I took the plunge and upgraded to 10.6.2. Unfortunately, this OS doesn't see the Epson driver for my trusty SP1280 and it wants me to use the Gutenprint driver (which, BTW, I updated to version 5.2.4). Unfortunately, that driver has some serious flaws:
1. Epson Print Utility doesn't work. Gutenprint has a script that can be used for running nozzle checks, cleaning nozzles and aligning the heads but it can't tell me which ink (black vs. color) is running low and the physical printer simply tells me that an unspecified color is low.
2. I can't turn off the ability to have the printer manage colors, which I need to do when printing from Photoshop.
3. The choices of paper are only for various sizes, not specifically Epson papers.
4. There may be other things missing, but I haven't found them yet.
I have done the following:
1. From advice at Epson's Snow Leopard FAQ page, I downloaded the 10.4 driver, installed it, and then downloaded and installed the Common Updater. Both came from
this page. Snow Leopard doesn't see that driver at all when I try to add it to the printer list.
2. Uninstalled old Gutenprint drivers before installing version 5.2.4.
3. Re-applied the Combo 10.6.2 Update.
4. Went to the Snow Leopard DVD, Optional Installs, and installed all printer drivers.
5. Imported the SP1280 plugin from my Leopard hard drive.
6. Downloaded and installed Apple's Epson Printer Driver update for Snow Leopard.
Despite everything, I can't get Snow Leopard to see the Epson driver. BTW, the version of Epson Utility that worked in Leopard is not working in Snow Leopard.
Fortunately, I'm smart enough to keep one drive dedicated to Leopard so that I can run the utilities and print photos. I will email Epson about this but I thought that I would post the problem here, in case they can't solve it. They'll probably tell me to buy a new printer. That isn't a bad idea but I wasn't planning on it yet.