Digital BW, The Print

After the discussion a few days ago following my two postings on
'posterization again,' I tried some of the techniques suggested,
including experimenting with Tyler Boley's curves (which Paul Roark
helpfully forwarded off-list) and some preliminary experiments with
linearization using a grayscale test pattern (which, unfortunately, were
inconclusive -- unlike some other posters, I had trouble getting the
posterization effects I was seeing in images to show up in the test
pattern).  There are more experiments I could do, but (a) I'm getting
tired of printing test patterns and would like to go back to making some
art, (b) I've run through all the MIS inks I had bought initially, and
(c) I have a set of Piezo inks, flushing cartridges, and software on my
desk now and ready to try.  So I sat down this morning to have a go with
those.

Sadly, I didn't get very far before getting stuck in this direction too:
the instructions that come with the piezo software include all sorts of
dire warnings about the need to properly flush the old inks from the
system, but the instructions about precisely *how* to do this are less
than clear.  (The instructions only talk about how to do it for an Epson
3000, not 1280, and the included purging pattern has only four bars, not
six.  Furthermore, the bars in the purging pattern are all gray, though
the instructions imply that it is to be printed through the Epson
driver.  Can this be right?) 

If someone has successfully installed a piezo cartridge set on a 1280 and
can quickly summarize the steps (or point me to someplace where they've
been written down -- I surfed for an hour but found nothing), I'd be
grateful. 

Many thanks,

        Benjamin
        http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/photos