Digital BW, The Print

First of all thank you to all those who have read my posts and taken
the trouble to think about the issue and reply.  There are two
problems we have in trying to resolve the issue.  

1.) - I can't show you the physical prints.  When I say the BO print
is lighter, I'm not talking about a little bit lighter and I'm trying
to finesse the image, I mean a ***LOT*** lighter.  I really don't
think it is the sort of difference that can be deal with by curves.  

To illustrate the difference, I've resized and converted the master
file to sRGB for web viewing, and put it up at 
  http://asia.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ferdinand_paris/my_photos

I then converted it to CYMK, extracted the black channel, and have put
that there as well for comparison.  This is reasonably close to what
the BO print from the master RGB image looks like.  I haven't tried to
finesse these images for screen viewing - both might be a touch dark -
they are only intended to illustrate the order of magnitude of the
difference.

2.) - we are using different driver versions, so you can't replicate
my exact circumstances. 

Isn't there anyone on this list who has tried BO with a 2100 (rather
than a 2200)?  I'd be satisfied that the problem is something other
than the driver if this were the case.  I might start a separate
thread and ask.

Clayton made the point that once the image is in grayscale format,
there isn't any other channel to print.  That is true while still
inside PSCS.  However as Ernst pointed out, "The Epson driver is an
RGB type that will always do a hidden RGB>CMYK conversion (in color
mode) on any file that will be printed in color mode, even on a CMYK
file. The last will first be converted to RGB and then again to CMYK
internally."

If I try and print a grayscale image using the full colour inkset,
then it has to do a conversion to CYMK.  The question is, what does it
do in black mode?  Ernst said that a grayscale file should be kept as
a grayscale file by the Epson driver, but it sure don't look like it
to me.

I'll think about Clayton's suggestions to try different profiles. If
it were a mere case of finessing the print, I'd be trying some of
these things myself.  But the difference really is **huge**.  I don't
know where to start to bridge such a gap.

Thanks again.

F_P