Pricing starts at $99 for a version that supports 13-inch printers (like the Stylus Photo R2880), going to $199 for 17-inch printers, $399 (24 inches), $599 (44 inches) and $799 (64 inches).

On the surface, the 3880 offers a few incremental improvements over the Stylus Pro 3800, adding the Vivid Magenta inks, an improved printhead, and new screening algorithms. The case design, print engine, and ink system (with its spacious 80ml cartridges and 8-channel head that requires switching of matte and photo black inks) are identical to the 3800, which is testament to that printer’s design and its success in the market, as well as the relative maturity of the photo printer industry.

Here’s a rundown of the new features in the Stylus Pro 3880:

• Vivid Magenta inks. These two inks (vivid magenta and vivid light magenta) will give the 3880 a slightly wider gamut over 3800’s stock UltraChrome K3 inks, especially in the blues and the violets. They will also help with black-and-white printing, helping provide much more neutral prints, when used in conjunction with the new screening technology.

  These inks debuted more than two years ago in the high-end Stylus Pro 4880, 7880 and 9880 printers, and Epson even leap-frogged the 3800 last summer, incorporating the set in the $800 Stylus Photo R2880.

• Improved screening. The new screening algorithm, called AccuPhoto HD2, is probably the most important enhancement to the Stylus Pro 3880. Epson says that this technology provides “smoother color transitions and better highlight and shadow detail” on photographic prints, even at lower print resolutions. It should also further reduce the dwindling instances of metameric failure, a condition where the the human eye detects a shift in color when viewing a print under different light sources.

  AccuPhoto HD2 is the result of an ongoing partnership between Epson and the Rochester Institute of Technology (which also resulted in the Stylus Photo R1900’s Radiance technology). When used in conjunction with the printhead and the UltraChrome K3 Vivid Magenta inks, we should see much richer prints on a wide variety of media, with smoother transitions and improved shadow detail.

• Ink-repellent printhead. While the 3880’s printhead utilizes the same 8-channel design found in the 3800, Epson has updated the printhead to include the ink-repellent coating found in in higher-end and consumer-level photo inkjets, which will help minimize ink clogs and spatter over the life of the printer.

For those new to this sector of the market, it’s worth listing the other notable characteristics of the 3880:

• Print resolution up to 2880 by 1440 dpi with a minimum ink droplet size of 3.5 picoliters;
• Nine inks (eight printing), which include the aforementioned vivid magenta inks, cyan and light cyan, yellow, two light-density gray inks (light gray and light light gray), and two black inks, matte and photo black. The black inks share one channel to the printhead, and automatically switch when you move between glossy and matte (or fine-art) papers;
• Maximum cut sheet size of 17" by 22" (with panoramic sizes available through the custom print dialog box), and borderless printing from 4" by 6" to 17" by 22";
• Three paper paths, including a straight-through path for media up to 1.5mm thick;
• USB 2.0 and Ethernet (10/100) interfaces;
• Compact size: 27" wide, 15" deep and 10" high (with doors and trays closed.)

What’s missing?

There is bound to be some disappointment with this announcement, especially from photographers looking to the 10-ink UltraChrome HDR inks in the Stylus Pro 7900/9900 wide-format printers, or the 12 inks in HP’s Designjet Z3200. But, while you might get a slightly larger gamut with more inks, it’s highly unlikely that it would be worth the extra mass and expense for a desktop printer that already has sterling print quality.

The real issue that will come up is the ink waste when swapping inks, but in the two-and-a-half years that I’ve used my 3800—and spoken with many, many 3800 users—it really has been a minor issue. Yes, in an ideal world, we would all want a 9-channel printhead with no ink waste whatsoever, but the reality is that, on the 3800, this is a problem that rarely gets in the way, thanks to the 80ml cartridge capacity, which makes it much more economical to print. (And don’t think that there isn’t ink waste in all inkjet printers; there is.)

Does it change the market?

Over the past 18 months, there has been a pretty steady drumbeat of anticipation for an update to the Stylus Pro 3800. Not a week goes by where I don’t get at least two or three emails from readers looking to buy a 3800 and worrying that they’ll get caught off guard with an announcement from Epson. My response is always the same: “It’s a great printer, and if you need it now, buy it now,” and I can’t see any reason that will change with the 3880 release.

