I was active in this group ten years ago. (Time flies, eh?) I ended up selling my Epson 7600 and returning to the darkroom.
I just got my first digital camera, and thought I should revisit printing -- a lot happens in ten years, right? So much, that I'm not sure how to make up for lost time. I visited B+H last week. The salesman said that the Canon Pro series were much less prone to clogging than the Epsons.
I don't mean to clog the group with lots of traffic about basic questions. But if someone would be kind enough to take the time to catch me up, (offlist is fine, I'm at sanders@...) I would be grateful. I'm looking for basic guidance into whether the Canon machines are worth considering, and whether the new printers and OEM inksets are good enough to avoid RIPs and third-party inksets, and whether any of the dye-based inks are worth considering for B+W printmaking. A bigger printer would be nicer, but for a reintroduction to the medium a top-quality 8x10 printer would be fine for now.
Many thanks in advance to anyone who chooses to burn the time on a new oldtimer.
Regards,
Sanders McNew
Message
Re: [Digital BW] Returning member needs the straight dope
2014-02-04 by Paul Roark
I don't see many posts here regarding Canon printers. I believe Joe at http://www.bowhaus.com/index.php4 uses them.
The links near the top of my B&W info page tells you what I'm doing. See http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/
With respect to longevity of the inks, http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/ is the fountainhead of information. Carbon is still king (see the Eboni MK in the Epson R1800 on Premier Art and sprayed for a benchmark of what is possible).
As to dyes, the Epson Claria dyes (Noritsu for bulk purchases), particularly on metallic paper, are visually impressive. When sprayed their longevity is acceptable for many uses.
The bulk of the market now is, of course, the OEM "k3" approach, and I've seen some very good work with those. I think the HP Z3200 PK and grays are the best neutralized carbon pigments.
As far as I can tell, at least in the MIS/Inksupply.com world, the Eboni inks and the generic base for DIY ink mixers (see http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/Ink-mixing.pdf) are the only B&W products that are doing very well.
Paul
On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 10:32 PM, Sanders <sanders@...> wrote: