Digital still cameras account for one of the fastest, if not the fastest, growing segment of the IT industries, accounting for by one research group, for 38% annual growth at last count. Most adopters will cite the convenience of a digital camera over traditional film while it is generally agreed premium image quality still resides in the film domain.

With the convenience of the digital still images comes a means of outputting and by far the most popular method is with desktop inkjet printers. Now anyone perusing the store shelves for inkjet will vouch for the multiple brands all with colour capabilities and the ability to accommodate special media for best results. But how many actually make the grade when it comes to photographic quality output? Very few, and consumers and manufacturers alike are increasingly conscious of it, hence the inkjet photo category of printers which eschew the normal general duties that most $200 to $500 inkjets are subject to, and specialise in photographic output.

Epson has two current specialist photo printers and the model which takes care of the lower end is the $399 Stylus Photo 810. Like the other Stylus Photo-series printers this model boasts CcMmYK ink tanks or six colour printing, the normal CMYK four colour process supplemented by Light Cyan and Light Magenta tanks for smoother graded tones.

Comparing it to the Stylus Photo 890 which was previously seen in the Labs (May 2001, page 66) is a tough call. The guts of the machines are the same with some important modifications. Chief of these is Epsons Print Image Matching system. PIM seeks to standardise digital still camera output. In the never ending search for what you see being what you get people noticed the disparity between the captured image and the way it was represented on paper.

PIM enabled on both the printer and camera will bring these closer together. So far a number of major camera manufacturers have subscribed to the Epson initiative partnering Epson in this vision, but none of the fruits of this union have appeared on these shores so far.

Nevertheless the results seen with the non-PIM test images were extremely high quality. The colour target print on premium Epson glossy photo paper was generally excellent. Colour offset and registration was faultless and only the slightest banding was visible. It was only in some fine detail that the old bugbear seen in the Stylus Photo 890 of hard to distinguish fine lines in dark backgrounds appeared.

The controls for the printer itself are quite modest. Only three buttons adorn the printer and for the most part you will never need to use them. The modern practice of putting most functionality and control into the printer driver has passed by the Stylus Photo 810 although it has enough in the way of features and tweaks in the driver to handle most situations.

Paper feed is through a straight gravity-fed path and there were no hiccups in the way the 810 handled print runs with snagged paper. The only complaint on this score is the capacity. Epson rate it 100 sheets of plain A4 but I dispute that as five times the comfortable limit.

Though the 810 is specifically targeted at the digital photography market it will still do all the office productivity tasks expected of a general purpose inkjet although the ink levels on the printer seemed to rapidly deplete when printing in volume on the normal quality setting. Draft printing a 12 page PowerPoint presentation posed a 4 minute 49 second wait in colour, and a straight text document of the same length took 2 minutes 13 seconds on the parallel port interface. It also runs like a banshee compared to the HP PhotoSmart P1100 (reviewed January 2000, page 95).

Readers interested in dabbling in a photo printer will warm to the Stylus Photo 810. It represents uncompromising quality for photographic output on premium papers my favourite quality-for-money proposition is with premium 360dpi inkjet paper, not the glossy photo stock which gives superb results but is a rip-off but keep in mind the other high-end options like the Epson Stylus Photo 895 model.

David Lin