Digital BW, The Print

There are many more settings than the ones in the DeWolfe article. Problem is there is no explanation what each of the settings has on the final print. Some are not a challenge to understand but a couple are.  Perhaps you had not changed any of the settings other than the one to which DeWolfe referred, and that may be the reason you are getting results that I don't see in the prints I have made. Too bad that the manual is a bad joke. 

I haven't seen any metamerism but I will take a closer look tomorrow. Unfortunately there are no flourescent lights in our house to do a more complete trial--only lots of sunlight and incandescant lights. :-)

I see a major improvement in quality using the RIP versus the basic 2200 driver whether using color or black only in the latter driver. 

Did you choose black and white or color in the RIP's driver? Any comment on the printing time?

Peter Palmieri
  From: Thomas Fors 


  I played around with the Epson RIP a week or so ago.  I also tried DeWolfe's
  recommended settings from the Camera Arts article, and using Paul Roark's
  step wedge, the 10-20% patches look purple, 25-30% look brown, and 35-60%
  look purple as well under tungsten light.

  I too wonder how extensive DeWolfe's testing was.

  I also evaluated the prints for metamerism by turning the print back and
  forth between window light and my office flourescent light.  I saw the print
  shift from green in the daylight to magenta under flourescent (same as I see
  when I print B&W with the Epson driver).  To my eye, the Epson RIP makes
  absolutely no improvement to metamerism over the Epson driver.

  The only method I have seen to date for eliminating metamerism with the 2200
  on B&W prints is to use ImagePrint.  It does a beautiful job of it and
  creates very neutral B&W prints over the entire range of tones.

  Epson's PDF manual is not very helpful.  I was surprised to see that it is
  63 pages long!  It's full of bits of wisdom such as the following about
  print speed:

  "Change to a faster CPU or add more RAM.  Complex jobs
  that use a large number of fonts will process faster on a faster
  CPU with more RAM.  We recommends [sic] that you change
  to a faster CPU first, then add more RAM, if necessary."

  I've also noticed a peculiarity.  I had an image with extra white space
  around it.  When I printed it using the Epson RIP, it actually "printed" the
  white parts!  I mean the print head travelled across the paper and the paper
  advanced at the same rate as if it was actually putting down ink.  I looked
  at it under a loupe and confirmed that it didn't put down any ink.  It must
  just be a bug or "feature" of the RIP.

  --Tom




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