Digital BW, The Print

Martin,

I have to agree with you on this one also. I have been doing test 
images from the 2000P with MIS VM and the 980 with the Piezo system, 
and even under magnification you can't tell them apart (except for 
the tone) as far as output goes.

One thing I did notice though, in normal tungsten lighting the Piezo 
print has a slight greenish tone, not a lot but you can detect it. 
Put it under normal daylight from a window that does not have direct 
sun coming through it (this will actually show the extreme of 
metamerism of any ink better than putting it in direct sunlight), and 
it is quite neutral, even losing some of the warmth. The MIS VM using 
the neutral cool curve is just that in normal tungsten lighting, but 
go to that same window as described above and it warms up and picks 
up the greenish tone. They actually reverse their appearance from 
normal tungsten lighting!

Anyone else see this happen?

Also, it seems as if the 980 may be a good Piezo printer if you are 
looking at smaller paper sizes. I haven't had an ink problem yet (5 
days so far) and don't see any signs of banding. The driver prints 
just like the Epson driver in terms of progression, but I haven't 
timed it yet. 

The Piezo system is more touchy about how you convert from RGB to 
grayscale though. If done right on a calibrated monitor you will 
print what you see. Do it wrong, and it isn't even close. If the 
image is an embedded grayscale that matches the current workspace 
though it is quite accurate. With the MIS VM, it always matches the 
screen coming from grayscale or using say the channel mixer to take 
an RGB to monochrome. And if I want to see the toning effects prior 
to printing the preview profile I made from Profiler RGB will get you 
close (I still haven't tweaked the first one I made yet).

Still playing with it all though.

Terry

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Martin Wesley" 
<mwesley250@e...> wrote:
> Chris,
> 
> I have Piezo inks and software on a 1200 and MIS VM inks with Paul 
> Roark's curves on a 1280. I do not see any difference in sharpness 
> between the two with the 1280 printing at 1440 or 2880.
> 
> I don't know enough about the Epson driver to know if it really 
drops 
> all data above 360 or not. I am a bit skeptical in that there does 
> seem to be a slight difference between a 360 and 720 file although 
> not visible at normal viewing distances.
> 
> I have also seen output from an 1160 using Piezo and MIS FS with 
the 
> Epson driver and cannot tell them apart.
> 
> Martin Wesley
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Chris Hargens" 
<ldmr@c...> 
> wrote:
> > In his comparison of prints made using the Piezo system with 
those 
> > made using Epson drives and color inks, Michael Reichmann states 
> > that "what's also much more obvious when looking directly at the 
> > prints is that the Piezo prints show more detail. The Epson 
driver 
> > can not take an input file of more than 360 DPI. Feed it a higher 
> > resolution file and the data is discarded by the driver. A Piezo 
> > driven printer can take a much higher resolution file, and make 
use 
> > of it." Assuming that this is the case, then wouldn't the same 
> > condition and result apply (perhaps to differing degrees) to all 
> > inksets, including the various quadtone sets available, when used 
> > with the Epson driver rather than the Piezo driver? I guess what 
> I'm 
> > wondering is just how much of a difference there is. And, yes, 
I'm 
> > sitting on the fence, Epson 1160 in hand, trying to decide 
whether 
> I 
> > should fork over big bucks for Piezo software -- and run the risk 
> of 
> > my now out-of-production printer breaking down and then having to 
> buy 
> > _new_ software for the replacement printer, etc. -- or go with 
the 
> > MIS VM inkset, sweat out the paper-profile limitations...