Digital BW, The Print

I realize that my post on this subject right now is little 
tangential (and totaly useless to the person having the problem) but 
I thought I'd relate a recent experience as a warning in the "if it 
ain't broke don't fix it" category. I recently did some more testing 
on Pictorico OTF film to try some digital negs; my results were 
promising, but under the lupe the texture was very gritty. I did a 
color alignment check, and sure enough, the little gray patches 
looked quite gritty, even though prints on normal paper looked 
perfectly fine. I set out to 'improve' the texture of the gray 
patches. After about three cycles of alignment the patches looked 
good. A nozzle test looked perfect. A B&W test print looked awfull, 
with random gaps and ptaches in the print. I switched back to Epson 
inks, and got severe and consistent microbanding even though every 
nozzle test was perfect. And the bi-directional printing was so far 
of you could see a very distinct double image which got even more 
severe when I tried to fix it. I was never able to 'back out'of the 
adjustments I'd made; in the end I solved my problem by cashing in 
my Compuserve extended warranty and replacing the printer. Stupid 
waste, it was only 2 months old and working perfectly well!

Regards,

Steve.

http://www.stevekphoto.com