Digital BW, The Print

Folks,

I'm struggling here to get my B & W dedicated Epson 1400 (using Eboni 6 ink) to yield quality prints.

I've done the preliminary utility work, testing nozzles and alignment.
I'm getting  a near black, but can't get past the horizontal banding, nor  clean black. (I've scanned the Tiffen Gray Scale, and print that to evaluate)

Is there anyone near Berkeley (El Cerrito) who  would be available to run me through all the correct processes to arrive at a properly calibrated output? 

I'm also interested to know if printing from Photoshop is the best course.  My wife thinks she gets better images by importing the final file into a publishing program like Indesign or Pagemaker.

Any and all advice is welcome - I'm really wanting to complete this transition from the darkroom to the computer, but am finding the process very frustrating.

Michael Jhon