Digital BW, The Print

Stu,

Can I encourage you to try Piezo again? I know it is frustrating when it
doesn't work for you... but as Julian suggests, it sounds like a replacement
printer is in order.

You are right that there are numerous hints and fixes for printing with
these inks - it _might_ not be perfect :) You will see in time that some of
these hints are incredibly easy (like - ensure your carts are stored the
right way up, so the ink is in the right place when you want to use them!)
Sure, these are things that you don't have to do with Epson OEM... and yet
if you print alot with OEM, or with fine-art papers, or use any other third
party system... you will find these ideas coming up again and again. e.g.
Other third party ink suppliers recommend carts are stored upright... even
Epson realised they have got to do 'something special' with even their
pigmented inks in their own printers that were designed for pigmented
inks!!! I'm sure that in the early days, there were bum printing presses
too... and people who thought the monks did a better job! (Well, OK, they
did... but you know what I mean!). So, in general, it is frustrating both as
a user and reseller for Piezo when problems with Epson (tho' I believe they
are basically great printers) are leveled as being problems with
Piezography. e.g. If you've cut matts 16*20, and then print an image that
looks great, but it's 15.5*19 when you needed it 15.5*19.5, what use is
that? If your capping station doesn't work properly, even Epson inks will
dry out... etc.

On the issue of paper, I think that papers like Orwell, Wells River et al
print really nicely! And now Photo Rag - excellent (and smooth). In fact,
the 1160 is one of the best of Epson's printers for feeding art papers...

The fact is, that we are trying to do stuff now that used to be done worse
by Iris printers et al, without the up-front printer cost of god-knows how
much, and I'm sure Iris _probably_ offer an operator course costing more
than your whole Piezo setup! Still, I am told they _do_ come with a built in
vacuum cleaner for all that paper-dust, which is nice ;)

I recommend taking a day off from the computer, then returning with renewed
vigour and resolution to test the printer... return if necessary... and
then... go make art ;)

Good luck... I really do believe the effort is worth it!

Nij

Nigel Rheam
MWORDS Limited   www.mwords.co.uk   Digital Fine Art





> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stu Rosner [mailto:sturos@...]
> Sent: 26 October 2001 13:51
> To: yahoo digital bw
> Subject: [Digital BW] BW printing problems/ Anyone overcome these??
>
>
> Dear All;
>
> I have been trying for about a year to get acceptable results making black
> and white prints using Epson printers and easily available paper.
>
> At first I bought and tried Jon Cones Piezography system, but found that
> there were two problems that I could not get around:
>
> 1) the inks continually clogged the print heads terribly. there are all
> kinds of fixes for this, revolving around soaking the pads with Fantastik,
> and doing all kinds of other stuff, but it's an incredible waste
> of time and
> money.
>
>
> 2) Even more significantly, the Cone Inks do not work well with anything
> besides a really flat paper.
> I've found that the ink does not take to Epson's premium luster, a paper
> that most closely emulates Ilford Pearl surface paper, a paper
> I've used and
> loved for 20 years.
>
<snip>