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Having used several 1290’s and an Epson Stylus Photo 900 A4 version the other main gripes with these printers are colour balance and cartridge life. Although the 1290 has a good set of controls in the driver and overall it’s capable of great results, it has a strong tendancy to give a magenta cast to some images. Rather like some reversal films which try to give you images of a world slightly rosier and brighter than the real one, so the 1290 overdoes the magentas at times and can be hard to correct. The 1290 uses Epson’s T007 black and T009 photo colour cartridges, which, with the T008 are used by many Epson Photo printers, and the good news is that even official Epson ink for these printers is now very reasonably priced, so don’t even think of using cheap inks - it’s not worth the clogged heads. the bad news though, as with all Epson printers, is that when the chip on the ink cartridge says it’s empty the printer stops. Even if you’re printing text and it’s the colour that’s run out, there is no over ride. If you haven’t got a spare cart handy you’re stuffed. This situation is even more annoying when you learn that the ink cartridges are set to read empty when there is actually about 30% left. Canon and HP printers can be made to keep going even if a tank reads empty, and in my experience they always give you a few more prints, before anything really does run out. Epson’s reasoning here is that continuing until any colour really does run out, will damage the print head, which with most Epsons is fatal. In reality you can fight back - read my page about :
getting more for your money from Epson ink cartridges.
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