Digital BW, The Print

>> 2) In addition to the dots, the VM set displays what I can only call
>> "posterization": areas that, on the screen, show subtle variations in tone,
>> are rendered on paper as comparatively large patches of a single tone.

>What printer are you using again?

An 1160, same as yours.

>I think something must be off in your workflow. I have had times where I got
>this posterization in my prints, and I'm trying hard to remember what was
>the fix, but it was something in my workflow, like a proper driver setting.
>Try printing a 21 step grayscale. All your steps should separate distinctly.
>The system is capable of better results than you are getting! My VT system
>handles the "Piezo challenge" test and yours should too.

It's very possible that something is cockeyed in either software or
hardware. I printed using exactly the (very simple) workflow specified by
Paul Roark: convert from grayscale to RGB, load one of the VT curves, watch
the image go all red, then print in color at 1440 dpi. For what it's worth,
I have noticed the same partial posterizing and dots when printing
grayscale as color using the native Epson driver (without RGB conversion or
colorizing curves). I don't think there's anything functionally wrong with
the printer: nozzle checks are now perfect, and my alignment is within one
digit of standard. Maybe MIS got the inks mixed up? I was ultra-careful to
fill the right inks into the right cartridge chambers.

>But do double check everything with your MIS VT setup, and make sure you've
>got the latest curves for your printer.

How late is latest? And do my RGB settings make any difference? All the
color aspects of Photoshop and digital printing make my brain hurt, so I
just convert from grayscale to RGB without worrying about _which_
particular RGB.

Unless of course you just really
>like that gritty look.

Not gritty, but with grain as an element of the image: think of biting into
a not-quite-ripe pear...

Why did you go to the black-only approach over
>printing grayscale with all the color inks in the first place?

Because that's _really_ funny-looking: not just posterization, but the
presence of all that color (at the limit of perception, admittedly) in what
purports to be a B&W image, AND the prospect that each one of those colors
will fade and color-shift in different directions at different rates, gave
me an instant headache.

You mentioned Generations ink in passing: is it your experience that the
Generations black is visibly darker than the MIS black?

Best,

-- Nick

NICHOLAS HARTMANN                                +1 (414) 271-4890
611 N. Broadway, Suite 509                  fax: +1 (414) 271-4892
Milwaukee, WI 53202, USA                       polyglot@...

Technical and scientific translator:  German and French -> English