Epson SureColor P600 review

I am a huge fan of printed photos. Even in our over digital age I feel my work isn’t complete until printed. There is something about the feel of paper that brings out magic. After almost a year of research, I finally settled on the Epson P600. It was released October of 2014 and updated with Epson’s newest inks. It takes fine art papers up to 13×19 and also has a roll feeder. All and all I couldn’t go wrong.

First, setup was dead simple, even for a Mac user. Though the drivers are not on the CD included, Mac users must download them from the Epson website. But it’s simple. One word of caution when setting up on a Mac – Don’t use Apple Secure AirPrint or AirPrint. You will not get all of the printer options. Make sure you choose Epson’s own driver!  Once this was complete, I followed the instructions to insert the ink cartridges. These snap in and make sure you hear the snap. Once this is done the printer will initialize for the first time. This process takes about 10 minutes to get the inks flowing through the tubes. I setup the printer on my wifi which went flawlessly. My only disappointment is the printer requires the 2.4GHz network. After that and the printer initialized, it was print time. My first try I got a paper jam. This was cleared by opening the top and applying even pressure to release the paper without ripping it. I had a odd time trying to clear the error from my print queue. I had to remove the printer from my computer and re-add it to clear the error. Weird. But it did the trick.

There are three different ways to insert paper. The auto-feeder, the front loading media tray, and the roll feeder in the back. I’m using the front loading media tray since I’m going to be using fine art papers. The paper is a little hard to load at first. The trick is to hold the paper up a little and slide back until the sheet lines up with the paper size designation. The really cool thing about this printer is it teaches you how to load the paper on the front LCD screen. I thought that was pretty neat.

Once the paper was loaded I fired up Lightroom and setup my first print. I was testing the Canson Infinity papers. I choose my paper size and made sure that the chosen media type was the same on the printer and in the print dialogue. I am using the ICC profiles that were provided by Canson. I also took the the time to setup a custom print template for myself in Lightroom, that way I can quickly and easily choose my settings again. Once everything was set I hit the print button. A few minutes later a gorgeous 13×19 print was produced.

I keep my screens calibrated to help achieve the best possible print output. I am really impressed by the print quality. I’ve been impressed with all the prints I’ve made so far. The inks are vivid and the color representation is spot on. I’m still using the Canson Infinity papers for my prints but will be moving on to the Hahnemule Papers for my next batch. I am also excited to be trying out sample packs from Moab and Red River.

This is a great printer for the money and I think it offers great options to start printing at home. This printer fits well into any office or studio space. It’s addicting to print with! This will make it easier to make prints for shows and sales. I’m really having fun with this printer!

Pros

• Easy Setup
• Versatility of media types
• Teaches you how to load media on the LCD screen
• Printing is super fun
• Integrates with Lightroom and makes it easy to print from there

Cons

• Comes in a huge box
• Uses 2.4GHz network
• Had to remove from print queue and re-add to clear error from queue at first
• It take up to 10 minutes for first initialization to load the inks