Digital BW, The Print

>[snip] Thanks for your responses, Sam and Martin. My next question 
>is why I read so
>much about piezo inks and rarely hear mention of the Lyson quad black inks.
>I ended up trying them because they are much less expensive and don't
>require software - so it was just easy! And as I said I think the prints are
>beautiful. So, is there something I should know about these inks that would
>sway me towards the piezotones? Thanks.
>
>Lynne Siler
>http://www.lynnesiler.com

Jerry's and Bruce's comments give me pause. But I haven't recently 
heard anything else about Lysonic-E quad tones that might push you 
away from them and toward PiezoTones.

I used to hear it said that Lysonic inks clogged a lot. But I now 
think that those "clogs" were air bubbles caused by people trying, 
unsuccessfully, to re-fill cartridges so they could buy Lysonic-E in 
bulk and therefore less expensively. That's not to say that you can't 
learn to re-fill successfully; some subscribers to this list do it so 
they can test a variety of ink sets.

Photoshop wasn't among the software you were trying to avoid was it? 
Nearly all quad tone options involve Photoshop "plugin" software. But 
not necessarily printer "driver" software other than the drivers 
Epson provides. The Piezo driver, incidentally, was just unbundled, 
so it's now less expensive to use it.

You gave your URL this time. I looked at the images on your web page, 
concentrating on the ones not in color. And I was struck by the 
variety in tone among the other images. I don't think you could print 
them all with any one quad tone inkset other than either Lyson's 
Small Gamut (SG) or one of InkSupply.com's "Variable Mix" (VM) 
inksets, probably Sepia-Neutral. But I do think you might be able to 
print them all with Epson's new 2200 printer.

I hear it's neither easy nor inexpensive to change from or to a 
Lysonic-E inkset. That seems like an argument for sitting tight with 
the Lysonic-E you like until you can get a good feel for the 2200. 
I'd look at hard since you're interested both in color and in B&W in 
a variety of tones. Conceivably, the 2200 might do it all well.

I have the impression that a lot of us are wondering whether to have 
two 1270s/1280s/1290s or hope instead to be able to use just one 
2200. It seems to me an unusually complicated question. But if I had 
a good thing going with B&W on a 1270 I thought would last a while, 
I'd be tempted to get another, or a 1280, to use for color until the 
2200's successor comes along in a year or two. It's maybe a little 
off topic, but I wish someone had elaborated a few such models for 
the list to mull over.

Sam McCandless                      samcc@...