Digital BW, The Print

So, I had my sample prints back today from Epson.

They had replicated each of the prints I sent them on the Premium 
semigloss and Ultra smooth papers.  Each in three iterations :

1. Black only (Kp on semigloss, Km on US)
2. Epson Driver RGB image
3. Custom Profile RGB image

On their own, all the prints look quite nice, in the right light 
(more on this in a minute).  But bring in the UT2 prints and you are 
left in no doubt which is better, the tonal range and shadow / 
highlight depth is just not there on the Epson - but I guess this is 
largely to be expected.
The prints did all seem to exhibit a little more detail than my 1290 
prints, maybe this is the 'grain' associated with the different 
colour inkset though - may just be perception.
I was particulary impressed with the BO print.  If there are no high 
key transitions this is hard to differentiate from the UT2 print 
except for the higher 'luminosity' which is actually quite pleasing.  
Put your nose a foot from the print though and there are the dots - 
yuk.
Now the worst bit.  Metamarism.  I found it totally unacceptable.  
The profiled prints on semigloss looked really cyan (flourescent 
office light), take them into daylight and they were plumb-bob 
neutral - fantastic, if you live outside.  The Epson driver prints on 
US were magenta in the office, cyan in sunlight - no good solution.

Bronzing was hard to see, images looked very consistant across the 
page.
Worrying was that I could see some banding (evidently in the black 
ink)- can't understand this if the machine is supposed to self align 
and self nozzle clean....

I have ordered mine and been given a date (via my Pro dealer) from 
Epson of the first week in May, which is better than I expected.

If the colour solution doesn't work out, I always have the UT7.....  
(come on now, is it ready yet, is it, is it????)

Steve



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "scrber" 
<stephen.bate@m...> wrote:
> Just jumped on a great opportunity.
> I am about to order the 4000 from our local Epson Pro dealer.
> They have just received their demo model which I went to have a 
look 
> at today (it's huge, built like a safe though).  I was quite honest 
> that I want to use it predominantly for B&W but am not prepared to 
> stump up for a RIP.  They will have their training down in London 
> with Epson tomorrow and I have left them with two UT2 prints - one 
> carbon print on Epson Semi-Gloss and one neutral print on Epson 
> Archival Matt - I have provided both images on a CD.  They have 
> offered to use these as prints during the demo's and training.  I 
> can't wait to see how close the actual Epson team will get to 
> reproducing this output.
> I for one was not blown away by the 7600 + IP5.6 altough I've only 
> seen a couple of samples.
> I will obviously post back on how things go in the next couple of 
> days.
> 
> regards
> Steve