EPSON unveils new large format printing solutions

The new seven colour, inkjet printers include features ideal for large format portrait and commercial photography, proofing, display and fine art printing.

The new EPSON UltraChrome ink in the STYLUS PRO 7600 and STYLUS PRO 9600 combines the features of dye and pigment ink resulting in vibrant and vivid colour output, together with longevity of between 45 and 75 years (dependent on media type). The STYLUS PRO 7600 and 9600 Series have been designed to improve overall productivity, offer high standards of colour printing, and the creation of warm and cool black and white prints with improved tones.

Three types of black ink have been specifically developed to meet the varying needs and flexibility required by the Photo and Fine Art markets. Photo black is designed to achieve high gloss levels on photographic media. Matte black will optimise print quality on plain, matte and fine art media. Light black offers improved gradation in light greyscale areas, enhancing the black and white capabilities further. A grey balancer option allows users to calibrate the grey ink to suit their display conditions, ensuring prints can be fine-tuned to meet individual needs.

Three ink combinations have been created to ensure that output can be finely tuned for maximum results and allowing the user to have complete control of the output. The customer can easily switch between black inks. Each cartridge uses EPSON's Intellidge chip to store print data and allows each cartridge to be replaced and re-inserted as required.

Fine Artists and Professional Photographers will benefit from the low cost of printing on the STYLUS PRO 7600 and 9600, by being able to sell their art at a premium price. The new printers also have the added benefits of being easy to use and offering borderless prints. To provide the ultimate output and to offer choice and flexibility for photography and fine art usage, EPSON also provide a large range of speciality media - which includes media with weights in excess of 400g/m2.

For the proofing market the new STYLUS PRO 7600 and 9600 offer the ease of use, quality and speed to enable printers and repro-houses to output proofs on demand at a fraction of the cost of traditional Cromalin(R) output.

There will be wide RIP support from third parties at launch, including the new Fiery Spark Professional, designed to run on a Microsoft Windows platform. Optional software packages for the STYLUS PRO 7600 and 9600 include ZehPlot for HP-GL and HP-GL/2 CAD file formats. The EPSON Copy Factory Version 2.0 is an easy to use application to assist with scanning and create enlarged images for large format printing. The EPSON PageProofer Version 1.1 allows different images to be tiled together and printed onto one page, whilst retaining the colour attributes of each image.

Khalil El Dalu, EPSON Middle East General Manager, says "The EPSON STYLUS PRO 7600 and 9600 provide the best solution for the photography, proofing, print for pay and fine art markets. Inbuilt flexibility and new EPSON technologies mean that users can adapt the output to suit their preferences. These new breakthrough products will further increase EPSON's reputation as the printer of choice for the professional photography, fine art and graphics markets."