Digital BW, The Print

There was an attachment in their response which tried to give me a lesson in
"the meaning of Greyscale and the nature of ink".  Here are some excerpts:

" With Traditional Monochrome photography and printing ŒBlack and White¹ is
a misnomer. No  monochrome image is pure greyscale, they all have a colour.
The colour is generally neutral  and is monochromatic (shades of one colour
only).   Therefore it is more exact to describe this style of photography as
monochrome.   When reproducing monochrome images it is not always necessary
to print a pure grayscale.  In fact it is not always possible as even the
paper has a colour that is impossible to disguise.

Take a look at the image above on your computer screen (a simple B&W image).
This is a good example of a  greyscale image. Now take a closer look, being
careful to observe any safety instructions  associated with your display
equipment.  

On LCD and CRT monitors you will see:  (image)      As you can see, the
greyscale is made up of purely Red Green and Blue.

So what defines the  colour Grey? An object is described as Black when no
visible wavelength is reflected, and  described as White when all visible
light is reflected. So:  Black = 0 Blue + 0 Green + 0 Red  White = All Blue
+ All Green + All Red  The common point is that the Blue Green and Red
values are equal. This is how Grey is  defined:  Grey = Equal parts Blue +
Green + Red  

So how is Greyscale printed? Not by printing Black only.   This tries to
create Grey by using Black dots on a paper base: The Black absorbing the
light  and the paper reflecting all colours creating the illusion of a Grey.
However this suffers from  two major drawbacks:  1)  The colour of the paper
will introduce a colour cast.  2)  The special nature of Gloss Black ink and
the way it adheres to Gloss paper makes  gradation difficult to achieve.
The best pure Greyscale is achieved by using all colours, this is the nature
of true Grey.    Note: With Pigment Ink Black ink differs from all the other
colours in its composition. This  produces special considerations when
printing in Black on coated media. With Matte and  normal paper the Black
ink is absorbed more into the paper, and with the inclusion of Matte  Black
and Light Black the occurrence of these issues is minimised. However with
Gloss Black  and Coated Media the best Greyscale is not achieved using Black
Ink Only. The option of  Black Ink Only is for primarily for printing text
on plain paper.    Printing Neutral Monochrome and Pure Greyscale Exact
colour matching is not possible, as although the colour gamut of modern
EPSON inks  and media is impressive it cannot cover all possible colours.
Therefore the colour  management in a printer driver has to be dynamic, i.e.
it modifies colours out of the printable  range possible with the inks and
media whilst still preserving the gradations of tone.  This makes printing
Greyscale a special and difficult function to achieve in a colour printer,
though not impossible. As discussed before Greyscale requires an exact equal
balance of all  colours. Greyscale printing needs an exact match for the
balance to be correct across all  types of media. Even a very slight
imbalance can produce a slight and noticeable colour cast.  The Greyscale
option in the driver will produce good monochrome prints with a neutral tone
but the Generic profile will not produce exact Greyscale prints due to the
dynamic nature of  the colour management and the need to allow for
tolerances in manufacture and variations in  environment. The only way to
achieve exact Greyscale is with a consistant and coherent  workflow and
through colour profiling of the printer for specific media and specific
settings in  the printer driver.  EPSON do offer this service for their
range of printers. EPSON also offer downloadable ICC  Profiles for specific
media (donated by Bill Atkinson) for their high end and Professional range
of ink jet printers. Another tool EPSON offers for some printers on a
Windows operating  system is the EPSON Greybalancer. This will provide the
calibration necessary to achieve  neutral toned monochrome prints.