Life with Epson Stylus Photo 2200 Printer

About this Page...

Instead, this page is meant to summarize my experience with using Epson 2200 printer: how to resolve some common problems, what profiles and papers work fine, etc. I hope that some of that can be helpful to other users of this printer...

I will be adding more information as my experience with the printer grows and time permits...

Installing on Windows XP with USB 2.0

Original version of Windows XP came with support for USB 1.1 but not for USB 2.0. If you - like me - bought a USB 2.0 card before Service Pack 1 (SP1) came out, then you had to install custom OEM (non-Microsoft) drivers to have the card work on pre-SP1 Windows XP. The USB 2.0 standard was finalized in mid-2002 and some of early drivers appear to have some troubles with modern USB 2.0 equipment like, for example, Epson Stylus Photo 2200. Interestingly, Epson Perfection 2450 Photo scanner connected to USB 2.0 works fine with OEM drivers (at least on my computer ;-).

The Symptoms

On my computer, installation of Epson printer software seemed to go fine, but then I had serious problems with printing or using Epson Printer Status Monitor. I was able to make 1-3 prints and that's it - I had to reboot. After one, two, or three successful prints, new print jobs were added to the print queue and would just sit there for ever (that is, until reboot). What's even worse, when I switched the printer off while the computer was running, I was always getting the "screen of death" - the Windows XP would totally crash. I used XP for a half a year now and never before experience such crash (it was a common thing in days of Windows 95/98, but not so for me with XP). There were other problems, too. Sometimes when getting printing properties or printing from Photoshop I would have to wait long minutes to get a print dialog box, Epson Status Monitor would sometimes work fine, but sometimes would not be able to show the ink usage, or would even froze on me. As an intermediate remedy, uninstalling Epson Status Monitor helped to relieve some of the problems, especially related to long waits.

The Fix (at least on my computer ;-)

Windows XP Service Pack 1 comes with Microsoft drivers for USB 2.0. When you install the Service Pack, you will get the drivers copied to your computer. However, if you had other, non-Microsoft USB 2.0 drivers already installed, the Microsoft drivers will not override the OEM ones. That means that you have to do it manually yourself. Fortunately, this is not a very complex task.

If you have problems with USB 2.0 with Windows XP, please check my page on upgrading USB drivers - it contains details how to do it.

Details on upgrading to Microsoft USB 2.0 drivers that came with Windows XP Service Pack 1

After I installed the new drivers as described in the page linked above, all my problems with Epson 2200 went away (and Epson 2450 keeps working fine, too).

Epson and non-Epson Papers for 2200

Epson Papers

Warning Before You Use non-Epson Papers

One of the most important features of Epson 2200 is the archival quality of prints. However, Epson and Wilhelm Research test durability of prints but on Epson papers only, so the stability of inks on non-Epson papers in not really known. Some papers are sold as "archival," but this usally means that paper is acid-free. Such papers should have better durability than non-archival papers, but this is only half of the story. The other, unknown half is how stable is the Epson ink on such non-Epson paper. Modern papers are much more than just a plain sheet of thicker paper: they have complex structure and/or coating. Therefore, even if the paper itseelf is "archival," the ink bound to the paper's structure and coating may or may not result in a stable combination.

Therefore, until some independent lab like Wilhelm Research conducts tests with non-Epson papers, we will not know the full story. For that reason, I would advise you to avoid non-Epson papers when long-term color stability is required. However, there are cases when the durability is not that important. For example, if you are preparing prints for a show or exhibition, or even for your portfolio, it is nice to have a larger choice of papers.

Pictorico Papers

Photo Gallery Hi-Gloss White Film

Legion Paper - to be tested soon...

Legion Paper is distributed in US by Bogen. According to the manufacturer, the following papers are archival, pH-neutral and work with both pigmented and dye-based printers.

Lumijet Preservation Series - to be tested soon...

Lumijet makes a large selection of papers and inks. Their Preservation series is specially designed for archival prints made with pigmented inks.

