Digital BW, The Print

Steve:

I used to make "monochrome" prints using PS quadtones and tritones, 
and liked them a lot.  At that time, I had tried the original Piezo 
inks and hated them, primarily because of the absence of the kind of 
deep black you can get with Epson dyes.

When I first tried the selenium PiezoTones, I was initially put off 
by the same lack of deep black, although the chromatic complexity (as 
Martin Wesley puts it) of the selenium ink set was intriguing.  After 
my first couple of carts, I was hooked.  In my opinion, both the 
selenium and the warm neutral PiezoTones are beautiful, and the Piezo 
plug-in gives a level of shadow detail that is simply not available 
with the Epson driver.

Now, of course, we have begun to realize that the PiezoTones may be 
too good to be true.  For one thing, the more recent batches of 1280 
carts have a strange light blue cast in certain midtones that is  
unacceptable.  (On the other hand, most of my images are so dark that 
they are not affected by this problem.)  For another, we now learn 
that the PT black can be expected to fade in unattractive ways, 
although I haven't seen it myself yet.

Despite all this, however, I would not go back to Epson dyes and the 
Epson driver.  Although I think the PS quadtone curves make good use 
of the Epson, blocked shadows and weird color shifts are inevitable.

What's the alternative?  My current contingency plan is to replace 
the PT black with Gen4 black, and to trust Jon Cone to make good his 
promise to replace the defective selenium 1280 carts.  If this 
doesn't work - or maybe even if it does - my longterm plan is to 
migrate to a 7600 with IP5 and whatever ink set looks promising at 
that time.  My dream is that the rumors of an Epson monochrome inkset 
for those printers come true.

Hope this is helpful

Chuck