The Stylus Pro 3880 is definitely an incremental update to the Stylus Pro 3800, but it shouldn’t be dismissed as a placeholder upgrade. The new inks, when combined with the AccuPhoto HD2 screening, should represent a slight, but noticeable improvement in print quality for discerning artists and photographers, especially with tricky images, black-and-white prints, and anything being offered for sale. And the 3800’s basic design has been proven again and again as the go-to desktop printer for the professional photographer.

Part of this is a tacit acknowledgement that we’re running out of room when it comes to big enhancements in photo quality; the bar has been set pretty high by Epson, and we just aren’t going to see the type of generational print quality changes that we saw in the early parts of this decade. (It’s worth noting that both HP and Canon have raised the output quality level of their professional printers as well.)

As much as we all might want some magical desktop photo printer that costs next to nothing and produces prints for even less, the fact remains that the Stylus Pro 3800 was a great product that sat uniquely in the market, with no real competition. The Stylus Pro 3880 should slip effortlessly into its place.

The big question is whether HP or Canon decide that the 17-inch desktop market is now worth playing in: both companies have been extremely silent while Epson has maintained a sizable lead in the market. Epson has proven that there is a middle ground for the professional photographer who prefers a more compact unit with economical printing over wide-format, roll-fed photo printers.

The Stylus Pro 3880 will be priced at $1,295; a Graphic Arts Edition, which comes with a ColorBurst RIP for proofing and design applications, will be available for $1,495. Epson expects both models to ship in October; if Epson’s past history is any indicator, we would expect a few early units to get snapped up quickly, with wide availability by the end of this year.

The Piezography K7 inkset is optimized for Roy Harrington’s QuadTone RIP software, and comes with profiles for a number of papers from Epson, Innova, Hahnemuhle and more.

The kit is priced at $508, and includes everything you need to get started, including inks, cartridges and profiles. Inkjet Mall is offering $75 off through March 17 – use the code ‘BEST2880BW’ when checking out.

For those of you interested in a color-based CIS for the R2880, Cone isn’t yet offering a version of its ConeColor system; you can send an email requesting one on this page.

• The Pixma Pro9000 Mark II is an 8-ink, dye-based printer priced at $500. It reportedly offers three times the print speed of the first-generation model.
• The Pixma Pro9500 Mark II uses 10 pigmented inks—including matte and photo black inks and a gray ink for neutral black and white output—and is priced at $850. Canon says that the 9500 Mark II’s print engine is 1.5 times faster than the earlier version.

Both printers have USB 2.0 and PictBridge ports; a top-loading paper tray that will hold up to 150 sheets of paper; and a straight-through paper path that can handle fine-art media up to 1.2 mm thick. They will include Canon’s Digital Photo Professional and Easy Photo-Fix software, as well as Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 6.0. The printers will run on Mac OS X, Windows XP and Vista, and Vista users will be able to take advantage of Canon’s Ambient Light Correction software in the print driver, which “optimizes print color for the lighting conditions where the final print will be shown.”

As noted, the new models are using the same inkset and printheads as the previous generation, but print speed gains will be quite welcome, especially in the Pixma Pro9500 Mark II: the older 9500 was painfully slow compared with Epson’s Stylus Photo R2400 and R2880 (see our R2880 review for more details). The Pixma Pro9000, on the other hand, was already quite fast, beating even Epson’s Stylus Photo R1900 in our standard- and high-quality print tests.

The first-generation versions of the Pixma Pro printers were both solid units that had little to distinguish them from their counterparts by Epson and HP. The Pixma Pro9500 (see my Macworld review here) was a good printer overall that produced true-to-life photos on both matte and glossy papers, and did a good job with black-and-white printing as well. To me, its weakest point was the poor quality of the ICC profiles that came in the box, but properly profiled, the 9500 was capable of printing excellent photos, and we know more than a few photographers who are happy with their units.