Profiles for Epson 2200

There is a number of profiles available for the Epson 2200 printer. Here is a brief summary of what I found so far.

In the past, consumer-quality printers used to vary a lot and a profile created for one would not always work best on another. However, Epson 2200 printer seems to be manufactured with finer quality controls imposed, resulting in smaller differences from printer to printer. You can read more about it on the Lepp Photo site - they have a number of Epson 2200 printers and profiles created for one of them produce on the rest photos that cannot be distinguished. This is really good news. Let's hope it continues to be this way... However, if you own a printer profiler software/hardware, please check the license agreement before you share with others any profiles created with your profiler!

Which profiles are best? Well it - as always - depends... If you have a good profiler yourself and it is doing good job, you may want to stay with it. After all, this profiler used your printer to generate the profiles... But if you don't have a profiler and you are not satisfied with Epson-supplied profiles, or your custom profiles don't do good job with this printer, you may want to try some of available profiles - maybe some of them will work great for you!

Of course, you can always disable profile conversion when printing in your favorite photo editing software and then select one of options in the Epson Print Driver - if that works up to your expectations, then fine...

Epson Profiles

Epson profiles that come bundled with the printer software are actually quite good ones. I was surprised that I was able to get quite good results using Epson profiles.

There are two kinds of profiles provided by Epson: internal and paper ones. Forget about the internal profiles - there is no use for them in Photoshop (all other photo-editing software). These are used internally by the Epson print driver.

The other set of profiles are the ones you should be interested in. For some reason, they are not installed on your machine if you don't install Epson PIM utility. However, they are located on the CD and can be easily found in the following folder:

<your CD/DVD drive>:\Titles\PIM\color\

To install the profiles, simply select all the profile files, right-mouse-click on them and select "Install" option from the menu. This will copy the files to the proper directory on your system and register them in the system. (Doing copy by hand works for Photoshop as well, but I am not sure what else the system does when you install them - it is possible some other applications might not find the profiles if you simply copy them. Any way, doing "Install" from the right-mouse button menu is simpler then doing copy by hand... ;-)

Popular Photography Profiles

The Popular Photography site also provides custom profiles, including some for Epson 2200. Here is the link to the page with profiles:

http://www.popularphotography.com/HowTo/ArticleDisplay.asp?ArticleID=174

Warning: Before Using Custom Profiles...

Before you start using a custom profile, make sure you know all the details of how this profile was created. Here are some details that you need to know to successfully print with any custom-created profile:

• Paper used (obvious, right ;-),
• Black ink used (obvious, right? ;-),
• Resolution specified in the print driver, especially Photo vs Super Photo (Epson profiles that came with the printer do not distinguish between different resolutions, but when creating custom profiles, it is better to have one for each resolution to obtain better results, as mixing of ink drops can differ from resolution to resolution),
• Rendering intent (profile conversion method) - Relative Colorimetric? Perceptual? - and Black Point Compensation used in Photoshop "Print with Preview" dialog (most profiles should work with any of the 4 conversion methods, but that might depend on software used to create the profiles),
• Any other print driver setting used when the profile was created (normally, all other settings should be "zero" or "default").

If you find the profiles you really like, save the custom settings for the profile in Epson Print Driver window so you can recall them quickly.

Also, please remember that you should select correct profile in Photoshop (or your favorite image editing software) when printing (use "Print with Preview" in Photoshop), and then select "No Color Adjustment" option in Epson Print Driver window.

Related Links

• Norman Koren's page on printing (including Epson 2200)
• Luminous Landscape - detailed review on Epson 2200
• Photo-i interactive review of Epson 2200
• Digital Focus - review of Epson 2200
• Popular Photography site - has custom profiles for Epson 2200.
• Details on upgrading to Microsoft USB 2.0 drivers that came with Windows XP Service Pack 1
• Microsoft Support Knowledge Base article on USB 2.0 in Windows XP Service Pack 1.