Digital BW, The Print

Sonja,

I just started using Lyson Quad Black for the Canon S9000 and am 
pretty impressed. There are probably better BW systems out there for 
Epson printers, but the prints I've been getting are completely 
neutral, with no color cast (obviously, since there are no colors). 
They tonal gradations seem pretty smooth and I'm not seeing any major 
problem with visible dots so far. These inks also seem to work very 
well with glossy photo paper. (I've been using JetPrint Professional.)

The one "problem" I've had so far is that the blacks aren't as dense 
as I'd like on matte paper, but I'm hoping to correct that with some 
profiles I just got.

I'm completely new to BW printing, so I don't really have anything to 
compare this with, except for trying to get decent BW prints using 
standard color inks. This is really a vast improvement.

Be warned, though, the carts are very expensive. I got my first set 
from a company called Photofile in Il, and they were $13.19 each. I 
believe Inkjet Mall also carries them at $13.95.

Some better news is that I found a company in the UK (called marrutt-
just www.marrutt.com) that carries these inks in both 125ml and 1 
litre sizes. A complete set of 125ml bottles is just under $200, 
shipping included. This works out to around 1/4 the price of 
individual carts. You get an even better break on the 1 litre 
bottles, but I was not ready to spend $800 just yet.

I just ordered a set of the 125ml bottles and was told I'd have them 
in around 5 business days, which is pretty darn good since they're 
coming from England. Lyson has some profiles for their inks and 
papers on their website (www.lyson.com), including some for Canon 
printers and inks.

I've actually been using the inks in an old S900 I got before I 
bought my S9000, so I have a dedicated BW printer and don't have to 
keep cleaning the printhead.

A cheaper alternative to two printers is to simply buy an extra 
printhead for the S9000 (it's the same one as for the S900). You 
could put the BW carts in the spare printhead and all you'd have to 
do is swap printheads when you want to print monochrome. The 
printhead comes out very easily, and you don't have to remove the 
carts.

Hope this helps,

-Michael


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "cheshfen2001" 
<cheshfen@t...> wrote:
> Hi
> I'm new to this group and am interested in printing B&W prints with 
> my Canon S9000. I've had pretty good luck using the color inks to 
get 
> a B&W print in greyscale, but wondering if the Lyson Quad Blacks 
> would be that much better (aleviate the color casts). Can anyone 
> offer some actual experince with these inks and printer? Also, I 
have 
> yet to find a source in this country for the quad blacks for the 
> printer. Also, which paper works best with this ink/printer combo. 
> I'll appreciate any help anyone can give me. 
> Sonja