Ron Martinsen's Photography Blog

Showing posts with label P600. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

REVIEW: Epson PictureMate PM-400 - A Great Whole Family Photo Printer

Despite my history of printing my own images and even writing a book on the subject as part of my Printing Series, my beautiful wife has no desire to geek out on printing like me. As a result, she's been frustrated with the bottleneck (me) in getting prints made from her iPhone pics or from the photos I share with her from my DSLR and mirrorless cameras. To address this frustration, I decided to test the wildly popular Epson PictureMate PM-400 wireless compact color photo printer to see if it would meet her needs.

Setup

The nice thing about this printer is you don't need a computer, so you just turn it on - plug in the 4 color ink cartridge and you are in business. You can then quickly print to Epson 4x6 or 5x7 photo paper directly from your cell phone or SD card.

The wireless networking setup was easy and my Windows 10 PC had no problems discovering the printer. I also connected it via USB and saw no noticeable performance difference so I decided to take advantage of wireless printing so I could put the printer anywhere in the house where we were sitting when we wanted to crank out some pics while talking or watching TV.

AirPrint vs Windows

AirPrint is known for being easy and reliable, but it's also known for being very simplistic. With this in mind, I decided to print some photos off of my iPhone X and everything went pretty smooth. For large photos not taken on the phone it did seem to take nearly an extra 30 seconds to print a photo via AirPrint vs Windows, but if you aren't hovering over it like someone trying to watch water boil, the difference was tolerable.

Test Images & Performance

For comparison, I also pitted the inexpensive PM-400 against the excellent Epson SureColor P800 which costs nearly $1000 more just to see how wide the quality and performance gap was between the two - and the results surprised me!

Into the Light by Ron Martinsen on 500px.com

For my first image, I thought I'd start with an excellent photo with a wide range of tones to see what was the best this printer could do. The PM-400, which had been turned off for a couple weeks took 2 minutes 17 seconds for first print with 46.5 seconds for head prep before paper feed from cold start. This means roughly a minute and 30 seconds for this image to print for a roughly 36mb print job which was NOT specially prepared for this printer - I just threw an original JPEG at it.

PM-400 From Photoshop with Printer Manages Colors & Default Settings

The quality was average viewer good, but obviously with 4 colors you aren't going to get a match to the original. It actually looks quite a bit better in real life than the scan of the print here, so don't let the quality here scare you - in real life it seems "good enough" for most users and I think better than what you get from discount photo printing labs like Costco, Walgreens, Target, etc...

For my photography geek friends, here's the Photoshop and printer driver settings I used:

Surprisingly the P800 took 2 minutes and 3 seconds with 11 seconds before the paper feed on a cold start. This means it took one minute and 52 seconds, but the tonal range was significantly better in the highlight areas on the cheeks.

Epson SureColor P800 from Photoshop with Printer Manages Color using the sRGB preset

Despite being printed on the same Epson 4 Stars Premium Glossy paper and not using any ICC profiles or complex print features, the P800 was pretty darn close the original photo. Had I used an ICC profile I could have got an identical match.

Again, for my printing geek friends here's the settings I used to get this print:

Black & White Test

To the novice who has never done fine art printing, one would think that Black & White printing would be very easy and there's no difference between the two. However, the reality is that B&W printing is actually rather complicated and hard to get right simply because printers aren't using just black ink to print out a "black and white" image (which is really a grayscale image).

Here's the source image I used:

When the PM-400 was warm it only took 10 seconds before the paper had been pulled into position and it started printing resulting in a total print time of 1 minute 37 seconds for a 57.4 mb job over a wireless network connection. The P800 ABW did it in 2 minutes 2 seconds with 11 seconds which was the real kicker that I'd see consistently in my testing - the PM-400 was actually faster at cranking out a 4x6 photo!

Epson PM-400 Grayscale

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you - the black and white images often taken on a blue/purple tone depending on the ambient light that you view them under. It doesn't look quite as extreme as what you get from a scan in real life, but it's off - way off - from reality. Again, my wife thought it was fine but this one that was tough for me to accept.

I used the same Photoshop settings as above but here's the settings I used for the driver:

This time there was no contest in terms of tonal fidelity - the extra $1000 made a huge difference as you'd expect from a high end photo printer:

Epson P800 using Epson's Advanced Black & White (ABW) Mode

Epson P800 Windows V3 Driver using Advanced B&W Photo mode

For more information about Epson Advanced B&W Photo mode see my ABW article.

Casual Print Test

Here's a 100% unedited photo I took with my iPhone X:

I printed directly from from my phone using AirPrint to the PM-400 and in 1 minute 30 seconds I had a nice borderless print.

