Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "lawrencetrek" 
<ltitle@h...> wrote:
> Is there anyone out there with significant experience with the 
PiezoTone inks 
> and who also has tried printing B/W output from the Epson 
2200 who can 
> critically compare these two.  There are conflicting reports:  
some are ready to 
> pack up Piezography, while others are saying the 2200 still 
can't compete for 
> B/W output (e.g. continued problems with color casts and 
metamerism).  I am 
> especially interested in anyone who has custom printer 
profiles for their 2200 
> or who has access to the Gray Balancer software.

I haven't tried the PiezoTones, but I have used the original piezo 
inks for the past couple of years.  I couldn't justify spending 4-5K 
for a 7000/7500 when you could get them new, 2.5K for a Piezo 
RIP and another 750 or so for a box to drive it... well never mind, 
even if I could have justified it I couldn't have paid for it. I got a 
7600 a couple of weeks ago and will be selling my 3000 and 
1160 and using the 7600 for all my printing. I'm using a profile I 
made with a Gretag Eye-One. The canned profile is not awful, but 
it is not good enough... kinda blue/purple with some crossovers. 
If you are going to use one of these machines (or any color 
printer) for black and white you absolutely must have a custom 
profile for your printer, and I sincerely doubt if one of those weird 
scanner based profiling packages will get you decent results for 
grayscale prints. Either pony up for/borrow a spectro based 
solution, go in with a friend or two on one, or pay somebody else 
for custom profiles on the papers you will be using most. With 
color prints you could probably get away with a canned profile, 
but not with B&W. 

There is some metamerism with the inks, but I'm going to live 
with it. With a proper profile there are no crossovers, which is 
what I was most worried about, and a neutral gray is more 
neutral than I got with piezo under most lighting conditions. The 
profiles I made for PhotoRag and Archival Matte were from a 12 
hour old target prints (couldn't wait to try the new toy), so there 
may be some dry down issues involved. I plan to reprofile with 
the targets now that they have aged some and see if that helps a 
bit. With the current profile, the prints look gorgeous under 
tungsten, under a GTI daylight balanced viewing station, and in 
rooms lit by indirect window light, but have a slight cyan cast 
under direct daylight which I don't like. I'm going to try the 
reprofile first, and if that doesn't work I may fool around with 
converting to RGB and throwing a curve on them... after all I can 
make them any tone I want ;-)

The real thing is the printer itself though... it is just great. The 
desktop printers, 3000 included, are complete junk compared to 
the 7x00 and above series. Better paper transport, infinitely better 
build quality, and better printing. I remember in the piezo print 
exchanges, every time a print really jumped out at me I'd read the 
description sheet and sure enough it was printed on a 7000. And 
I don't have to mess with a CIS and I can print color and I can 
print big and I can print thick papers. I'm sold.