The Epson Stylus Photo 2100 was a landmark in the development of digital photography. The availability of a reasonably priced A3 printer using pigment inks meant photographers selling their work could guarantee that the prints would last. There were, and are downsides, but a desktop printer which could produce archival quality prints was a breakthrough. The 2100 wasn’t Epson’s first attempt at this - It’s predecessor the 2000P unfortunately gained a reputation as being hard to set up and it’s inks suffered badly from metamerism - changing colour depending on the light source.

 A perfect print under artificial light could turn out to be way off under daylight or vice versa. This problem still effects prints from the 2100 far more than any dye based inkjet I’ve used but once you’ve set it up properly using Photoshop and the ICC profiles supplied, results are excellent, provided you accept one thing - this a printer for matt photo paper. Prints on matt photo paper with the alternative Matt Black cartridge installed are fabulous. Even prints on satin paper using the Photo Black cartridge are OK but glossy prints? Forget it.

Before I bought my 2100 I kept asking Epson reps for a sample print on glossy paper - strangely enough they could never find one. When I bought the printer I found out why. After wasting lots of money and ink I gave in - This printer will make prints on glossy paper no problem and the lighter areas of the images will look fine, but any really dark or black areas will suffer from obvious chroming. Looked at dead straight on prints will look OK, but viewed even at a slight angle blacks have a weird metallic look. I tried every Epson 2100 compatible paper I could find, none of them cured it.

This is a really great inkjet photo printer - I’m sure the Epson Stylus Photo 2400 will be even better. I’m still waiting on a sample on glossy paper though. 

Epson Stylus Photo 2100 Recommended Photo Papers

Epson 2100 / 2200 user reviews at photographyreview.com