Digital BW, The Print

I work on the east coast of the US near major metropolitan centers. There is
one company, in another state, over 3 hours drive that has qualified
technicians that will repair the processing machines in our darkroom. The
cost of our annual service contract is $6000 for two processors.

Adobe once made a RIP (color only) for desktop printers, no one bought it
(well I did) and they discontinued development. Which big companies are you
hoping will come to the rescue? I don't think Epson, Canon or HP believes
they are missing out on any market share that is worth their while (and I am
sure that they are pleased with their abilities to make BW prints.)

I print with a large format Epson printer and IP on a regular basis, the
results (which are different from darkroom prints, but that doesn't worry me
since I not trying pretend that my inkjet prints are analog silver prints)
are as reliable as working in the darkroom. Neither is easy to do well.

For all the difficulties, I happy to have companies like Cone, Colorbyte,
MIS, Lyson, and Sundance--if they don't make these products, nobody would.

Wendel

> 
>> We have three wideformat machines in a major museum
>> and archives on which we have been running IP. But it
>> has become such an annoyance we won't be renewing
>> our service contract and are going to different options
>> where we can. 
> 
> This raises a good point.    It's one thing for those of us who are
> printing as a hobby or for small one-man photography businesses to
> glom onto whatever Mac or linux freeware or shareware we can find,
> or buy products from tiny two-guys-in-a-basement RIP makers or
> quadtone ink makers.
> 
> But if you have a real business or institution like a museum at
> stake it would be good to deal with something more substantive.  In
> all of our discussion comparing BW inkjet to darkroom printing one
> difference that's overlooked is that darkroom technology (paper,
> developer, lenses, etc) is supported by large stable corporations
> and if one guy gets run over by a bus or just quits, the technology
> you've been depending on doesn't just stop.
> 
> Will BW inkjet printing EVER be supported by normal, stable,
> profitable businesses that we can count on to be around and act like
> real businesses for years and years on end?   Or are we always going
> to be one bus accident away from our favorite RIP/driver/ink
> disappearing forever?