Digital BW, The Print

Jim,

You asked:

>... is this limited to certain printers with Piezo driver? Would
>results be equally impressive with 7000, 1280, 1160, and are ink
>versions even available for both 4 and 6 ink printers?

The Piezo system uses the same inks for the 4 and 6 ink printers.  So, the
FS inks work with any Piezo system.

The quad printers -- 1160 and 3000 -- can also print FS inks with the Epson
driver, using RGB Photoshop image adjustment curves.  I actually prefer the
Epson driver with my 3000 for a variety of reasons, but I understand why
some prefer the Piezo driver.

As of now, there is no Epson driver workflow for FS or Piezo inks that works
with hextone printers.  The use of the same density inks in the magenta and
light/photo magenta (likewise cyan/photo cyan) positions makes it impossible
to get acceptable results from the Epson driver in hextone printers.  I'm
not sure there is enough demand for anyone to bother with making light/photo
FS inks and the curves for the hextone printers.

If ColorByte and/or others support the MIS VM inks for the hextones, there
would be no advantage to the Piezo approach over the VM approach.

Frankly, I think a monotone hextone is a waste of printer capacity.  With a
hextone, one can make a variable-tone RIP that uses both the cool and sepia
toners.  I'll help anyone do this, and there may now be two groups pursuing
the approach.  On a hextone, you can go both ways with no dots at all and no
crossovers.

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com