Epson R285 review, sorry it took so long.

Epson R285

My first impressions were good. Setting the R285 up was easy and aesthetically it looks pretty neat sitting on my desk. USB and power cable are both in well thought out places within easy reach. The printer isn’t small but compared to it’s equivalents from HP and Canon it’s no larger. Installing the software on my Mac was again easy and as usual you get several programs that aren’t really relevant to my needs so I didn’t bother installing them. I did however go for Epson’s CD printing software to try which I’ll come back to later. Setting up the inks (a good six ink system of black, cyan, magenta, yellow, light cyan and light magenta) and getting the paper feeder ready was a doddle so within a minute or so after installing the software I was ready to turn it on.

The power up routine on the R285 is quick but impressively loud for a small machine. The print head alignment is fast and within a minute the printer is ready to go. I started by doing a page of text. Using cheapo office paper and not altering any of the driver settings or print options it spat out a perfectly printed sheet in seconds. Bearing in mind this was the very first use, without any test pages run at all, I was really impressed. The text was full and well formed without any banding or other signs of the printer warming up. So far so good then.

The real testing began as I started doing some photos. I first used the little sample pack of Epson’s Premium Glossy included in the box. I print everything through either Photoshop CS3 or Lightroom and am used to using ICC profiles but I decided firstly to test the printer’s own driver. I used the print dialog box to select the paper type and let the printer manage the colours. I have a couple of my pictures I always use for testing and I stuck with these throughout the entire process.

I firstly did a colour test and it worked well. Using Epson’s own ink and paper should in theory allow someone to avoid ICC profiles altogether and this colour print seemed to back that up. The colours were accurate and the tonal range was reasonable. The six ink system seemed to be working well and was producing better results than I was expecting. Another point to Epson.

The black and white was the opposite however. I used the same settings and the same paper and got what I can best describe as a black smudge in 4 by 5 proportions. There were simply no midtones and most of the larger areas of black were blocked into a goopy mess. Not exactly what I was looking for. I do a lot of work in black and white and these results were nowhere near good enough.

I then moved onto the specific greyscale mode in the driver used to manage the colours. I ran the same paper and settings through except this time told the printer to use a greyscale and the results were definitely improved. There was much more detail in the blacks and the midtones came back into play. In fairness I’ve never been a fan of glossy black and white prints so I wasn’t going to rule anything out just yet.

So then I moved on to different paper types. It was here I noticed something annoying about the printer driver. Epson obviously hadn’t expected people to try a variety of their own papers with this printer as the paper options bundled within the driver are really limited. I had bought some Archival Matte paper to try and this wasn’t specifically supported in the driver. Annoying as it’s not exactly a luxury paper. After looking through the paper types I found a matte option so decided to go with that. It worked ok but nothing special. There was definitely something off about the colours and the fact that Epson didn’t support its own paper was bugging me. My natural preference for matte b+w’s was justified here as the greyscale option using this paper was by far the best so far. The tonal range was the broadest and the blocking had almost gone.

Not having any other paper types within the driver to try I moved on to some Brilliant paper. I use the glossy and lustre versions a lot normally, especially for proofing, so I was eager to see how the 285 treated them. At this stage I would usually be using my ICC profile and making sure Photoshop was managing the colours but Brilliant hasn’t made a profile for this printer. I see their point in that most people who use this printer won’t be using profiles but if anyone from Brilliant is reading this please have a go at doing it. This left me to figure out a combination within the Epson driver that would get decent results.

After fiddling around and few test prints later I managed to get some pretty passable results. The black and whites are still lacking on quality but the colour options were working well. The lustre is my stock proofing paper and it was again providing the best results. I guess it’ll will be a matter of tweaking the settings a little more and finding the best combination. Printers of this calibre aren’t really catered for by the paper companies and there will never be the range of profiles available to use. You could of course make your own specific profile but if you’re only using this for proofing work then it hardly seems worth it.

At this point the black ink had run out so a change was needed. The ink replacement system is clever: Opening the lid and pressing the ink button on the front of the printer moves the ink carriage along aligning the empty ink cartridge with an arrow built into the chassis. I really liked this system. It would have been easier of course with just a simple light above the relevant ink cartridge but this way it adds to its industrial feel. There is also less to go wrong which suits me fine.

So, onto the main reason for buying this printer; the CD printing. I’ve heard nothing but good things about it from other togs I’ve asked so I was looking forward to seeing what it can do. I’ve got a template in Photoshop for creating a CD label which I started with. Just using sRGB as the colour setting and telling the printer that it’ll be using the CD cassette I was ready to load and print. To load the CD cassette you have to take the paper guide out and put it back in a different slot just above the original one. Then the cassette slides in above and all you have to do is line up the two white arrows. All very simple and easy.

The prints were done again much quicker than I was expecting and the quality was excellent. The reputation that preceded the 285 seemed justified. The only issue I had was a slight misalignment issue because of my document size in Photoshop. This is an inevitability as every printer has a slightly different document size interpretation and when trying to do printing this precise there will always be a noticeable problem. This can be adjusted of course and my second print was spot on.

I then wanted to try Epson’s own printing software. A fairly simple type interface calibrated to a CD sized template is everything you need to get a label done in the right place. There are a few options to change the size, font etc but I couldn’t work out if there’s a way to import my logo jpeg onto it to use. This is crucial for me so any of the client based DVD’s I’ll need to print can’t be done through this which is a shame. A few more minutes of looking through the not too straightforward menu system however revealed a lot more depth to this little program. A background layering tool made superimposing text on a correctly aligned background image really simple. Quick results and the CD print quality is great. Certainly good enough for me. I have now ditched my adobe based template and am using Epson’s PrintCD every time I make a disc.



Conclusions: I have never been the biggest fan of Epson printers in general. They are thirsty machines and with the price of ink these days that is definitely not a good thing. The little R285 did endear itself to me though I have to admit. The fact that is noisier than some building sites gave a surprisingly industrial quality which for a £50 printer is not normal. The colour prints on the Epson media are good enough for proofs and the driver can manage all the in-house products well. The tonal range is decent unless you’re doing black and white work where the printer falls down a little. It’s a big ask of a printer of this grade to handle a deep b+w and despite doing it’s best the R285 can’t quite manage it. CD printing is easy and Epson provide a great program to use to do so. Quality wise it’s the best CD printer I’ve used yet.

Nice little machine which has earned a very solid place on my desk.