Using my P800 via AirPrint on my phone was 1 minute 56 seconds which was surprising.

On Windows with Photoshop even when I told the driver to do borderless with max expansion, the aspect ratio of the photo caused me to get white bars on both the left and right side. To fix this problem I simply tried right-clicking on the photo in Explorer and choosing Print to use the Windows Print Pictures Wizard which resulted me in getting the same borderless results as AirPrint. This is primarily due to the aspect ratio of iPhone prints vs digital camera prints which means that a true borderless print is going to crop more off the top and bottom of the print than one with white bars on the side. Keep this in mind when choosing borderless!

Quality-wise I saw the same differences in skin tones especially in the hot spots of the photos and in the cheeks as I saw with the model shot above, but it was less noticeable in a natural light photo.

Conclusion

In the end my wife loved the PM-400 so it was EXACTLY what she wanted and it works for her. I appreciated it for its ease of use and speed when the kids need a quick print of a photo that's on my iPhone for a school project where quality doesn't matter. It was also great for sending pics to the grandparents who don't really give a hoot about the quality as long as the pics are of their precious grandchildren!

For me, I obviously won't be giving up my P800 for the photos I care about. With that said, you don't need to spend a fortune as my P600 is almost as good for substantially less than the P800.

For the price, I loved the speed and ease of use I got out of the PM-400 so I can easily give it a strong recommendation for everyday non-color critical use. It's fast and certainly worth the great reviews it gets on Amazon for printer that cost less than a set of ink for my P800!

Where to Buy?

CLICK HERE to learn more or buy a Epson PictureMate PM-400 today.

Disclosure

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you a penny more, but it does help to support future articles like this.

Friday, July 21, 2017

REVIEW: Red River Paper Palo Duro Etching Fine Art Paper

If you've followed along in my printing series, you know that I'm a fan of Red River Paper as a suitable alternative to more expensive papers. In fact, my article entitled Red River Paper vs Epson Papers has been one of my more popular articles because I offer my honest opinion on similarities and trade offs for going with Red River over various Epson papers. In fact, my last review entitled Red River Paper - San Gabriel Baryta Semi Gloss 2.0 I declared it just as good as the more expensive Baryta's.

It's no wonder that when Red River came out with their Palo Duro Etching paper a few months ago that they immediately reached out to me to get my thoughts on it. I printed with it and liked it right away, but I've been so crazy busy I haven't found time to write about it. Lucky for you and some insomnia after the baby waking me up in the middle of the night means that you'll finally get to hear my thoughts on this hearty fine art paper.

No Epson Comparison

While I've got a lot of Epson papers, for this review I only had 13x19 and 5x7 versions of this Red River paper. I have no other 5x7 papers to compare against and I can't scan 13x19 sheets, so this review will simply judge it on its own merit.

I will say that the closest thing I've used to this paper is the Hahnemühle German Etching, but that is still a very different paper that has no equal that I've seen (yet). I reference that paper because it's one that has a heavy texture, and that is something this paper definitely has - loads of visible texture. If that is something that bothers you, then stop reading as this isn't the right paper for you. However, if you can look at a canvas print and ignore the texture then read on.

Now the feel of this paper reminds me of the gritty feel of Epson Velvet or Epson Ultrasmooth paper.

Tech Specs

Media: 100% cotton rag
Weight: 315gsm
Thickness: 21mil
Coated: Microporous coated one side
Color: Natural warm white tone
Surface: Heavy textured matte

Pigment Ink Users: This media is designed for Matte Black ink

Archival Characteristics: Acid free, lignin free, OBA free, museum grade

Color Quality

Click here To get an ICC profile.

Color gamut of Palo Duro Etching (larger) vs Epson Cold Press Natural (smaller)

Matte black ink on fine art matte papers are always going to have a smaller color gamut than photo black on resin coated papers, but the color gamut of the Red River ICC color profile for the Epson SureColor P600 completely consumes that of the excellent Epson Cold Press Natural as shown in the graph above. What this means is that you'll get better color across the entire color spectrum using Red River's profile with this paper than you will with Epson's.

