Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, C D Tobie <CDTobie@...> wrote:
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> ...... besides, these printers may have far fewer color channels than the latest greatest big three printers; which would be fine for grayscale printing, but it won't impress color printers much.

Possibly, but it would limit options by today's standards which allow more user control from more available positions. But you could say a straightforward but high performance single hue printer would fall in that description.

But things do keep evolving. I'm right now looking at some tests of a custom blended K7 MPS set on the latest photo surfaces- HPR Baryta, Silver Rag, Canson Platine Fibre Rag, Cone Type 5, etc.. with a second pass GO, and I'd say the bar has been raised once again. This took all 8 slots of a little 1900. If I had more, I'd probably find a way to use them for more on the fly hue variation without resolution compromise.
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> So, to make it clear; such a printer would probably not be the latest generation, or quite the latest speed, but far better than a 7000. It would have enough channels for multiple gray inks, but fewer than the newest machines. It would not be chipped, hobbled, or limited in terms of what ink it could take. But it would cost more than the typical new printers (as its not an ink subsidy model printer), and it would require a RIP and special calibration/profiling to print...

Yeah, but with the caveat that if you give me more ink slots I'll certainly use them

> The question is: would the people who have been buying older printers (that can use third party ink) for low prices really move to a model of buying extra expensive printers with only moderate specs, in order to get a device that was freely, legally, capable of running third party ink?

I think many would, because their initial decision was not based on the fact that it was older/cheaper, but that it did what they needed and a newer model made that more difficult or impossible.

> Thats the million dollar question; because unless the company involved is guaranteed sales worth millions of dollars, there is no way its worth it for them to pursue such a project...

and that's the problem, if it's from a company that demands a huge market with that kind of volume, rather than a smaller scale niche (with probably an expensive product), I just don't see it happening, it's a mismatch.
But if a big company considered prestige in the community an overall bankable endevour, then making the best B&W prints ever with a simple rework of an existing product would certainly contribute to a leadership role in photographic evolution. I know, I know, so old school. Edwin Land woulda done it.
Tyler