Epson STYLUS PRO 4000 seven-colour professional printer with eight-channel print head .

April 2004

Sydney 14 April 2004: At nearly twice the speed of previous Epson STYLUS™ PRO Printers and packed with advanced features designed to meet the needs of today's professional photographers, graphic designers, commercial printers, pre-press houses, advertising agencies, architects and engineers, the newly released Epson STYLUS PRO 4000 is making a huge impact in the professional graphics market.

"We're confident the Epson STYLUS PRO 4000 will be the most popular and best selling STYLUS PRO printer yet," said Craig Heckenberg, Business Manager, Professional Graphics, for Epson Australia.

The STYLUS PRO 4000 uses Epson’s revolutionary seven-colour UltraChrome™ ink technology and features a new eight-channel print head that automatically switches between Matte Black and Photo Black inks for optimum print quality on a greater range of media surfaces.

Epson’s UltraChrome Ink technology uses seven individual colours (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Light Cyan, Light Magenta, Light Black and either Matte Black or Photo Black) to create an extremely wide colour gamut, significantly improving the printer’s grey balance, eliminating colour casts, and dramatically improving the mid-tones and highlights for smoother gradations and a greater tonal range.

The printer can also produce arresting black and white photographs with a wide range of tones using the lower density Light Black ink.

The UltraChrome Ink range is water resistant and has lightfastness ratings for colour images of more than 75 years, and greater than 100 years for black and white prints, on recommended Epson papers displayed under non-UV glass. When displayed under UV-protected glass, colour lightfastness is rated at more than 100 years for all Epson's leading professional papers. The quick drying nature of UltraChrome Ink also makes it possible to handle prints the moment they come off the printer.

For information on lightfastness criteria and results click here

With its new wider eight-channel print head, seven-colour UltraChrome Inks with built in Matte Black, and its versatile media handling options, the Epson STYLUS PRO 4000 creates exhibition-quality images up to A2 size.

To produce the highest level of image quality possible on a wide variety of media types, the STYLUS PRO 4000 has two black inks (Photo Black and Matte Black) that are automatically activated by the printer. The printer selects Photo Black ink whenever the user sets the printer driver for photographic media surfaces such as glossy, lustre, or semi-matte. All seven colours are used in conjunction with Photo Black ink, to produce a D-max rating as high as 2.1.

If the user selects a matte paper in the printer driver, such as any of Epson’s Fine Art paper collection, the printer switches to Matte Black ink. This ink type also uses all seven colours but uses a combination of Matte Black and Light Black inks to produce a D-max rating as high as 1.69. Epson is providing a set of professional-level RGB ICC profiles out of the box for accurate colour reproduction on a variety of these surfaces.

The STYLUS PRO 4000 is the first Epson desktop printer to incorporate large format media handling functions, with its unique large format A2 wide print engine design supporting roll, automatic cut sheet and manual cut sheet. It has a built-in automatic cut sheet paper tray with a capacity of up-to 250 sheets of plain paper, and accepts media up to 1.5mm thick.

Available media includes plain paper and genuine Epson papers, such as glossy, semi-gloss, lustre, matte photographic papers, fine art papers, commercial-grade proofing paper and more.

Cut sheet media can be fed automatically using the printer's high-speed cut sheet loading feature. Roll media users can take advantage of BorderFree™ printing, a feature that enables users to print over both left and right edges of the media while automatically cutting top and bottom edges for full-bleed prints on all four sides of the paper. A built-in cutter is included to trim prints faster and with greater accuracy and safety than manual techniques. User-adjustable roll media spindles can accept either five or eight cm (two or three inch) media cores.

The printer uses suction control for accurate paper feeding of virtually any media type.

The STYLUS PRO 4000 accepts either 110ml or 220ml cartridges, or a combination of both sizes. Each cartridge uses Epson's Intelligent Ink Cartridge technology that stores information (including ink levels, ink type, and usage rates for accurate production estimates) on a memory chip and communicates the data to the printer when the power is turned on. Users can even swap cartridges “on-the-fly” during mid print with no loss of image quality or production time.

The Epson STYLUS PRO 4000 is available now through authorised ProGraphics dealers, with a recommended price of $3,795 excluding GST. For full specifications on this and other Epson photo printers please refer to www.epson.com.au or call the Epson Customer Hotline: 1300 131 928.

Back Press Releases