Digital BW, The Print

Some 1400's did a fair job of Black Only (BO) with Eboni.  I found it did a
better job than the 1800 with only one nozzle firing.  However, I did find
that it was usually not up to what I'd consider "fine art" quality.  The
dots or "graininess" of the 1.5 pl drops may be OK for some.  For me, I
find the highlights actually quite good, but the middle densities do show
more roughness than I like.

The print quality issue that I find most problematic is the microbanding.
 This does seem to vary a bit among printers and with other variables.  I
have seen some prints that are OK, others not.  The 3-MK approach was made,
initially for the 1800 but then ported to the 1400, to hide the
microbanding.

Note that the BO printing I did with the 1400 used QTR, not the Epson
driver.

At least with the paper types selected that I prefer to get a decent dmax,
the 1400 uses color inks to generate the light gray values.  This makes a
smooth print, but it suffers from a serious shadow color cross-over and
also from metamerism and color inconstancy.

With the OEM Claria color inks, the best B&W I was able to achieve uses QTR
and is half BO and half color.  See
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/1400-Claria-BW.pdf .  This is the 1400
version of "ABW" printing.  The color inks smooth out the BO and hide the
microbanding, and the black ink through the middle densities reduces the
color issues.  This approach is actually one that I use occasionally for my
gallery brochures when I have color in the 1400 for other reasons.  It
often does a better job than some of the approaches I've used for glossy
brochures that use only 2 MIS glossy inks (NC2, for example).

The OEM ink "half color" QTR profile that is in the Zip file linked to the
above PDF still falls short of what I'd call "fine art" quality. But,
particularly for those who want to see what a B&W print composed of a dye
image on metallic paper looks like, this is a good way to test the
approach. If you like the effect, moving to a full B&W inkset then takes
care of the quality issues that will arise with the OEM color inkset.

In my experience, if you want really good B&W from a 1400 or similar
printer, you must go to a dedicated B&W inkset.  Saving money is not the
main reason I use dedicated B&W inksets.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 6:05 AM, Paul <paulmwhiting@...> wrote:

> **
>
>
> Paul Roark experimented (if that's right word) with this when the 1400
> first came out. Perhaps he'll jump in here. I seem to recall the success of
> this technique varied somewhat with the particular 1400 being used, ie
> there was some variance from one 1400 to another.
>
>


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