Digital BW, The Print

>I want to thank everyone for their very informative responses to my
>questions.  I still have not had time to read everything carefully
>yet that has been posted, but I plan to, and appreciate the links.  I
>did want to let everyone know, though, that I live in the states - we
>just recently adopted a child from Guatemala and my yahoo profile
>still reflected that, so getting supplies won't be a problem.  I
>currently own an alps md-1300 and getting supplies is a problem, plus
>it doesn't work for b&w, so I am looking to replace it.  Once I get
>time to check all the posted links hopefully my purchasing decision
>will become clearer.  I do already own Photoshop 5.5, not sure how
>that compares to 7 (i run windows 2000 not mac), but all the
>discussions about profiles and tweeking settings I am not yet
>familiar with, but could learn in time.

Photoshop 6 is arguably a lot better than PS5.5, Cindy, but I think 
PS7 is probably not worth the cost of an upgrade from 5.5 for a 
Windows user with your budget of, I believe, a few hundred dollars 
for everything. (Adobe seemed to me to produce PS7 to accommodate 
Apple's attempt to frog-march us into the brave new world operated by 
OS X.)


>  I just wanted to make the
>best purchasing decision at this point and can take my time learning
>the rest.  I believe I would pick the Canon if I didn't care about
>b&w, mostly because I keep reading about Epsons clogged heads (I
>won't be printing daily) and Canon's faster speed. Then there is the
>pigment advantage for the epsons.

Clogging hasn't been a problem for me; neither on the Epson 1160 in 
which I have MIS's VM Sepia-Neutral pigmented quadtone inkset, nor on 
the Epson 1160 in which I have MediaStreet's Enhanced Generations 
pigmented inkset except for VM black in the black position. I don't 
print every day either, and I don't think I'm clog free because I do 
a nozzle check every day. But it's so little trouble that I do it 
anyway. When the nozzle check isn't perfect, it's nearly always 
imperfect only in the black part of the test, and it nearly always 
becomes perfect with a single cleaning. But that's a rare event. In 
September I was away for three weeks, and the first nozzle checks I 
printed when I got back were perfect.

Sometimes I get impatient when my 1160s are printing, but usually 
only when they're printing "runs" for print exchanges. And it's easy 
to find something else to do to fill the time. Like e-mail!

Happy new year.

Sam

Sam McCandless           samcc@...