Digital BW, The Print

Peter-

Do you do very much black and white printing.  I took a look at your 
web site and for the most part it is all color?

On Wednesday, February 12, 2003, at 05:51  AM, peter nelson wrote:

> At 09:27 AM 2/12/2003 +0000, 
> DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> wrote:
>> Are you asking when simple reliable BW printing will be available or
>> when it will be available using color inks on the 2200?
>>
>> If you insist on using the the 2200 and color inks you will, it seems,
>> not be happy with the results.  If you use quadtone inks ( I only have
>> experience with MIS or Piezotones) you will get the quality you are
>> looking for.
>
>
> I don't care if I use the 2200.  I'm happy to use any wide format
> (13"x19" or bigger) printer.  The requirement is that the process
> does not void the printer's warranty and that I have some reason
> to be confident that *I* can get good results.

Using third party ink will not void the warranty on an epson 3000 
printer.  From your description of your own skills I cannot think of a 
reason why you would not get good results.  Using the system I 
described it is unlikely that the limiting factor in the quality of 
your images will be the quadtone printing process.
>
> As I said in my original post, I have no doubt that SOME people
> can get quads to work well.   But the impression I get from
> reading this forum and others is that it's hit and miss, and that
> it depends on your tolerance for tweaking and playing under
> the hood.   I've read tons of posts from people who tried it
> really hard and never got good results.   I quoted one poster
> who said he tried quads for a YEAR and didn't get as good a
> result as his first print out of the box with his 2200.

The are more than SOME people using the pizography system and inks that 
get great results.  They don't often post their success to the forum 
though.  There are lots of people who have taken on projects to create 
new workflows and new methods to advance the state of the art.  They 
may have done this because they wanted lower costs, wanted deeper 
blacks, wanted a cooler/different tones to their prints, to see if they 
could do it themselves, or any other number of reasons.  They have the 
tolerance to finesse their systems.

If you do not, then don't.  Just use the system described.  There is no 
place to tinker with the Piezo system.  It has profiles for many papers 
already.  If you can read a user manual you can print with that system 
and get good/great repeatable prints.

As for the person who couldn't get quadtones to work with a year of 
trying.  I would need to know more about what he used before I would 
accept that blanket statement.  What printer, was it the Piezo system, 
a work in progress workflow or what.

>
> I can teach anyone to make decent black and white prints
> in the darkroom in a day.  Not necessarily Ansel Adams,
> but black blacks, white whites, continuous tones (assuming
> they exist in the negative, properly developed, fixed, etc.
> It's a simple, predictable, straightforward process.  If you
> can follow simple directions it's easy.  I'm looking for a
> digital printing process that's similarly straightforward and
> reliable.

I can teach anyone to make a decent digital print with quadtones.  I 
may even be able to teach them to exceed what they can do in the 
darkroom.  I know I certainly do.

I will, of course, spend years trying to perfect some of those 
techniques.  I may even get frustrated when trying to achieve some 
specific objective and complain about it on a forum like this <g>.

>
> Some people here tell me we already have it; others say it will
> never exist, so there seems to be some divergence on that
> point!

Actually, I think there is a near concensus that it is here when using 
the piezo system with their piezotone inks.   In that respect there is 
no divergence.  There is certainly lots of other ways to get black and 
white prints and there are lots of opinions on some of those other ways 
ways.
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