Epson Stylus Photo R1900 Review

#1 al Reiner

Good review I got the 1900 this week and agree with all that was said. I upgraded from the r-380 and no comparison at all. I use Paper from Red River out of Texas and have had no problems with their profiles.
Printers ink dries rapidly, only problem has been in border less printing . With current $100 rebate from Epson camera cost me $ 449

4:51 pm - Monday, April 14, 2008

#2 Brandon Smith

Your review does not mention that roll paper operations are lousy at best. The quality of the print is excellent, but the printer controls for rewinding the roll back don't work -- at least not the way the manual says they are supposed to. Instead you end up pushing the entire roll through the printer and having to re-roll it by hand.

I thought I saw somewhere 3d party drivers that corrected this, but I can't find anything about it now.

9:29 pm - Tuesday, September 16, 2008

#3 RICH PETOCZ

Thanks for the great detail and coverage in this review. Hunting for a new photo printer is incredibly intimidating. I presently own the Epson RX500. It did a great job for the last 5, (yes 5), years. I bypassed the ink pad overflow error 3 or 4 times and now it’s time to move up to a bigger paper and I’ve been reading and studying for the last 6 months. Your interview put me over the top. I’m primarily a ‘color man’ myself, (photo-artist), and I just want to let folks like yourself to know that your reviews and the extra mile you put in on them is what makes you all the real ‘hero’s’ of consumers! Thanks again.
Rich Petocz

5:38 pm - Friday, April 10, 2009

#4 James Copeland

I bought this printer (r19000) IN April 2008 to replace an Epson 1280 that had been a fine printer for about 5 years. This printer prints some of the most beautiful photos I have seen.
In January of 2009 it would not recognize one of the cartridges and a call to tech support got me a replacement unit under warranty.
Today (7/8/09) it has several of the nozzles on the orange cartridge plugged and after cleaning the nozzles 5 times, changing about 6 ink cartridges (cleaning takes a lot of ink) and 45 minutes on the phone with a tech support, I was told that they would sell me a refurbished unit for $350.00.
The original price was T9.99 and I think that is a little much for a printer that lasts less than a year.
Buy something else.

10:11 pm - Wednesday, July 8, 2009

#5 Rich Petocz

Well, I've had this printer for over 7 months now and all I can say is that it is fantastic. I have had NO problems that were not related to something I did wrong. I strongly reomend this printer and also strongly recomend that you follow the instuctions TO THE LETTER. No short cuts or second guessing the book. Especially when printing on canvas rolls. Great Printer at a Great price. This is why Epson is the industry standard when it comes to top of the line inks and inkjet photo printers.

3:24 am - Monday, November 30, 2009

#6 cartucho r4i

I have had this printer for a week now and all I can say is WOW! I was concerned after I read the reviews here but decided to buy anyway because of past experience with Epson, and I am so happy I did.

9:30 am - Thursday, December 17, 2009

#7 Rich Petocz

Hi cartucho, as I said in my most recent review, be sure to follow the instructions to the letter and I'd like to give you this free tip on printing with rolls. The options that you get when you click on the drop-down list for type of feed got me the first time I used it. I made the mistake of assuming that "manual-roll" was the same as "manual" when feeding single sheets in the printer. It's a long story, but if you have single sheets that you plan to use in the large feeder, always select the "Manual" mode as opposed to the "Manual-Roll". The printer's response is different from one to the other. The other tip is for everyone who is using canvas. I had much more success if I cut my sheets from the roll and then fed them in as individual sheets in "manual". But the trick to getting the printer to accept the sheet is to place a 12mil piece of paper together with the sheet of canvas. I think the extra support that the 12mil paper supply's is what helps the printer to accept the canvas sheets. Try it if you have to re-feed and re-feed your canvas.

