Digital BW, The Print

At 01:18 AM 5/21/2003, Anthony wrote:
>Stan writes:
> > ... another (a 1270) dedicated to black and white
> > (loaded with hextone gray inks) for just that
> > reason.
>
>Do you need special driver software when you use special inks?  Do B&W inks
>cause any problem with clogging?  Are they based on carbon pigments, or
>what?

You can use special driver software, but it is not necessary. I use the 
Photoshop curves so generously supplied by Paul Roark (who has already 
responded to this thread). I'm using the VM inks from MIS along with their 
continuous inking system. In a little over a year, I have had two clogs 
that were not cleared by cleaning cycles. These required removing the 
cartridge from the printer and using a syringe to suck ink from the bottom 
of the cartridge. It took about five minutes and I was back in business 
again. These clogs both occurred after a hiatus in printing of several 
weeks. And I live in Utah where the humidity is very low year round. The 
inks are based on carbon pigment, but the pigment particles are orders of 
magnitude smaller than the inkjet nozzles.

> > I don't know whether you would call them "deep,
> > rich" or not, but they have been good enough to
> > satisfy judges of several competitions ...
>
>Have you compared them to traditional darkroom prints (by expert printers)?
>If so, how did they stand up?

Not personally, but the competitions they are entered in also have many 
entries by traditional darkroom printers.

Stan

================================
Photography by Stan McQueen
http://www.smcqueen.com