Digital BW, The Print

> Thank you. I plan to be using MacOS9 & X.  -BArry

Barry,

I use my 1280 with Selenium Piezotones under MacOS 9 and drive the printer 
with OpenPrintMaker (OPM). I make profiles for it using InkjetControl (IJC) and 
I am very happy with the results. You may search the archives here beginning 
with message 28545  and check out the OPM/IJC site at:
http://www.bowhaus.com/inkjetcontrol/

Briefly: OPM is a free download and includes a few profiles (some of which I 
contributed as beta tester) and IJC is around $200. Caveats regarding this 
solution: for best results making profiles you should use a densitometer, and 
prepare for a learning curve as IJC is not your typical mac app. In return, you 
get to fine tune your printer to any paper that is compatible with your chosen 
inkset. 
IJC gives you direct control of each of the 6 nozzles in the 1280 via ink curves. 
This allows you to go much further than a simple profile: you can use "toner" 
inks for a couple of ink channels and tweak the color of your bw pretty much 
on the fly (you can also blend between 2 proflies just before you are ready to 
print).

If you happen to go with any flavor of Piezotones (PT) and follow their original 
ink positions (i.e. no toners etc), chances are that the 1280 profile that is 
included in the free OPM download will work fine on most Hahnemuhle 
papers (I made it with PhotoRag). It would be a good starting point, anyway, 
but in the long run you will be best served  if you can tweak your profiles to 
keep your system conistent over time.  The whole idea behind IJC is to help 
us get away from canned profiles of any sort. 

If you go with PTs, remember that they only work on matte papers.  For glossy, 
you should read up on the UltraTones on the MIS site  and see what users 
have been saying here regarding bronzing etc. The promising part of this 
inkset is that it can work with both matte and glossy - like the Ultrachromes do. 

Antonis