All of my prints are produced on an Epson 2200 inkjet printer, which produces very high quality archival prints. Sometimes you may hear the term "giclee" bandied about. It has come to mean just about any fine art quality inkjet print, and though I do not often use that term for my own prints, the 2200 is certainly capable of delivering that level of quality. Epson papers and inks are rated for an estimated life of 75-90 years or more, depending on whose tests you look at.

All color printers have to be set up properly so that the colors print true and match the colors displayed on the monitor.

I am going to discuss my techniques for printing here, in the hope that it might be of some use to others who are using this printer. I have no special hardware or software that I used for color matching. Instead, I did it the poor man's way - by trial and error. My way of doing things is by no means the only way, but it is what has worked for me.

My Setup

I use Adobe Photoshop for all my printing, as well as for creating digital pieces. Regardless of whether the piece starts off as a digital image or is done in a more traditional way and then scanned, the printing techniques are the same.

I have a Mac dual G4/800 and of course the above mentioned Epson Stylus Photo 2200. I have the printer connected via the FireWire/1394 port, though I could also use the USB port. I do not imagine the method of connection would have much impact on the output, but I am mentioning it for the sake of completeness.

I normally boot my Mac in OS9 for printing since the OSX drivers for the Epson have some limitations that as yet have not been corrected. Also, Photoshop 7 seems more stable in OS9, which is odd considering that OSX is a much better OS. It might just be my computer.