Digital BW, The Print

On Saturday, March 13, 2004, at 04:19 PM, Ellie Kennard wrote:

> Interesting James,
>
> What do you use for your printing? (printer, inks, RIP, paper etc.)
>
> Regards,
>
> Ellie
>

Ellie,

I'm in somewhat of a flux now, as I have been using a 7600 with UCs and 
ImagePrint.  I have a set of CavePaints on order, and I am now using 
Colorburst most of the time.  However recently I had to print a black 
and white for someone, and in trying to use Colorburst, the print was- 
well, let's just say too dark.  I just have to find the right settings. 
  So I turned back to ImagePrint, which in my opinion is excellent for 
black and white.  My friend got a copy of Colorburst and said his black 
and whites were killer right out of the box, and he's a black and white 
expert, so I just picked the wrong included profile to try, and didn't 
have time to experiment right then.

In the past, I've used other things for black and white:  I jumped on 
Jon Cone's Piezography early, and despite disappointing early results, 
had some excellent results with it, too.  I tried the MIS inks with 
Paul Roarke's curves, and got good results there, too, although nothing 
like the fantastic images on his site.  Unfortunately, I must have been 
focused more on color for some time, and those inks turned to sludge in 
the CIS.  Bacteria, according to MIS.  Could happen to any ink they 
say.  Ok, I say;  I have three 1160s with CISes and different inks, and 
it hasn't happened to any other inks in how ever many years CISes have 
been out- I was an early and enthusiastic adopter of those, too.  So I 
didn't try the MISes again.

So next week or so I'll be flushing my 7600 out and installing Cave 
Paints.  The reason is that it was getting time to get some new carts 
anyway, and I've been less than thrilled with UCs- not bad, just not as 
thrilled as I thought I'd be- and I recently had some images to print 
that included bright reds- not an easy color for pigment inkjet inks on 
matte paper.  Still, the reds were too dull, even compared to old 
Generations ink prints.  I talked to several people in the know, and 
Cave Paints came out on top.  Now, the one failing of Cave Paints has 
been acknowledged to be in the blacks, however my source says that an 
improved black is due out next month.  So, for black and white, (and 
color, too), everything's going to be new again.

James




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