Digital Camera: The Epson Stylus Photo RX620

Reviews

Epson Stylus Photo RX620

The conventional wisdom that all-in-one printer/scanners always entail unacceptable compromises is about to fall flat on its face. Epson has taken the best engines from its top consumer photo printers and semi-pro scanners and produced the best AIO machine weāve ever seen. The RX620ās ($299 MSRP) unique film negative/transparency scanning features and computerless image correction technology put this device in a class by itself.

I happen to be very familiar with the Epson Stylus Photo R300 printer and Epson Perfection 2450 Photo scanner. I use these two machines almost daily and have done so for many months. Turns out, the core printing and scanning engines from these devices are the soul of the new RX620, making it easy to compare against known performance. What pleases me most about the RX620 is that is does for me exactly what an AIO is supposed to do: it replaces two machines with one ö and the 28-pound RX620 is only 13.6 x 21 x 20 inches. Best of all, there is exactly zero compromise forced on me for this convenience. As a maker of magazines, Iām extremely picky about my peripherals, yet this box does it all and looks good doing it. Scanning resolution is a respectable 2400x4800 with 48-bits per pixel for exquisite color accuracy and depth of reproduction. The included scanning software offers all the control a serious user could ask for, yet can be operating in ćhomeä mode with one-button simplicity. Itās a TWAIN device, so scanning straight into Photoshop or other compatible image editors is straightforward.

Your home photo lab
Epson went all out to create a machine that does just about everything for which a 21st century photographer would need a photo lab. You can of course scan in your old photographs and the scanner plate lifts off to reveal a holder for 35mm transparencies and common film negative strips. Once you scan them in, you use the built-in 2.5-inch color LCD to preview them, apply image restoration processes, and resize them to standard photo dimensions for printing. Needs a sheet of wallet-size prints? Done. A borderless 8x10 enlargement? Childās play. Four-up prints? Piece of cake. All these minor miracles happen booting up your Mac or PC. And the printed results are simply stunning.

You can also scan directly to your cameraās flash media card. Under a smoked plastic door, the machine has a card reader for CompactFlash Type I/II/Microdrive, SD/MultiMedia Card, xD Picture Card, Memory Stick/Memory Stick Pro, and Memory Stick Duo cards. You can of course pop in your card and print directly from it, or use it as a card reader to copy images to your Mac or PC. Concerned about backups of your precious photos? Use the front-mounted USB 2.0 port to copy your card files or scanned treasures directly to a USB thumb drive, CD-R burner, or Zip 100/250 drive thatās connected directly to this port. Brilliant.

Additional thoughtful features abound. You can pop in a card full of freshly shot images, thenpress a button to make the RX620 print a proofsheet with bubbles next to each picture. You then fill in these bubbles with a pen or pencil, indicating which you want to print and, along the bottom of the sheet, in what size and on what paper type. Place your marked-up sheet into the scanner platen, press another button or two, and load up the paper tray with the photo paper youāve chosen. The marked photos begin printing automatically.

You can skip this step entirely by connecting your PictBridge-compatible digicam directly to the RX620ās USB port. Use your cameraās DPOF (digital print order format) settings to make the shots you want to print and let Īer rip.

Playing office
Like most AIO machines, the RX620 also functions as a color copier. Drop in the document you want to copy, choose color or black/white, and youāre done. And it goes without saying that an RX620 makes a fine everyday document printer using ordinary plain paper. Compared to other brands, its per-print consumable cost is reasonable and competitive. All the inkjet companies overcharge for their ink cartridges and there isnāt much you can do about it. Non-photographers may wish to compromise their print quality and longevity by using non-OEM inks, but for those of us who care about our photos, buying your inks from the maker of your printer is the only choice. To a lesser extent, this applies to photo paper, as there are a number of very high quality special purpose art papers out there from reliable vendors who do their homework. That said, I generally recommend sticking to the printer-branded papers for maximum compatibility.

Compared to other all-in-one devices, the RX620 is not the fastest around the track, resting comfortably mid-pace. But considering all the amazingly cool things this remarkable machine can do for you, big deal. Itās worth waiting a few more seconds to get prints like these.

I donāt usually get worked up over a mere printer or scanner and never expected to be so excited about an all-in-one, but the Epson RX620 has made a believer of me.

Epson Stylus Photo RX620
Price: $299.00
www.epson.com

öDavid MacNeill

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