Digital BW, The Print

Hello, ? (You forgot to give your name.)

To start with your last question: I'm on a few Yahoo lists and don't 
get spammed much. What little I do get is about half from 
"subscribers" abusing the lists (and who apparently joined for the 
purpose) and, as best I can tell, about half from poor cookie 
management or some other lapse on my part. Whatever, to reduce it 
further I think I'd have to change my e-mail address frequently.

I don't know for which printer Piezo (BW I guess) used to cost $900, 
but the new and well-received PiezoTones are, I believe, less 
expensive across the board. So is what I think is the functional 
equivalent of the PiezoBW stuff from DigitalArtSupplies.com as 
Sundance inks and R9 plug in (with profiles?). I think InkJetMall.com 
would make a Piezo print for you to consider. I'd look at the new 
PiezoTones rather than the PiezoBW inks.

Another third-party place you didn't mention is MIS Associates at 
InkSupply.com. They have several quadtone inksets. From visiting your 
web site, I think you ought to look hard at their relatively new 
Variable Mix (VM) Sepia-Neutral (or just "Sepia") inks, which is what 
I use to re-print old photos. By varying the mix, you can have the 
prints range from neutral to sepia. Actually the mix is varied by 
Photoshop according to which "curve" you load. Curves are provided, 
but you can adjust them or roll your own. And you might have to in 
order to get exactly what you want.

As for Luminous, Lyson, and Canon, I don't think Canon is promising 
for your purposes, I believe Luminous is Lyson re-branded, and I 
think Lyson's Small Gamut (SG) inkset is probably the most 
appropriate Lyson inkset for the sample of your images I saw on your 
web site. But I'm not sure it's long-lived enough for you to sell 
comfortably.

Wilhelm has been testing Lyson's SG; you might wait for him to finish 
while experimenting with MIS's Sepia(-Neutral). I'd consider printing 
the for-sale prints on Crane's Museo (which InkSupply.com also 
sells). But I'd proof on Epson Archival Matte (EAM), which is 
becoming Epson Enhanced Matte (EEM), which is conveniently and 
inexpensively available at Atlex.com. If you like your images on it, 
I think you'll love them on Museo, which is acid-free (EAM/EEM isn't) 
and also optical-brightner free.

The 2000 I don't know much about. But I think it does better at color 
prints. And I'd consider selling it to someone who prints color and 
getting a 1280 to use, once you decide which inks to print with, with 
a NoMoreCarts.com Continuous Ink Supply (CIS), which MediaStreet.com 
sells as "Niagra". I use an 1160. But for at least for some of your 
small prints, I think the 1280 would be better, and besides the 1160 
is now discontinued. Epson's about-to-be-released 2200 is another 
possibility, but it's an unknown quantity, and I expect it will be 
relatively expensive to use for lack of a CIS to go with it, at least 
for some time.

The CIS has to be installed but it's so easy to do that it shouldn't 
cost much to get that done for you. But I wouldn't. I'm not "handy" 
but found it easy and learned a few things I'm glad to know.

It's not a wild goose chase. It is a project. But if it's a thrill to 
see the prints come out of your printer, as it is for me, then it's 
worth it.

Sam McCandless                     samcc@...


>Hi, I'm a newbie here. Found this site as a result of my frustration
>with getting decent ouput from Inkjet printers from grayscale
>files.
>
>I'm involved in the restoration of about 400 medium (actually  an
>odd size) scans of glass plate negatives taken in the middle
>east circa 1927 (see www.epicvisions.org).
>
>For our smaller output we purchased an Epson 2000p. As you
>can imagine, the results (to put it mildly) suck. The tonal quality
>is awful unless you set the printer to black ink only, but then there
>is an unacceptable pattern overlaid on the image. Epson claims
>to not support printing photos with black ink only.  I have tried
>tweaking just about every setting imaginable, and nothing is of
>the quality I would sell.  The only decent images I get are when I
>convert to duotone and then print with the photo-enhance Sepia
>setting -- but then I am unable to tweak that setting to get the
>precise toning I'm looking for.
>
>Yes, I know about Piezo, but I'm not ready to spend another $900
>on some technology I have to install myself (I am not very goo
>with stuff like that) and have not see any results from live.
>
>What I am trying to find, and can't seem to is a printer with decent
>output which can use *unmodified* some sort of third party
>grayscale or sepia ink set (such as from Luminos, Lyson, or
>someone else I haven't heard of yet). That new Canon 9000
>looks great, but I haven't seen any ink sets available for it.
>
>Am I on a wild goose chase here?  Can someone point me in
>the right direction........
>
>By the way. I was hesitant to join this group because every other
>time I've joined a Yahoo group resulted in a ton of SPAM.  Any
>clues on how to avoid this?