Epson SureColor SC-P600
Epson’s top of the range A3+ printer for photographers.
Epson’s SureColor SC-P600 is designed for both enthusiast and pro photographers looking for a high-end home printing solution to produce up to A3+ (329x483mm) prints.
The SC-P600 uses Epson’s premium UltraChrome HD inks, and packs in nine cartridges.
The Epson SureColor SC-P600 is all about print quality, and outputs at a resolution of 5,760dpi. If you want, it can rattle out a large A3+ in about two minutes and 30 seconds, although if you want to use fine-art media and want the best possible quality, you can expect that print time to double.
In addition to A3 paper, a range of smaller sizes are supported. There’s also the option to print professionalquality labels directly onto inkjet-printable CDs/DVDs (if that’s still a thing), while the SC-P600 is also supplied with roll holders for panoramic printing; these attach to the rear of the printer, and will accommodate paper up to 13 inches in width.
If you want to keep wires to a minimum and have your printer positioned away from your computer then you’ll appreciate the SureColor SC-P600’s Wi-Fi connectivity. This also means Epson’s iPrint app (for iOS and Android tablets and smartphones) is supported.
While the SC-P600 has the ability to be used as a standalone unit – that is, without a PC – we opted to install the drivers and software with the intention of printing images through Photoshop. This is easy thanks to the on-screen instructions, while we chose to wirelessly connect to the printer, which also proved incredibly simple to do.
Populating the cartridge bay with the nine inks is also easy enough, with each cartridge requiring gentle pressure to snap it into position. There’s no chance of fitting cartridges incorrectly or in the wrong position, since each colour has a unique moulding.
Each cartridge contains just under 26ml of ink, which is a decent amount, while the smallest ink droplet size is just 2pl, which promises to produce smooth gradients.
We used Epson’s own premium satin Traditional Photo Paper, with colour handling set to Printer Manages Colours. Should you wish to use third-party media, there are a host of options within Photoshop that will enable you to use custom profiles for your prints.
The results were very impressive, with colour prints exhibiting vibrant colours and beautiful detail, and subtle colour graduations rendered smoothly with no visible banding. The Epson profiles with the paper used are also very accurate, which meant we didn’t have to manually intervene to adjust the image before printing.
If you’re planning on doing a lot of black-and- white printing you’ll really appreciate the SC-P600’s four black inks. Depending on whether you’re using gloss or matte media, the printer will use photo black or matte black, alongside light black and light light black; this avoids those slight colour casts that can ruin black-and-white images from lesser printers, and our test results proved to be beautifully neutral and contained plenty of shadow and highlight detail. The Epson SureColor SC-P600 is a brilliant printer for the enthusiast or professional photographer. It’s well made and easy to use, and you’ll be impressed by the quality of the prints it’s capable of producing.