2:24 am - Friday, December 18, 2009

#8 Yulia Vizel

I'm an illustrator looking to print my work on art paper. I'm a newbie to this so please bear with me. I have few questions regarding Epson Stylus Photo R1900 and would really appreciate any help.
1. Does Epson Stylus Photo R1900 compatible with PC?
2. Does it accept 300 gsm archival papers? (particularly Museo 100% cotton rag?)
3. Does print well on canvas (and does it takes rolls?)

Thank you in advance

1:29 pm - Sunday, August 29, 2010

#9 Rich Petocz

Hi Yulia, The answer to all 3 questions is a resounding yes. I have used Hahnemuhle, Moab, Inkpress, & Moab, (to name a few), papers and canvas's and some were over 400gsm. 300 to 380 gsm is an extremely common paper in my uses and I don't think I even have any less than 305 gsm in my stock of 8.5 x 11 and bigger papers. I regularly use 13 x 19 canvas papers, (most are 100% cotton), and I did a few Rolls with canvas as well. But I found that it was easier for me to overcome the 'slippage' that occurs when the canvas is initially fed in the 'Single sheet Manual and Roll' slots if I use a 13 x19 piece of Epson 10 mil as a backing sheet that I feed into the printer along with the canvas. This greatly increases the success rate I have with getting the paper to feed into position and for that reason; I buy canvas rolls but then precut them to 13x19 sheets. However the 10.mil backing method can be done with a roll as well. If you do it with a roll it is a little trickier because you have to wind that sheet on the roll first so that it feeds at the same moment the canvas lead feeds. Once the auto feed catches you'll be alright for the rest of the roll. There is 1 thing that will cause the auto feed to reject the paper over and over, and that is a leading edge that is not squarely cut to the side edges, (I strongly recommend a Rotary blade knife and a cutting matte)! Now don't get me wrong, I have had more successful feed starts with canvas when I used the backing sheet process but others may have not had as much trouble with feeding canvas as I have. As for the other papers, I have had no problem in roll or sheet fed methods. I get my Epson ink from antonline.com where I have always found it for the least expensive price, (never more than $10.00 and some change). I use the printer in a small photo touch up and printing business including printing my own work for sale. But it is definitely not a business that requires fast printing or high production needs. If it were, I would probably go to the Epson 17" printers like the 4880 or something in that area. Lastly, (I realize this answer is probably more than you may have needed but I believe in being thorough), I is important to follow the directions on how to operate the printer to the letter. In one instance, (when I first got the printer), I placed a roll of canvas in the printer, fed it in to the proper slot and had it ready to print. In the printers dialog window one of the options you must set is the kind of feed you'll be using. The drop down list gives you 4 choices as follows; Sheet, Roll, Manual-roll, and CD/DVD. I picked "manual-roll" and then spent a great amount of time trying to get the printer to successfully begin its printing. Each time it failed I would assume that it was not squarely set in place, (that's something is most common when your printing doesn't start and is rejected). It was a quite while before I realized that "manual-roll" was not the same as "Roll" and that I should have had it set to "Roll" whenever I was using a roll and set to "manual-roll" ONLY when I was feeding the paper through the manual feeder one sheet at a time. Epson does not point that distinction out very well and frankly, I have no idea as to why they named the single sheet feed method "manual-roll" instead of "manual-sheet"! Just watch your settings. Sometimes, when I'm in a hurry, it does get a little aggravating when I have to repeatedly re-feed my canvas sheet into the feeder. But fortunately, it doesn't happen so often now that I use that 10 mil backing sheet. I still love this printer and challenge anyone to find a printer that produces this kind of top quality print for under $500.00 or $600.00! This is still a great printer in my book.

4:14 pm - Sunday, August 29, 2010

#10 E. Walter Worcester

Hello,

Is there anyway to turn the gloss optimizer off? We are running through these cartridges at a high frequency of prints.

