Digital BW, The Print

My "real" b/w inkjet experience began some months back when I 
traded my Epson Photo 1200 for someone else's Epson 1160 to 
get "serious" (more or less, anyway) about printing (while buying 
a refurb Epson Photo 1270 from the Epson Store to take over the 
color work), and the first quadtone ink set I bought was from 
Luminos, which, I was tipped off about by someone later on, was 
simply rebadged (and seriously marked-up) Lyson ink. My 
experience with Lyson Quad Black Neutral has mostly been 
good; except for two clogging episodes (I was perhaps a bit 
overzealous in not using a cleaning cart set after receiving the 
1160), I've been getting quite good results, mostly on EAM (using 
both Luminos' curves and Lyson's "just print it straight RGB and 
Wing It" instructions - the former seems a bit more refined), and 
okay results on Lumijet Gallery Gloss, save for the fact that I can 
no longer stand the meager weight of most Lumijet paper (EAM 
spoiled me). 

I haven't experienced the metamerism issues others have cited 
Lyson's QB Neutral for (which I've seen as a result of setting up 
an Epson 2000P with Epson inks for a client). The only (relatively 
minor) issues surround scanning - I shoot mostly Ilford XP2 
Super in 35mm, and scan with a Minolta QuickScan 35 Plus film 
scanner via VueScan; Sometimes I get dazzling results in my 
prints (up to 11x17" as of now...working on 13x19"), and 
sometimes I miss my personal "mark".  As I may have 
mentioned before here, by b/w aesthetics are fairly 
straightforward: absolutely no "textured" paper, and tones as 
reasonably close to "neutral" as possible - my b/w sensibility is 
for the present, not some fanciful concept of the past, and my 
foray into digital printing is much less about "escaping" the 
traditional darkroom as it is surmounting the relative diffiuclty - in 
my case, anyway - of setting one up at this time. I happen to like 
the conventional darkroom, and try to work in one whenever I 
can, but I decided a while back that the lack of my own facilities 
wouldn't stop me from producing quality prints.

I think that what has been carved out by most everyone 
participating on this list is something vibrantly in-progress; 
nothing is truly nailed down yet, but then again that fact adds 
vibrancy to our endeavors. I'm simply trying to work on what 
makes sense to me in terms of presenting my work to others for 
their approval or rejection; Discovering this group has helped a 
good deal in sussing out certain things for me, yet reinforced the 
fact that there is more than one way to get to a desired result  via 
this relatively new medium. I think I've found a formula that works 
*for me*, but it's great to listen - and occasionally debate - with 
others who find something else.

 - Barrett