Digital BW, The Print

Perry,

I have been a beta tester and have had a great deal of input on the
development of IJC/OPM from its very beginnings. I have also been
a happy user for the last 2 years or so, having printed for portfolios
or - recently - for a whole show. My remarks here come from that
perspective - though I don't have a business relationship with Bowhaus.

My guess is that you hear more on the list about software that is
in development and people report problems that are later resolved.
IJC or OPM hasn't had most of the problems I read about on the list.
For example, OPM doesn't have USB communication issues. The new
PC version manages to deal with USB with almost as seamless a manner
as the Mac version. 

On the other hand, IJC/OPM has a cost that is higher than QTR (shareware),
or Paul's RGB curves (free), so naturally, people try the least costly 
method first. I have seen very good results with both of these solutions.
I have made perfectly good prints with QTR, and I have seen Paul
Roark's excellent prints, done with his method. So, its very tempting
to avoid paying the price for IJC/OPM.

My own reason for adopting IJC/OPM is that it gives me an
efficient, versatile way to make or tweak profiles on the fly. These days
with so many options of inks, papers and printers, I find myself wanting
to try new products, or simply fine tune profiles for a specific project.
I am sure I could do it for the  thousands that a full-fledged RIP would
cost, but why spend the money when I get all the control I need for
bw printing with IJC/OPM?

I am not saying that IJC/OPM is necessarily for everyone or that it
is absolutely flawless. It's a pretty complete toolbox for printing bw and
that means some degree of complexity that not everyone is up for. 
Many people would rather not deal with making profiles, and that's
perfectly understandable, too. I come from the dark days of the
bw photoshop plug-in which stopped being useful to me as soon
as new inks and papers appeared. I then decided that the only
software that would interest me is one that offers complete control
over how the printer lays ink down and doesn't depend on canned
profiles.

Another part of the reason you don't hear much about it is that IJC/OPM
has not been promoted or advertised, perhaps until now when the PC
version has just been released. It is the brainchild of one person, Joe Bernd,
and sold as part of the BowHaus line of products. For the most part it
has been a labor of love, with development being possible whenever
time allowed and without the resources of a large software company.

Thanks to the enthusiasm of many users - either beta testers like myself.
or end users - development has continued in response to feedback
and the product has reached an amazing level of sophistication
in its present release (for the PC). I'm sure it will continue to evolve
and new requests or bug reports will be addressed as they have for
some time now.  But development may not be as rapid as we would 
all wish. Still, I think that it represents the best effort in bw printing software
- certainly the best bang for the buck - and that's why I have put in
seemingly hundreds of (unpaid) hours to help out  in the development
effort.

Since you are asking about the 1280 - yes, I have used it with the 1280
as well as the 1160, 2200, 7000 and 9500. It also supports the 4000
7600, 9600 but I don't own those. 
You can read more at the Bowhaus site, where there are interviews 
with photographers using it - and among them an interview with me.

http://www.bowhaus.com/


Antonis




--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "pjmcneal" <pjmcneal@m...> 
wrote:
> 
> I have been reading the posts in this forum for a year but have heard
> very little about the IJC/OPM software.  Is anyone using this on a
> 1280 or other Epson printer?  Is it easy to install and run?  Are you
> happy with the result?  Any input would be most appreciated?
> 
> Perry