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Epson Ultrachrome

One of the main reasons for the success of the Epson Stylus Photo 2100 was it’s use of pigmented inks, giving a far better claimed life than prints made with dye inks. Epson claim a 75 year life for prints displayed behind glass and the first tests I made a couple of years ago when I bought my Epson 2100 certainly showed little signs of fading after 3 months in the sun. That meant this years test was only to provide some results for comparison with the other printer and ink combinations tested this year. For that reason i only tested a couple of types of paper. If you read my review of the Epson Stylus Photo 2100 printer itself, you’ll see that in my opinion it’s a great printer, only if you stick to matt paper. Glossy papers just don’t work well with the 2100 so there didn’t seem much point in testing them for fading.

All Tests - The bottom half is the fade test

Conclusions

Epson’s own Archival Matt paper results show virtually no change - which after three months in direct sunlight is a really excellent result. There are very small losses in saturation at the yellow/ orange / red end of the spectrum but blues and greens look unchanged. You have to look long and hard to find any signs of fading at all, and, importantly there is no swing in colour balance either. Interestingly the only other paper I tested with the Epson 2100 this year shows identical results - I’ve yet to find a paper that shows serious levels of fading with the Epson 2100.

There don’t appear to be any losers in terms of fading with the Epson Stylus Photo 2100 / 2200 - Overall results look unchanged after three months in the sun. This printer has other disadvantages - can’t print on glossy paper and metamerism in particular - but if you want your pictures to last this is a great photo printer.

Epson Stylus Photo 2100 Printer Review

© David Gold
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