The Pixma Pro9000 was also a good printer, matching up well against Epson’s Stylus Photo 1400 with vivid, dye-based output and good print longevity (an estimated 100 years, under glass, for Canon’s glossy paper). Thanks to its eight inks (vs. the Stylus Photo 1400’s six), the 9000 had an edge in color gamut, although it really didn’t translate into quantifiably better images, especially when you factor in Canon’s inattention to the profile aspect of the printing equation.

We’ll plan to run both units through our standard test suite once they’re available in May. If you want more info, you can check out the press release on the Canon site.

[Updated March 10 with more details on the print speed changes.]

The free application lets you print photos wirelessly to any local networked HP Photosmart printer from an iPhone or iPod Touch. It is limited to 4" by 6" prints, and will automatically choose the appropriate tray if your printer has a dedicated photo paper slot`.

iPrint’s interface is simple. It lets you browse all of the installed photos on your iPhone. Selecting one displays a Print button, which sends the image directly to the printer when pressed. There aren’t any extra options, other than a “chooser” for multiple printers. I downloaded the program from the iTunes App Store, and, upon launch it instantly found the Photosmart C7280 on my network, and printed borderless photos without any hiccups.

All-in-all, a pretty slick implementation/proof of concept. And, while iPrint Photo is limited—at least for now—to photos, you can use the iPhone’s built-in screen capture feature in a pinch if you want to print a map, email or other iPhone data.

The Stylus Pro 4880, which is another great printer, is currently $1,808 at Amazon. With the rebate, it drops to $1,328, which is an amazing price for such an industrial-strength machine. (Our pal Duncan Davidson is testing our Stylus Pro 4800, and I think his first impressions have been pretty good.)

B&H and other online outlets also have the 3800 and 4800 at similarly low prices, in case Amazon isn’t your thing.

You can find the rebate info for all of Epson’s current promotions on their Pro printers at Epson.com (There are also rebates for the R1900, R2880 and other consumer-level printers, which can be found on this page.)

Just note that you have to submit your form within 30 days of purchase.

The 7900 and 9900, which have maximum print widths of 24 inches and 44 inches, respectively, use Epson’s new 10-color UltraChrome HDR inkset, which adds two new ink colors—orange and green—designed to give the printers the widest possible gamut available in inkjet printing today. According to the company, the new inkset, in conjunction with improved screening algorithms, will produce “greatly enhanced photographic print quality with exceptionally fine photographic blends.”

Both units incorporate a 10-channel micropiezo printhead with an ink-repelling coating (also found in the Stylus Photo R1900 and R2880) designed to reduce clogs and improve ink efficiency. The 10-channel head also lets you switch on the fly between matte and photo black inks.

Another first for Epson is the inclusion of an optional spectrophotometer from X-Rite, the SpectroProofer, designed to provide a streamlined color-management process for prepress and proofing situations.

The Epson Stylus Pro 7900 and 9900 will be available in November for $3,995 and $5,995 respectively. We hadn’t received pricing for the optional spectrophotometer at press time; we’ll pass that information along as we receive it.

Epson is billing the 7900 and 9900 printers as the ultimate inkjet printers for packaging, signage, and other commercial applications, as well as the top-of-the-line photographic printer on the market today. From the limited number of prints we’ve been able to see, we think that the company has once again taken a leap ahead of the competition in terms of print quality and performance. We’re hoping to get our hands on a unit to test: we’ll keep you posted.

The Z3200 is the successor to HP’s the Designjet Z3100 Photo Printer, which, when it first shipped late in 2006, was one of the most innovative photo printers we had seen in a long time. The Z3100 utilized 12 pigment-based inks (including a gloss optimizer) to produce high-quality, gallery-ready prints, but it was the printer’s embedded spectrophotometer (from X-Rite) and seamless integration with networked Macs and PCs that set it apart from competitors like Epson and Canon. HP spent considerable effort streamlining the process of printing: everything from unboxing the device to profiling and adding new paper types had been thought through by HP’s hardware and software engineers. The result was a printer that created top-quality prints and was a joy to use, day in and day out.

