Digital BW, The Print

Ned,

in digital there are no "future proof" guarantees, nothing like buying an 
enlarger, I hate to say !. Especially in bw, the landscape is changing very 
rapidly...  practically by the month. Not only are there new printers out,  the 
choices in inks and software are rapidly changing.

Having said that, I'll also add that I only know the Epson line and only know 
some of the bw inksets.  The suggestions below are a combination of my 
experience as well as speculation about new products down the line. Options 
from Canon and HP, inks like Lysonic etc are not in my "radar".

So, if you are "future prone", you can take a chance with the MIS UT inks and 
an Epson 2200 with a CIS.  If you happen to be on a Mac, then you can 
consider the $200 IJC / OPM combo that supports the 2200 and lets you 
profile it for bw printing. The whole package would probably be closer to 
$1500, though, or more if you add a densitometer..   I haven't tried it myself, 
but ImagePrint for OS X also supports bw for the 2200/OEM inks. There may 
be others I am not aware of.

For serious bw work, I wouldn't recommend the OEM inks that come with the 
2200, however,  but for starting out and climbing various learning curves, they 
would serve you fine and lower the cost of entry into bw down to $700 (since 
OPM is free and has profiles for 2200 bw prints - see last week's discussions 
here). You can then decide when you are ready to plunk down the extra 
money for the inks, the CIS, IJC and a densitometer. Given the 7-channel 
option on this printer and the ability of the UT inks to work on glossy, I'd call it 
the most promising "future" combo, by far. Keep in mind, I have not yet tried 
the UT inks myself, just the OEM (UC) inks.

If you want closer to "tried-and-true", the 1270/80/90 may be slow, but 
certainly available along with CIS options. Either MIS inks of Piezotones can 
go in there. Some inexpensive software options are either here or soon to 
open up. Jon Cone is working on ICC profiles for thePTones and the 1280, 
and the above mentioned IJC/OPM already supports it and lets you profile it. 
In fact, if you don't mind "canned" profiles, OPM ships with profiles for that 
printer and the MIS inks -and it's free. Any of these options would be well 
under the $1000 mark, I would think.

Either printers above - unlike the 1160 and other legacy products - would be 
easy to find and would come with a standard Epson 1 year warranty. If you are 
comfortable with searching the refurb or used market, however, and don't 
mind the  extra work and some of the perils involved, then the 1160 was by far 
the star of the bw desktops, while the 7000/7500 was the star of the wide 
formats.  I have both and like them for their respective advantages. The 1160 
is a speed demon and 4 inks are plenty good for the job, while the 7000 - also 
a fast machine - is a very solid performer and the 6 inks offer an advantage in 
lowering the apparent device dots with proper profiling (IJC).

 In fact, since the new generation has come out, the 7/7500 series can 
probably be found for a little over $1,000. Again, OPM/IJC supports them 
(which means custom profiling), but if you don't mind "canned" profiles, you 
have several choices from R9, InkjetMall (ICC profiles to come) and 
ImagePrint from Colorbyte. Except of IJC, those are, I believe, good on both 
Mac and PC.

So, there you have it. One more word of caution: I have seen very decent work 
done with flatbeds and 4x5 negs, especially if they are scanned wet (Kami 
fluid), but if you are demanding about your prints or want to go to larger print 
sizes, a dedicated film scanner or, better yet, a drum scanner will be in your 
"future".

Good luck...


Antonis



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "nedbuntline2002" 
<NedBuntline@H...> wrote:
...

 
> If you had $1000 or less to spend on a printer, and wanted to get the 
> best you could for B&W, what would you buy right now?  Please also 
> take into account any rumors of future support by inkset providers.