Digital Photography Now Printer Reviews

Printer preview 2: Epson Stylus 950 Photo

11th April - 2002
By Ian Burley

Select a page... Epson 950 2nd preview - intro Black and white Detail analysed Text Conclusion

P.3 - Black and white

Our first preview of Epson’s new A4 flagship photo printer - click here

We’ve had a fair number of requests to test printers for mono photo printing capabilities. We haven’t yet finished formulating our black and white tests, but below are some mono prints from the new Epson 950, including some 600ppi close ups.

These prints were produced using black ink only from an unmodified colour original. Once again they were scanned using our HP 7450 flat bed scanner. Although the prints are true mono, not using colour ink at all, the scanned reproductions below were made using 24-bit colour settings. On Epson Premium Glossy paper, the black reproduction has a slight dark slate quality about it.

We noticed some vertical banding on one print at 2880dpi. Detail sharpness is very good but the 950’s half-toning didn’t agree with the highest resolution setting, hence the banding.

At 1440dpi the banding virtually disappears, but so too does some of the print’s density and some of its sharpness.

Even at 2880dpi and with its tiny 2pl dots, this 600ppi close up scan of the fabric flower design reveals an all too familiar dot pattern. To the naked eye the print resembles a print from a high ISO mono film, like Kodak Tri-X or Ilford HP5.

At 1440ppi there is little sacrifice to detail, but the black shade is less dense.

In future tests we’ll be looking at black and tinted printing modes.

Our first preview of Epson’s new A4 flagship photo printer - click here

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