We’ve had a production version of the 24" PostScript model, the Z3200ps, for about three weeks, and have tested it fairly thoroughly with a variety of papers and applications. Overall, we’re very impressed with the printer’s performance: HP is obviously determined to keep the pressure on Epson—the market leader—in the pro photo space. As was the case with the Z3100, we think that the Z3200 should be looked at by anyone seriously evaluating a wide-format device to create salable prints.

Seeing Red

Not wanting to make too many changes in an already solid product, HP kept most of the Z3100’s feature set when designing the Z3200, keeping (for the most part) the 12-ink Vivera inkset, the same paper-handling options, spectrophotometer, and on-board OS. Most of the Z3200’s enhancements are inside the printer. In fact, aside from the nameplate on the front of the printer, you would be hard-pressed to find a cosmetic difference with the Z3100. The biggest change is in the ink: to expand the printer’s color gamut, HP has swapped out the red ink found in the Z3100, replacing it with a newly formulated red ink, called Chromatic Red. According to HP, this new ink significantly widens the printable gamut, producing much richer color that is more true to life.

For designers, the ink change is also important. With the Z3200ps, the model with Adobe PostScript 3 built-in, HP claims that it can reproduce nearly 95 percent of the Pantone color library, and the printer includes a number of features for dealing with Pantone spot colors in layouts, as well as a utility for creating Pantone swatch books directly from the printer’s front panel.

In our comparison testing, the Z3200’s output was very similar to that of the Z3100; the reds were definitely more pronounced with many images, although other prints showed little differentiation. This isn’t surprising; we are now in an age where the generational changes in print quality are truly incremental. Prints made with desktop inkjets are of such high quality that the average consumer is more than satisfied. Professionals, however, continue to look for even the smallest improvements that will realize their artistic vision, and changes like those in the Z3200 ink set are the things that they’re looking for.

To us, the ink change in the Z3200 mirrors Epson’s change to the Vivid Magenta and Vivid Light Magenta inks last year. As was the case with HP, Epson claimed that the two new inks increased the color gamut of their Stylus Pro printers, but they also admitted that many customers wouldn’t be able to detect the changes between the old inks. We’ve seen a number of test prints from the Stylus Pro 7880 that show similar sorts of improvements in color rendition and fidelity to those we’ve seen in the Z3200.

Other improvements

While HP hasn’t done much to the paper-handling features with the Z3200, they have made some small usability enhancements throughout. Loading cut sheet media is a bit easier than before, thanks to some adjustments to the feeder. (We do wish, however, that HP would add a paper guide for feeding sheets.) And, when creating paper profiles with the integrated spectrophotometer, among the parameters you can now set is the height of the ‘starwheels’ that hold the paper in place while the printhead is laying down ink. This is another intelligent solution to a problem that can come up when you’re using thick fine-art papers.

Speedwise, the Z3200 was significantly faster than its predecessor in our testing, showing more than 20 percent faster print speeds at times. For example, a 24" by 36" image took only 16 minutes to print on the Z3200, while the same image took more than 22 minutes on the Z3100. For high-production shops, this alone will help sell the Z3200.

The whole process of adding a new paper type to the Z3200 print driver is (thankfully) identical to that of the Z3100. You simply put the paper in the printer, and, via the HP Print Center utility, tell the device to print and scan calibration and profiling charts. Depending upon how much time you want to wait for paper drying times, you can be up and printing with your new paper in as little as 30 minutes (we generally dry our papers overnight and profile them the following day). In the Z3200, HP has added the capability to export paper presets, which include hardware settings, profiles, gloss enhancer settings and more.

HP is also announcing new media types with the Z3200, including a fiber-based paper called HP Baryte Satin Art Paper, and two lower-priced photo papers, HP Everyday Pigment Gloss and Everyday Pigment Semigloss. The Baryte paper is especially nice, and initially will be available only in roll format. (It reminded us of Canon’s Polished Rag—another of our favorite fiber papers—in feel and weight.)

How will it play?

As we’ve indicated, the Designjet Z3200 is more of an incremental upgrade than a ground-breaking new model, but that’s not a bad thing. HP is playing the game the way that it needs to be played. With Epson’s well-deserved hegemony at the top of the pro-printer market, HP has to continue to innovate and make substantive changes to be perceived as a true competitor, and we think that the Z3200 does just that. We know that some photographers felt that the Z3100 wasn’t as good in the reds as Epson’s comparable printers, and the Chromatic Red should go quite a ways towards alleviating those complaints.

