geodesiq@... wrote:
I have decades of experience with darkroom printing but none with digital. I want to learn the complete workflow. Most of what I've found online is dated and incomplete. My goal is to print high quality warm tone matte B&W with my Epson Photo 1400 while getting the best bang for the buck. What's the best way to get up to speed on the subject?
The 1400 I'm familiar with uses dye inks, with no gray inks. So, you start off with the problem that the best B&W uses mostly carbon pigments (not dyes) and as little color as possible. As such, I'd recommend you find a good B&W, pigment based inkset. I used "Eboni-6" and variations of it for quiet a while with very good results. See http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/Eboni-6.pdf
If you want to stay with the OEM dyes, I did set up an OEM 1400, and the results looked quite good. See http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/1400-Claria-BW.pdf . Just don't expect carbon pigment or silver print longevity out of it. I tried working with dyes for a couple of years, but have backed away from them. The claims of longevity are doubtful. After only a few years I took a display print out if its frame and the "shadow" of the frame around the image was already visible -- not a good sign.
Jon Cone is Inkjetmall, not me. I've published much of what I've done over the years, and several of the inksets I've used, based on inks from MIS Associates (inksupply.com). I also have make and published the formula for a generic dilution base for MK pigments from MIS. MIxing your own is by far the least expensive. I'm not in the ink business, however. I just share what I've learned -- FWIW.
Carbon pigments, by themselves, are warm. A 100% carbon print is the most lightfast reasonably available to individual photographers. It may be that it'll be OK for you. For my tastes, it's too warm on inkjet paper. However, I'm looking at a 100% carbon pigment print on Arches watercolor paper now, and it looks neutral to me. Printing on Arches, however, is not the way to get into the field of inkjet printing and not recommended for most. Use good matte inkjet paper.
The EB-6 inkset (inksupply.com) seems to be best in terms of cost but customer support seems to be zero. Any help greatly appreciated.
The PDFs are basically what is there. Personally, I think you just have to dive in. If you use a system that has profiles for papers that work for you, start with that.
One problem you'll probably have is that the monitor image won't match the print. Today's monitors are very bright. If you know Photoshop, you can make a viewing layer for the image when doing final prep for printing. (Then remove the layer before printing.) There are also various ways to profile a monitor. Frankly, I use the "viewing layer" approach now because of the difficulty my latest setup has with custom ICCs.
If you're not familiar with Photoshop or other image editing software, that is going to be one of your first hurtles. Photoshop has a very long learning curve, but it's worth it. (I personally, never warmed up to Lightroom, but most starting out seem to go that route.)
Good luck. It's worth the work.
Paul