Digital BW, The Print

> Can anyone comment on the Epson 2200 inks and how they compare to 
> MIS? Does anyone use 3rd party inks with the 2200?

The standard inkset and drivers are useless for BW. Your only simple
option for good BW with this printer is to use a RIP with the standard
inkset. Of the various RIPs available ImagePrint is probably the most
well known, I've seen prints from this and they are great. Epson
StylusRIP and iProof PowerRIP are two others, and I've used the latter
myself for some time with good results, although with slightly more
coarse dithering than ImagePrint.

I eventually decided to try refilling with hextones instead, mainly
because quality is even better, and also because the cost of ink is
much, much lower (About 10-15% compared to buying original carts).

The printer is really easy to refill, never clogs and prints fast, so in
some respects it's a wonderful printer for 3rd party inks. On the other
hand there are no standard quad or hextone workflows for it (except my
own), and there are no virgin empties either which means you'll need to
clean out empty color cartridges if you want to use different inks in
it.

This page contains all the details you could possibly want on refilling
the 2100/2200 carridges:
http://www.anestoday.com/epson2200/

Changing carts is really easy, so no matter what you do you can always
go back to the standard inkset. Currently I'm using the UltraTone BW
inkset in the printer. You can search my other posts on this for
details, but the conclusion is that it works well on matte papers with
some curves I've made, while I can't get glossy to work.

My latest experiment is to try Gimp-Print and Roy Harringtons QuadTone
RIP for Linux with the UltraTones. I haven't figured out how to install
QuadToneRIP yet, but Gimp-Print allows you to print using only six
colors, eliminating the problems with the seventh light black ink. I
only made my first test print on Ilford Smooth Pearl this morning, so
it's a little early to say how this will work, but there was no mottling
and I got a smooth, even grayscale, so it certainly looks very
promising.

As you can see, refilling and using hextones with the 2100/2200 is not
easy and convenient at the moment, so my reccommendation would be to
either buy a 2100/2200 with a RIP, or use one of the older models with
MIS inks. 

--
Daniel Staver
http://daniel.staver.no