Digital BW, The Print

> Has anyone tried using hextone/quadtone inks from MIS (or 
> anyone else) in the 2200?  MIS says they're waiting on the empty carts
so 
> refils are out, but I'm wondering if anyone homebrewed their own from
some Epson 
> empties, or has used hex/quad tones with a CIS in the 2200.  

Yes, I've cleaned and refilled empty Epson cartridges with the MIS
UltraTones. I've used them for months now. You can search my older posts
for details, but basically it works very well. I've had the best results
on matte papers, while glossy papers are harder to work with.

You can easily switch between a full color inkset and a septone inkset
in a matter of seconds. You simply take out the color cartridges and put
in the BW cartridges. 2100 cartridges can easily be left unused on a
desk or in a drawer for months without any problems, so having several
sets of cartridges available is not a problem.

Paul's curves can be modified to work with the 2100 and will give just
as good results as with other printers. I've modified the warm and
neutral warm 1290 curves to work fairly well with the 2100. I've tried
to modify the neutral cool curve as well, but haven't had much success
so far. Clayton has a couple of test prints I made with the first two
curves, and I think he's planning to make a comment on the quality in
comparison to other workflows and inksets at some point... 

> If you use quad/hex tones, is there a need for a RIP at that point?   
> I'm still not entirely sure of why it's so advantageous to have a RIP.
> Is this basically just a raster replacement for lousy Epson drivers?  
> What else 
> does a $500 (ImagePrint) RIP do for you besides add postscript?

With a RIP you would be able to separate the hextone inks properly, and
it would be much easier to get the tone you want than with RGB
separation curves using the Epson driver, since you could work with the
ink channels directly instead. QuadToneRIP 2.0 can do this, and I do in
fact have a working installation of that on my Linux machine.
Unfortunately I haven't had enough time to experiment with it yet,
although it looks very promising.

Just printing with the Ultratones in the 2100 without any correction
curves whatsoever will give you results that equal Imageprint. With the
proper curves it will exceed Imageprint and give you dotless highlights
and much better shadow detail.

> I'm having sleight buyers remorse regarding the 2200, but the 
> idea was to have a printer for both BW and color.  I'm sure I'll feel 
> better once I start printing some slides.

I felt buyers remorse too when I first realized how poorly it handled
BW, but after experimenting with a few RIP's and then taking the plunge
and doing the refills myself I've been very happy with the output I'm
getting. You can stay assured that your printer is fully capable of
great BW output once loaded with the correct inks using the right
workflow. And you won't have to keep a separate printer for color
around...

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