Thanks, EW

10:31 pm - Friday, January 21, 2011

#11 Phillip Christie

I have never really been satisfied with this printer. i thought I was buying a great printer as it was the only one advertised at the photo show. It always seems to darken all of my photos .i have had to adjust my colour lightness setting to 20 when printing on all papers. I have calibrated my monitor without software but with windows 7 calibration software. Could someone give me advise that would help my frustrations go away.I don't like throwing away expensive photo paper. I usually use Ultra Premium luster paper from Epson

3:29 pm - Thursday, April 28, 2011

#12 Rich Petocz

Hi,
You don't mention what photo software you're using and I'm assuming you have Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit, (at least the windows 7 64bit part). I've been working in the fine art photography area for over 10 or 12 years and I can tell you that almost everyone will say to set your paper profiles with the photo software having that control. I never got what I wanted successfully doing that.

I set All my profiles with the printer having the control. So that said, if you have just about any version of Photoshop, open your pic in that version. Then when you're ready to print, click "print" in the file drop-down list. A user control panel will open and you will first be sure you choose the R1900 as the printer you want.

Then you'll see a box that you can pick who handles the profiles. Click t hat and in the drop down list click "Printer Manages Color". Below that box there's another box that says "Rendering Intent", you pick "Perceptual".

Then click the "Page Setup" button and that will open the Epson user control. make sure you're in the "Advanced Tab". In Color Management section click the "ICM" on. Then In the following boxes you should make sure the 'OFF (no color adj' is NOT clicked, then ICM Mode = Driver ICM Basic, Input Profile = Adobe RGB (1998), Intent = Perceptual, and Printer profile = The paper profile that you have chosen.

I should mention that FIRST and just after you click the "ICM" button in Color Management section, that you click "Show All Profiles". Then proceed with the instructions I gave.

Now at this point, if you haven't yet downloaded Epson's Paper Profile pack or the paper profiles of the paper company you are using, you need to do that. How to do that is beyond the scope of this reply but Epson should explain it. If not, just start goggling 'paper profiles and how to load them in your printer.

Also, Epson has some good papers in their higher end stuff, but I would recommend Moab, (fairly good prices), or Hahnemuhle, (High price but Top of the line stuff), which is what I use. If you're printing a picture you plan to frame, then you really only should use Matt papers. Any Luster, gloss or semi-gloss will give double reflections when behind glass and make the photo hard to see.

Lastly, I need to warn you that there is a lot of science on printing and it can take years to master. Be sure to set your R1900 back to its original settings before you do anything I've written.

If the ink is running or pooling, call Epson. Don't get in something like that on your own. I've been printing with the R1900 since I got it a few years ago and all my printers are or have been Epson's.

I do a lot of Canvas and use many heavy 100% cotton papers, (Hahnemuhle Rag), as well as transparencies. It is a really good printer but always use the Epson H2 Ultra ink. It's very consistent and has high specs. I get the best price from Antonline.
Good luck

1:51 pm - Friday, April 29, 2011

#13 Miles

Great machine fabulous printout but where can I buy genuine inks for this machine lowest price dont want to pay tax&shipping; too?

4:05 pm - Saturday, June 25, 2011

#14 Rich Petocz

Hi Miles, I use only the original Epson Ultrachromes for this printer. I don't know for sure, but I do think there are several 'off brand' inks for the R1900 out there though.

For the best prices I have ever found to date I go to Antonline.com. I usually pay about $10.00 to $12.80 per cartridge, (it varies as much as .50 cents sometimes), but be careful how you run your search within that website.

KNOW NOW that Antonline.com carries every Epson cartridge for the R1900 but if you don't specifically type the cartridge number in their search engine, it will bring you to a place where there will be a list of different website selling that ink at different prices and ALWAYS for more than Antonline charges.

I don't know why that happens and I forget what I actually type to trigger it but I can assure you that you should not be paying more than $13.00 and small change for any of those cartridges if you buy them from the Antonline website themselves.

4:54 pm - Saturday, June 25, 2011

#15 Treiber

Thank you for the preparation of this paper are! Sincerely

5:34 am - Monday, October 24, 2011

#16 Rich Petocz

What do you mean?:

"Thank you for the preparation of this paper are! Sincerely"

12:49 pm - Monday, October 24, 2011