Epson Announces Its First Print Image Matching Digital Camera

Business Wire, May 15, 2001

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

LONG BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 2001

Three Megapixel EPSON PhotoPC(R) 3100Z Has Easy-to-Use Print

Tools That Bridge Gap Between Digital Capture and Digital Output

Epson America Inc. is incorporating a breakthrough technology in its newest digital camera. The EPSON PhotoPC(R) 3100Z will be Epson's first digital camera to include the recently announced PRINT Image Matching(TM) technology.

This technology helps photographers easily produce the best possible prints of the images they capture by ensuring that digital cameras and printers work perfectly together to optimize and better match the input and output.

The EPSON PhotoPC 3100Z three megapixel digital camera is the successor to the award-winning PhotoPC 3000Z and offers several new and advanced features that make getting the best possible prints easier. In addition to PRINT Image Matching, this compact camera provides a convenient way to mark pictures for printing with a print button located on the back of the camera.

The camera also includes Epson's revolutionary HyPict(TM) image enhancement technology, which provides customers with 2544 x 1904 pixel resolution or 4.8 megapixels. This high-quality resolution, coupled with the camera's advanced features, make the PhotoPC 3100Z one of the most compelling digital cameras in the market today for under $800.

"Cameras that capture great images have been available for some time, but the EPSON PhotoPC 3100Z is breaking ground with features that make it easy and convenient for photographers to get great prints of the images they capture," said Lisa Graham, product manager, digital cameras, Epson. "With this camera's new and unique printing tools, incredible performance and quality, it is possible that customers will never use their traditional film cameras again."

Time-Saving Features of the PhotoPC 3100Z

A feature that is especially unique and new to the digital camera market is the print button on the back of the PhotoPC 3100Z. By taking advantage of the Digital Print Order Format (DPOF), the photographer can actually "mark" the images on the memory card by scrolling through the images on the camera's LCD panel. As photos are viewed, they can be selected for printing by pressing the button either once for a single print or multiple times for more than one print of the same image. Once images are marked for printing, the card can be placed in a printer that has a built-in memory card reader and reads DPOF files, such as the EPSON Stylus(R) Photo 785EPX. The printer will automatically detect the marked photos, and the selected images will be printed.

With the PhotoPC 3100Z's USB compatibility, images can be downloaded quickly and easily to any Macintosh or Windows compatible systems. When the USB cable is connected to the computer, the camera shows up as a drive on the computer. Images can be copied to the computer's hard drive quickly and easily. This new process saves time and eliminates the frustration previously associated with viewing and downloading digital images.

PRINT Image Matching

The PhotoPC 3100Z is the first of Epson's digital cameras to feature PRINT Image Matching technology, which ensures that the camera and a PRINT Image Matching-enabled printer work perfectly together to produce the best prints possible. Essentially, this new technology provides a built-in assurance for the photographer that the image he captures will come out of the printer looking the best it can without any complicated procedures. A new level of simplicity has emerged in producing stunning, frame-ready photos from a digital camera.

How PRINT Image Matching Works

With this technology, the PhotoPC 3100Z has preset critical image-specific parameters for printing, such as gamma level, color space, contrast, sharpness, brightness, saturation, shadow point, highlight point, and color balance to ensure optimum results. The camera saves the ideal print commands in each image data file. PRINT Image Matching-compatible printers, such as the EPSON Stylus Photo 785EPX, use this information automatically when printing the image to most accurately reproduce the image captured by the camera. In addition to the automatic PRINT Image Matching feature, the PhotoPC 3100Z customers have the ability to manually apply print adjustments for sharpness and brightness after an image is captured.

Resolution and Key Features

The PhotoPC 3100Z is perfect for digital photography enthusiasts as well as business professionals with its specialized, high-performance features. It is equipped with a 3.34 megapixel CCD sensor for resolution up to 2048 x 1536. With Epson's HyPict image enhancement technology, images are interpolated to 2544 x 1904 pixel resolution, or 4.8 megapixels, inside the camera before JPEG compression. This remarkable resolution allows photographers to print stunning images as large as 11" x 17".

As demonstrated in previous Epson PhotoPC models, HyPict technology offers a superior process when compared to other image enhancement technologies that interpolate data after compression. The HyPict process ensures that all of the original pixel information collected will be utilized to enhance the image and provide amazing results.