Digital BW, The Print

At 02:39 PM 2/9/2003 +0000, DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com wrote:
>1. Printing "Black Only":  Using only the black inks, the prints
>"neutral" but may have a tone that you may not like. More importantly,
>Black Only prints show dots in the highlights that, to me, are not
>acceptable, although some people obviously like this method. You can
>easily try it on your 2200 and see for yourself.


Not only have I tried it but last week I posted scans
I made of prints using B-O on my website showing how
bad the highlight dotting was, even at 2880 DPI.  Most of
the people who say they like it say it reminds them of grain.
But I started off in photography 38 years ago shooting
PUSHED Tri-X (for astronomical and nightime street
photography) so I know grain, and the dots don't look
anything like grain.

>2. Printing with "Quad or Hex Inks"

I know some people swear by this, but some people swear AT
it.   It seems to be one of those things like desktop Linux  (I run
Linux and Win2K here)  which works well if you're either lucky
or enjoy tinkering under the hood.  But it doesn't seem to satisfy
a large enough percentage of people who try it that I can
have confidence that after I invest in a second wide-format
printer, the inks, software, etc, and climb the learning curve,
that all that money and time will be worthwhile.   I have an extended
warranty on my 2200 so I'm not about to risk putting 3rd
party products in that printer.


>3. Printing with ImagePrint: This gives spot-on neutral B&W prints

I can get neutral prints with my 2200 using the Epson gray
balancer. My problem with the 2200 isn't neutrality; it's
metamerism.  How does the IP RIP fix metamerism,. since
that's a property of the inks?

---peter