Digital BW, The Print

I'd agree that this list has attracted it's fair share of Cone 
detractors, and I think that is really unfortunate.  I'm really not 
impressed with flag waving partisans.  I'd rather hear objective 
accounts of what folks are experiencing, sans venom.

In the way of facts:

I've run an 1160 with CIS and Cone inks for many months now, and well 
over a thousand prints, without so much as a single clog or shifting 
contrast, increasing green or other anomaly, outside of some initial 
clogs with cartridges which immediately cleared when I went to CIS.  
Period.

I recently purchased a 7000, and decided to give the MIS VM's a try.  I 
spent some time with Paul trying to get the curves for the Mac worked 
out, but have just recently given up as time has become a factor.  I 
think Paul is doing careful, diligent work with this approach, but I 
just needed to get something working.  I'm sure in time he will develop 
great curves, although I question the ability of the Epson driver to 
deliver the goods, based on the images I was printing.  The approach is 
also lacking in intuitiveness, which I happen to value highly.  I want 
to be able to see the image I'm printing in a more verifiable form 
onscreen.  I was impressed with the MIS inks, and would not steer 
anyone away from them if they like this approach.  I did have major 
problems with their CFS system for the 7000, which started out fine but 
began sucking air into the lines within days.  Mark Tucker had similar 
problems.  I would stay away from this system, I suspect the high 
viscosity of pigmented inks is the culprit here. The Cone people have 
indicated this is why they don't offer this system for the 7000.

I've now gone to PiezoBW24 Pro and am up and running and creating what 
I feel are spectacular prints.  Large versions of the stuff I was 
getting from my 1160.  Not without a few glitches, I'm running the new 
software and there are a few problems with speed and possibly 
inconsistent profiles, its still too early to tell about them.  The 
PiezoBW6 update I've been using for the 1160 is solid and very 
consistent.

Finally, I do think we expect a lot from this rather new technology.  
It's still young and a moving target.  Mixing proprietary and third 
party products always carries some risk of incongruities. That is not 
to say that I don't myself want to see results from invested money and 
time.  But silver printing has been around for decades now, and it 
still has plenty of inconsistencies.

Respectfully,
Phil
http://philbard.com

> wrote:
> Terry, I was, in fact trying to balance out the posts, and was 
> responding to what I thought was an unblanced post. I think this list, 
> in particular, has a high percentage of members disgruntled with 
> Piezo. I should know better by now to post this kind of thing here. 
> Without turning this into a big back and forth thing, I'll simply tell 
> you why I think what I think.
>