Up to a point tri-ink printing was enough for most users. But not photographers are starting to want better quality and more vivid prints. This is why most photo enthusiasts won’t settle for anything less than the light shades that are only offered by printers that come with light cyan and magenta inks. In an attempt to suit their customers’ needs perfectly most manufacturers have switched to offering six-ink printing.

As a result Epson introduced the Stylus Photo P50 that features six individual ink cartridges, high quality photo printing and a reasonable purchase price. The design of these Epson photo printers is nice and they will easily blend in any type of home be it more modern or traditional. For extra convenience the printer ships with Epson’s Easy Photo Print software that provides easy optimization for photos (including red-eye removal). With the help of this printer you’ll also be able to personalize CD/DVDs by printing directly on them.

You’ll find the CD/DVD tray right on the front side of the printer. Still on the front you will find a flap that folds out to provide an output tray while the input tray can be discovered right on top of the P50. The P50 doesn’t offer any top of the line exciting features or any other functionality except for printing. While there are plenty of all-in-ones on the market that provide high quality photo printing, standalone printers still do a good job and are preferred by some users.

But the problem with the P50 is that it doesn’t even offer better photo features. It doesn’t come with memory card slots, there’s no PictBridge compatibility or even a LCD screen. So when considering whether to buy this printer you’ll need to know that it limits you to printing only from your PC. Printing from memory cards as well as many digital cameras is completely out of the question. And even from the PC you’ll only be able to print through a USB connection as there are absolutely no networking features, wireless or wired.

Like many other Epson photo printers, the P50 also uses a piezo-electric print head and plug-in cartridges, but compared to some older models it offers six inks (magenta, cyan, yellow, black, light magenta, light cyan).  While the two light inks are supposed to be for enhancement purposes and provide more quality to prints, apparently they are very heavily used and some of the Epson Stylus Photo P50’s owners may discover that they run out much faster than their non-light counterparts.

Printing speed is satisfactory. In draft mode you’ll achieve about 25 pages per minute while if you want better quality prints you’ll slowly go down to speeds of around 8 pages per minute or less. When it comes to photo printing, a print will keep you waiting for a much longer time. Speed varies based on size and quality but expect times between 30-40 seconds and over four minutes for a photograph to print out.