Digital BW, The Print

----- Original Message -----
From: "thedigitaldog" <andrew@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, August 05, 2002 8:54 PM
Subject: [Digital BW] Re: News on Epson 2200 Gray Balancer SW


> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Ernst Dinkla" <e.dinkla@c...>
wrote:
>
> > Before Epson launched the new Ultrachrome printers there was some
> > speculation what would be a nice printer for colour and B&W. With
unlimited
> > head numbers one can get anything frome Hexachrome to Hexatone.
>
> Let's be a bit more accurate here. The 2200 will never print Hexachrome
until
> Epson produces an Orange and Green ink. If you want a quick look at what
> Hexacrhome is (a Pantone product) go to http://www.pantone.de/content/
> Pages/HexExpA.htm.

Speculating about an unknown printer with unlimited head numbers before any
signal of the 2200 had arrived.
That is how I interprete the sentence when I read my text again.

It is quite easy to get Orange and Green ink from for example Mediastreet.
But so far no Epson model is used for Hexachrome and no Epson driver written
for Hexachrome, not even by third party RIP developers.
Don't know what the reason for that is but certainly not because Epson
couldn't design a printer like that.
Whether the firmware in the existing Epsons doesn't allow it I don't know
but I don't think so. The C and LC, the M and LM split is done in the driver
and not in the printer firmware. Most likely a license agreement between
Epson and the wide format inkjet manufacturers that make Hexachrome printers
and need the Epson heads.
Like the quite obvious size limitation of 44" that Epson doesn't pass. That
RIP manufacturers don't break the line is more puzzling, but they need the
printer information from all the companies.


> > However a six head printer with today's variable, small droplet sizes
could
> > have been a CMY+3K printer. In monochrome the 3K's would have been
> > sufficient for a good quality B&W. Monochrome on the Ultrachrome
printers
> > means only black ink printing. Someone measured the grey of the 9600
with
> a
> > spectrometer and it is quite yellow he wrote, not the right start for a
B&W
> > printer.
>
> Yes and this is true of the 2200. If you ask the driver to ONLY give you
the two
> black inks, the output is very warm. It's a nice look but far from
neutral. The
> black only option with the 2200 (and 9600) isn't anything like what we had
as
> an option with the older printers where you'd get real neutral output
using just
> the black ink (but lose quality due to the loss of the other inks).

The 2200 driver has a setting that only gives both the black inks ?  I
thought that it would be like the 9600 and on that one there's only one
black ink in monochrome AFAIK.

Ernst