Digital BW, The Print

Boris,

If you buy the 2200 you'll probably end up getting MORE frustrated than you
are right now.  I have one for color but I gave up trying to print B&W on it
a long time ago.

There are quite a lot of settings, but one thing that really really worked
for me was to use the Roark curves intended for the Epson 1290, even though
I have a 1280.  The 1280 curves gave me the kind of results that you are
talking about, and I wasn't happy with them.  I tried the Tyler Boley curves
for the 1280 and found that they were great except for this little annoying
step in the middle of the scale.

I think I might have read something (probably on this group) one day because
I tried the 1290 curves (Same as source, Adobe RBG, NCA) and they were
PERFECT.  Perfect smoooooth ramp.  Wonderful.  Note: check the settings for
yourself rather than rely on me as I haven't done any printing for a little
while and might have forgotten the correct ones.

The 1280 and 1290 are supposed to be the "same", but I've heard talk of
potential differences here and there.  I'm wondering if they changed the
printer at some point and made the 1280 exactly the same as the 1290.
Someone on this forum probably knows - I'm just guessing.

Give it a whirl!

   Matthew
  -----Original Message-----
  From: borisw8 [mailto:borisw8@...]
  Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 7:11 PM
  To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
  Subject: [Digital BW] 1280 w/ MIS VM vs 2200


  Hi group.  New member here.

  I have been struggling for over a year now, trying to get results
  from a 1280 with the MIS variable hex-tone system.  The results are
  still completely unacceptable to me.  I don't know what I could be
  doing wrong.  I convert to RGB, apply the correct curve, use Archival
  Matte paper. The correct settings on the printer driver, etc...

  The results are usually very "flat" looking.  Looks like there are
  only about a dozen or so shades of grey, therefore missing most of
  the detail.  I tried about a dozen different sets of cartridges but
  always the same results.  It's not the computer either, because I get
  the same results on two different machines.

  When I print a 21 step greyscale, I think I can see at least part of
  the problem.  Between 60% to 80%, everything looks to be about the
  same kind of dark grey - the curve is not very smooth.

  On the other hand, when I put color cartridges in, it prints like a
  charm.  Too bad that most of my work is B&W :(

  If there is someone here who thinks they are getting really good
  results from this combination of Epson 1280 and MIS VM hex-tone, I'd
  love it if I could send you a file and print-out and you could tell
  me if your results look any better.

  Since I have about given up on that whole thing, here is my second
  question:  I'm tempted to dump the 1280 and buy a 2200 and use it
  with the stock cartridges to print my b&w photos.  Any results, good
  or bad?

  My most sincere thanks to anyone who has taken the time to read this.

  Boris


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