Digital BW, The Print

Nope.  Don't suppose he would send me one???  I have no experience with the MIS-
VM.  Have seen great B&W prints from MIS gray scale (don't know which version).

But as good as they looked, the blacks weren't really black compared to a cold tone 
darkroom print.   I would imagine that to most people it might not matter a whole lot, 
but some of us do images where the black is a major part of the image (low key?) and 
I want it to "glow", glow black of course, sort of like hard coal.

1280 dye inks will do this fairly well, but can fade in (2) weeks in some exhibition 
situations.  And now I am convinced that 2200 with Ultrachromes will do it too, under 
SPECIAL conditions.  The first tests I saw were black only on matte fine art done by a 
major printing expert? dealer and were definitely not satisfactory.  He could also 
make RGB B&W with a color cast.

I lucked out in two senses:

1.  found a real Epson tech expert (referral, not by calling in) who told me that it was 
possible, but not using black only.

2.  a friend who was desparate bought a 2200  in spite of the dealer demo and 
experimented a lot.  The solution (using RGB) was to abandon the familar matte 
watercolor papers and use Epson Velvet.  We had tended to avoid Epson papers for 
historical reasons (permanence, surface, etc).  Incidently, when doing this if the print 
is a bit magenta or green etc, it means the printer profile is not good enough.  B&W is 
a great way to stress a printer profile cuz any color really shows.

Hence I expect to buy either a 2200 or a 7600.

After saying all this, I admit that I have wondered if I am being too nitpicky since if I 
don't compare MIS or BO blacks to a darkroom print, the inkjet prints look pretty 
good.  I do love darkroom quality though, and have been hoping that Epson could 
match it or nearly so.

Bill


> 
> Hi Bill. Have you see one of Clayton's prints printed with MIS-VM
> black-only on Photo Rag? I have, and that's why I ask.
> 
> Peter Marquis-Kyle
> www.marquis-kyle.com.au