Color gamut of the Canon PRO-1000 (larger) vs Epson P600 (smaller) using the RR ICC profiles

The Canon PRO-1000 had a wide color gamut in the ICC profile that I used for my testing

Now before the hate mail comes in, for the record here's the Epson P800 profile compared to the PRO-1000 and it's smaller too:

and to counteract more conspiracy theories - here's the settings I used for the above graph where the PRO-1000 shows a larger color gamut than the Epson P800:

ICC Profiles Used for Testing

Here's a scan of 5x7 print made on the Epson P600 using the Red River profile on Paulo Duro Etching and you can see the color gamut is quite impressive for a matte paper:

Full Resolution Tiff V850 Scan of a SureColor P600 Pal Duro Etching Print

It should be noted that my scanner couldn't pick up the full range of grayscale so I had to scan it twice to get the gray squares and the grayscale gradient is better in real life than what's shown in the photo. Simply put, the scan doesn't do it justice compared to what you'll see in real life.

Click here To get an ICC profile.

In The Hand

At 21mil and 315gsm, this is no flimsy paper! It's got a hearty chalky feel with a noticeable texture. It doesn't flex easily and Red River recommends using the fine art media tray, but I was able to run it through the Auto sheet feeder on my P600 without any problem, so it's not unbearably thick!

Photo Quality

The following are unedited s of actual 5x7 prints made using my P600 (my dedicated matte black printer). In the first photo, this is Epson's Advanced Black & White mode of a color photo:

Full Resolution Tiff V850 Scan of a SureColor P600 Pal Duro Etching Print
Advanced Black and White Mode (Warm | Dark setting)

It was a little darker than I hoped so some of the details were muddy in the vest, but it looks better in real life than in the scan. Here's the color print which is remarkably close in tone to what I get using photo black and luster paper:

Full Resolution Tiff V850 Scan of a SureColor P600 Pal Duro Etching Print
Photoshop Manages Color using Red River P600 ICC Profile

Here's the actual photo file used for the print which of course has a much wider dynamic and tonal range:

Gary Original Image printed from Photoshop

In this next photo, the loss of color fidelity in the reds and yellows can be seen fairly easily - as well as the hearty texture of this paper:

Full Resolution Tiff V850 Scan of a SureColor P600 Pal Duro Etching Print using RR ICC

It should come as no surprise, this isn't a great paper for high fashion, but that's not its intent. Landscapes, abstracts, and images with lots of texture are the ones that will benefit the most.

Model Original Image printed from Photoshop

Full Resolution Tiff V850 Scan of a SureColor P600 Pal Duro Etching Print using RR ICC

Naturally the best type of image for this type of paper is going to be a images with lots of texture, so I've printed my famous Treehouse photo using both the P600 (above) and the Canon PRO-1000 (below) using ICC profiles provided by Epson and I was quite pleased with the real world results.

The wider gamut of the Canon comes through in the form of warmer tones and deeper blacks. In real life under a light box in ideal lighting conditions, the Canon really shines but in normal tungsten lighting conditions the Epson print doesn't feel as dark so it is easier to see some of the detail in the shadows. Simply put, both look good but if you have great lighting conditions then the Canon will produce the more visually pleasing print.

Full Resolution Tiff V850 Scan of a Canon PRO-1000 Pal Duro Etching Print using RR ICC

Epson Driver Settings (Windows)

For Epson SureColor printers, the driver will be basically the same so here's the settings I chose:

I did Cold Press Natural so I could use the sheet feeder, despite Red River's recommendation for using Velvet because 5x7 paper can't be used for the manual feeder (required for Velvet).

No matter what paper you use, you have to set Paper Thickness to 5 in Paper Config(uration):

Epson P600 Paper Configuration for Red River Palo Duro Etching

In all of my testing, I had no issues with the paper being scratched - even when I forgot the paper thickness set to 2. You'll also noticed below that I did LEVEL 4 (1440x1440 dpi) per Red River's guidance. 1440 does variable size dots vs 2880 which uses fixed size, so the lower resolution can still result in higher quality results which was my observation with this paper. As a result, I agree with Red River's recommendations:

Epson SureColor Settings on Windows - Summary Red River Palo Duro Etching

In Photoshop I chose to do Perceptual rendering intent (despite my normal preference for Relative Colormetric) for the best results:

Mac settings look different, but the values are all the same so what you see here - despite looking very different - still applies to the Mac.

Canon PRO-1000 Settings (Windows)

For the Cano - PRO-1000 I chose Heavyweight Fine Art Paper so I could use the Rear Tray (for the same reason as above for Epson - you have to do this with 5x7 paper). I also chose the highest quality which with the optional XPS (non-default for Canon) driver can result in better color fidelity:

On this page the key thing to remember is to click Advanced Settings and Color Intensity to Manual (then click Set):

For color you want None so Photoshop can apply the ICC profile without double color management:

For Advanced Settings you have to set Print Head Height to "Avoid Paper Abrasion" which just means this is thick paper: