Digital BW, The Print

I have been printing with an Epson 870, printing BW in grayscale mostly to
glossy paper and have been satisfied with the most aspects of the process
except, of course, its not neutral Black & White.  It mostly goes green.
After following this group and talking to others, I purchased a new
old-stock 860 and ordered Lyson QB (neutral) carts from inkjetgoodies (who
have been very helpful).   Though Lyson suggested cleaning carts even with a
new printer, Greg at InkjetGoodies felt is was ok to just go with the Lyson
carts.   I did so.

The printing is horrible.  It is much, much too light.  After talking to
Greg, it was clear the color nozzles were clogged and the test patterns
confirmed this.   I ran 2 purge sheet tests through, then about 6 cleaning
cycles and turned it off for 8 hours.   Initially the purge sheet didn't
even show the 2 middle bars and the 3rd bar of the color cart was badly
banded horizontally.   Now it the test pattern is perfect and the purge test
pattern is even, though I still feel it is too light.   And the ink looks
more magenta/blue or a purple then black.

I set a monitor profile to match the light printing.   This forces me in
PHotoshop to really change the levels to what is obviously not correct -
large incursion into the black especially.   But this prints much closer to
what I see on the screen the the print quality is now getting in the
ballpark.   But it would be impossible to use this monitor profile as
everything is much too bright, its hard to look at the screen.

I have done tests on Epson photo paper, usually at 720 for the tests.   I
normally print on Epson Premium Glossy.   I've been printing from grayscale
files in PS 5.5; Color Controls on but no adjustments, space: grayscale,
pcm: on or off (doesn't seem to matter with grayscale).

I also tried converting the grayscale file, a BW scan using a Canon 2720,
to RGB and printing with space:rgb and space:grayscale with pcm: on
and off for each.  Didn't help.

Rick Schiller
www.rickschiller.com