Digital BW, The Print

Chris,

look into our files section (by coming to the group home page) for some info. 
Also check out our links; you can learn a lot by visiting the MIS,  InkjetMall  
and piezography.com sites. Also look at on-line resellers like inkjetgoodies, 
Digital Art supplies, Mediastreet and others. That should give you a good 
picture.

Be prepared for the current realities: What was once a bundled solution of 
software and inks sold by InkjetMall has disbanded into several products sold 
by several entities. 

The original plug-in made by R9 and sold as part of piezographyBW is now 
sold on its own.  Its profiles were intended for the original piezo inks but may 
work for MIS and the new Piezotones. No new profiles are made for new 
(non-Sundance) inks. 

The original piezography inks are now sold as Sundance inks. InkjetMall has 
new inks under development, mostly promising except for the original 
Piezotone black which fades very quickly. MIS has cheaper inks that work 
very well but also fade and warm shift to a certain extent. The Lyson inks you 
mention are from yet another company, are dyes (as far as I know) and need 
specially coated sheets to work. I don't know many on this list who use them.

The general wisdom is that if you want to try inks, use carts. If you have settled 
on what inks you like and want to get going use a CIS (at least one is made by 
nomorecarts.com and sold by inkjetmall, inkjetgoodies and others).

Also, generally speaking, Epson Enhanced Matte is a good cheap paper for 
playing around and gets good black with these inks. For serious work, the 
expensive Hahnemuhle papers (notaby PhotoRag, German Etching/Orwell 
and others) give among the best results. Other popular papers include the 
Sommersets and Legion papers in general. No glossy or semi-gloss is likely 
to work without spray coating. Coating in general (by spray, brush or rod) is a 
whole other can of worms you will eventually run across if you want the 
deepest black out of matte papers.

Beyond that, you'll have to form your own opinions. So, welcome to the most 
promising, chaotic phase of digital bw printing we have seen yet. A lot is 
under way; no easy, single solution that I can think of, satisfies everyone.

Antonis





--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Chris Rudolph 
<chris_rudolph@m...> wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I've just discovered this list and I'm just starting to get into 
> printing black and white on my Epson 1280. I'm trying to figure out 
> which way to start first - Piezography or MIS/Lyson Inks (pardon my 
> ignorance if I have my terms mixed up). I was wondering if anyone could 
> point me to a FAQ, links, etc... that could give me opinions for each 
> method as well as personal experiences using the 1280 for B&W.
> 
> Thanks muchly,
> Chris.
> 
> --
> chris_rudolph@m...