Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "rvsatzuma" 
<rvsatzuma@y...> wrote:
> I recently acquired an epson 2200 to print Black and White images 
from high 
> end drum scans. The 2200 is advertised to be Epson's best non 
commercial 
> product: BUT I did not know of metamerism.

You would if you had visited either this forum or the
Photo.net Digital Darkroom group first!    Don't feel bad  -
I got conned, too.   I read several reviews on places
like Luminous Landscape talking about how Epson had
solved the metamerism problem.   I didn't know then how
much L.L. gets carried away by their own highly irrational
exuberance.


> Epson technical does not have an answer other than 
> metamerism is in the nature of the ultrachrome inks.

Then how do they explain how the IP RIP can print
black and white on the 2200 using the stock inks 
and exhibits no metamerism?    Allegedly so can Epson's
OWN RIP, although I'd really appreciate it if someone 
would mail me a sample to evaluate!

>  The sales staff at Samy's suggested the advanced 
> version of ImagePrint 5.0 RIP at $1,000.00,  but did
> not provide a convincing demonstration 

One of the members here, Tom Fors, sent me an IP RIP
B+W sample and it looks very nice indeed - perfectly
neutral, excellent shadow detail, no metamerism.  The
dither patern is a bit coarser than the stock Epson one
but I didn't think that was a big problem for large prints.

But the IP RIP price is too rich for my blood.   Epson
released a driver for the 2000 (which had such bad
metamerism that there are reliable reports of ex-hippies
from the 1960's who checked themselves into treatment 
centers after seeing the metamerism because they thought
they were having acid-trip flashbacks) that is designed
to reduce the metamerism, also by using a coarser dither
that apparently omits the most offending inks.  So one
might HOPE they would issue a fixed driver for the 2200.
I.e., we can dream on.