The Z3200 has some strong attributes that should appeal to the pro photographer, but its best attribute is its print quality, which—for both color and black and white images—rival those made by Epson’s Stylus Pro wide format printers. When you add the advanced paper-profiling and usability features, the Z3200 becomes a very compelling printer for this key market segment.

While we think HP has the goods, they still need to execute, and, in the U.S. at least, it’s been a tough road for them. In addition to Epson’s well-earned reputation for products, they are firmly entrenched in the professional photo retail channel, and have a much greater mindshare among professional photographers and artists than HP and Canon combined.

In the coming months, we expect that Epson will make a U.S. announcement of the Stylus Pro x900 series, which include the Vivid Magenta inks, a 9-channel printhead that eliminates the matte- and photo-black ink swapping, printhead improvements and—like HP—an optional spectrophotometer. Given Epson’s position in the market, we have high expectations for those models, and HP needs to use any lead time it has to push the Z3200 hard in the market, and make sure that there is ample support in the channel.

As we repeatedly say, competition and change is a very good thing, especially at the high end of the market. As print quality becomes less and less the differentiator between products, other factors— usability, price, ink efficiency, and so on—enter into the equation, which help drive innovation. And, as innovation sticks, key features move on down the line to the consumer space, where an even greater group benefits.

The Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer will ship in October, priced at $3,395 for a 24" model ($4,695 with Adobe PostScript 3) and $5,595 for a 44" model ($6,795 with PostScript).

The new printers, which are priced at $300 (Artisan 800) and $200 (700), are six-color inkjets (with individual ink tanks) using Epson’s Claria dye-based inks. Other features include:

• dual paper trays, one for paper up to 8.5" by 14", the other for 4" by 6" and 5" by 7" photo paper;
• integrated tray for printing on optical media (printable CDs and DVDs);
• built-in card readers for most popular formats (CompactFlash, SD, xD-PictureCard, Memory Stick);
• significant PC-free printing features, including photo restoration, customized photo layouts, photo notepaper, and school project items;
• scanning to computer, memory card or USB-based flash drive.

The Artisan 700’s scanner has a maximum hardware scan resolution of 2400 dpi, while the Artisan 800 has a maximum hardware scan resolution of 4800 dpi. The 800 also includes fax capabilities and a 30-sheet document feeder.

We’ve tested and used Epson’s previous photo all-in-ones, the RX595 and RX680, and have been generally impressed. The Claria inkset, which is also used in the Stylus Photo 1400, is very good, and it offers excellent print longevity, according to Wilhelm Research’s data (click the links for reports on the RX595, RX680 and 1400). The addition of WiFi and Ethernet is a good one, and is necessary at these higher price points. HP has done especially well with the Photosmart C7280, and it’s been clear that Epson has needed to beef up its all-in-one offerings. One area where we’ll be very interested to see how well Epson does is in the wireless computer-printer connection; HP’s software is quite good, and it’s relatively painless to remotely scan documents directly to multiple PCs on a network from the C7280.

Both devices will work with Mac OS X (10.3.9 and higher) and Microsoft Windows XP and Vista and come with a two-year limited warranty. They’re slated to ship in September.

Ink cartridge size (a hot topic these days) is quite large — 350ml and 750ml — and Epson claims that the 7900 and 9900 offer significant speed improvements over the existing Epson wide format devices.

Also notable in the new printers is an optional built-in spectrophotometer from X-Rite, called the Epson SpectroProofer, which provides “automatic color measurement data to the printer, allowing user profiling and linearization, enabling professional color management while at the same time reducing labor costs.”

The Stylus Pro 7900 and 9900 are expected to ship this spring in Europe and Australia, although pricing was not announced. Epson America representatives stressed that this announcement was made by Epson Europe, although we would assume that ultimately the new printers and inks would reach the U.S. and Canada at some point not long after they ship elsewhere.

[Source: Print21, an online publication produced by the Australian trade association, Printing Industries.]