Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "lulalake_1999" 
<lulalake_1999@y...> wrote:
> Hi Don,
> Let us know how it turns out, I just bought a C84 and am awaiting 
my 
> inks.

Jules,

I think you will like it.  I am a complete beginner at this, and so 
far it is great.

Thanks to those who provided links to images.  I have printed a few 
crops from this one:
http://download.petraflux.com/technical.zip
It showed what I wanted to see, that the printer and EZ inks are very 
capable when using a great photo.  I cropped the photo of the old man 
in the hat and printed test prints at 4x5, which is ~200 dpi if I 
recall correctly.

I am still using the Heavyweight Matte paper for comparison sake, and 
because I'm darn cheap.  Using neutral inks.  I started with the 
Plain Paper setting as advocated by Paul Roark for some better papers 
to enhance dmax.  With HWMatte paper, the Plain Paper setting is not 
working as well as the actual HWM setting.  The Plain Paper setting 
is producing horizontal banding or line marks in black areas, such as 
the area to the viewer's right of the man's head.  The HWM setting 
eliminated it.  (Nozzle checks were good.)

I don't have any way of measuring dmax, but the HWM setting appears 
just as good as Plain Paper setting to me in that respect.  Since 
Paul "wrote the book" about this combo, I'm assuming my results are 
unique to the low price HWM paper which Paul probably does not bother 
with.

I am using these settings:  Color Controls, gamma 2.2, and everything 
else set to Off or zero.  Too easy.

I probably don't know enough to be picky, but I think the results are 
great.  The bad news is that the great test photographs show me how 
inadequate my digicam image prints are.  Well, a person has to have 
*something* to work on.  ;)

Many thanks to Paul Roark and others whose comments and reviews 
encouraged me to get this printer.  

-Don