been printing with an Epson 2200. For the most part I like it. It does a pretty good job of printing both black and white and color. Using a properly color managed workflow, I get prints that look pretty close to what's on the monitor. I've never had a clog, which I understand is something that other people experience regularly with this printer.
I generally use Photoshop Elements or Lightzone to print, Epson Enhanced Matte paper and stock Epson inks. I use the Epson factory profiles. For black and white I use Quadtone Rip. I calibrate my monitors (a pair of 20" LCDs) regularly.
Sometimes, it all goes to crap, though. Between two prints I'll suddenly pick up a nasty color cast. A typical example happened today. Some bluebonnets suddenly began showing up as purplish. I checked both the LEDs on the printer and the Epson printer utility, and both said I wasn't running low on ink - I was almost there on light cyan, light grey and light black, but not close enough to get any warnings.
The fix for this is to take out any ink cartridges that are nearing empty, put them back in, and print again. 75% of the time that does the trick. The rest of the time I have to do it again.
Today it cropped on an 11x14 print. Round one of the remove, replace, reprint routine didn't fix it and I wasted an 8x10. Round two worked on a very small test print and then went back to broken when I tried to do a larger test. I just gave up and replaced all the cartridges that were getting low.
Has anyone else had this kind of problem with Epson printers? It seems like either the ink level sensors misread things or the cartridges are prone to bubbles in the lines. I've been contemplating getting a 3800, but if they're prone to this same problem I might just pass on Epson and give HP a try. Having a 16x20 come out sickly green would be maddening.
I generally use Photoshop Elements or Lightzone to print, Epson Enhanced Matte paper and stock Epson inks. I use the Epson factory profiles. For black and white I use Quadtone Rip. I calibrate my monitors (a pair of 20" LCDs) regularly.
Sometimes, it all goes to crap, though. Between two prints I'll suddenly pick up a nasty color cast. A typical example happened today. Some bluebonnets suddenly began showing up as purplish. I checked both the LEDs on the printer and the Epson printer utility, and both said I wasn't running low on ink - I was almost there on light cyan, light grey and light black, but not close enough to get any warnings.
The fix for this is to take out any ink cartridges that are nearing empty, put them back in, and print again. 75% of the time that does the trick. The rest of the time I have to do it again.
Today it cropped on an 11x14 print. Round one of the remove, replace, reprint routine didn't fix it and I wasted an 8x10. Round two worked on a very small test print and then went back to broken when I tried to do a larger test. I just gave up and replaced all the cartridges that were getting low.
Has anyone else had this kind of problem with Epson printers? It seems like either the ink level sensors misread things or the cartridges are prone to bubbles in the lines. I've been contemplating getting a 3800, but if they're prone to this same problem I might just pass on Epson and give HP a try. Having a 16x20 come out sickly green would be maddening.