Digital BW, The Print

I have been trying an Epson 1280 and QTR (latest=f), using Epson and 
MIS UT2/Eboni inks on matte paper.  So far, like a few others, i am 
bothered by the dither pattern in high values.  In the QTR 
instructions i have seen, there is said to be 'not much difference' 
in the dither patterns - i suspect this means they are part of Gimp, 
and not necessarily a native part of QTR.  Nevertheless, I'd like to 
know which if any patterns are least visible in high key images or 
high print values.  I don't care about printing speed.

last night i did some comparisons of Epson single black and QTR 
single black with Ordered and Even Tone dither patterns, and the QTR 
dither patterns were far more obtrusive, using Epson HWM, 'no' 
profile, 1480, 'better' (=unidirectional).  For me, so far, QTR is 
unusable (coarse, unpredictable contrast) for Epson ink single black, 
on high key images or images with important subtle high values. 

The Epson driver single black output looks pretty grotty on gray 
scale patch curves, but achieves usable, and more important, 
reasonably WYSWYG, normal image results with my profiled monitor.

I am hoping the new UT2 carts will be more successful in 'real' 
quadtone (actually tritone, is it not?) printing.

Next question -- i downloaded Roy's gray-lab file, and have used it 
as a visual working space in PS, and have used the gray-mat space as 
soft proof.  I can see the difference on visual display.  The 
comments Roy made here seemed to indicate that you can print from PS 
to QTR, which I am unable to do on my system (WXP).  Did i 
misinterpret?  I saw the earlier comments that I don't need 
the 'printer space' profile for QTR printing, which makes sense.

I am awaiting a replacement set of MIS UT2 inks which they are 
sending me due to previous problems I commented on last week.  They 
are sending at least one other listmember replacement inks as well, 
and they recognize some problems in QC with the carts, which they are 
attempting to deal with. 

For at least some of us without reflection densitometers, rigorous 
calibration of QTR seems to be difficult and tedious. I think it is 
ironic that i might have to spend another $250 for IJC/OPM plus/or 
however much for a densitometer, after managing to achieve very good 
color calibration with PhotoCal for a lot less money.  I have a 
transmission densitometer from my Zone/Film days, and was hoping to 
avoid more hardware purchases ;-)

IJC/OPM users:  the website claims 'invisible' dither.  Is this 
really true?  I know piezography claimed it at one point as well, and 
so does ImagePrint.  I don't think ImagePrint delivers, although it 
is better than Epson single black, of course, and a bit better than 
Epson RGB color. I can print low key images with excellent results 
using Epson single black, and i assume/hope eventually with UT2 in 
PS.  What i can't achieve in digital printing on a 1280 so far is 
really smooth high values without visible dither.

I hope others have been more successful and might offer advice.

thanks

ted