Digital BW, The Print

Here's the text of that message, so that you don't have to join the Epson 2200 
group to read it:

"The June issue of Shutterbug magazine, pg159 has a 1/2 page article on
4 new Epson printers including a replacement for the 2200. They will
have a new 8 color pigment ink set, including photo or matte black,
light black, light light black, plus cyan, magenta, yellow, light cyan
and light magenta. "The claim is that these pigment inks will
significantly improve the printer's gray balance while eliminating
color casts and dramatically reducing metamerism and bronzing." There
will also be a new "advanced black and white print mode". The
replacement for the 2200 is the R2400 and will sell for $849."

I have several thoughts about this:

(1) What are the other 3 new printers using the new inkset other than the 
R2400?  I can see replacements for the 9600 and the 7600, but would the 
fourth printer be a replacement for the 4000?

(2) Notice that it refers to photo OR matte black.  That would indicate that, like 
the 2200/7600/9600, and unlike the 4000, R1800 and R800, it can only have 
one of these inks loaded at a time.  If true, that seems like a silly step 
backwards.

(3) Why would the new printers be designated "Rxxxx" if they're not using the 
R800/1800 inks?

(4) Doesn't this leave the 4000 as kind of an orphan in the lineup?  It doesn't 
fit with the R800/1800, which use the gloss optimizer and red/blue inks.  It 
doesn't fit with the 2200/7600/9600, because it can hold photo and matte 
black at the same time.  And it doesn't fit with the new printers either.  
UNLESS, as someone suggested, Epson shows some common sense and 
allows use of the new inks and "advanced B&W print mode" in the 4000 by a 
firmware/driver update -- since the 4000 already has 8 ink channels, this 
would seem sensible unless the new inks require a physically smaller drop 
size than the 4000's heads can produce.  You would, of course be giving up 
the ability to print on glossy or mattte without swapping blacks (assuming the 
Shutterbug article is accurate), which is probably the primary reason you'd 
buy a 4000 instead of the larger 7600.

Is the June issue of Shutterbug on newstands yet?  I'd like to see the article for 
myself.



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Schofield" <
scho@m...> wrote:
> Someone read the shutterbug article:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/epson2200/message/6708
> Three shades of black and driver control for B&W printing with the 3 inks.
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "dfaprinting" <
dfaprinting@y...> 
> wrote:
> > --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "steve_bye" 
> > <steve_bye@c...> wrote:
> > > I put some of the text from Carl's link into a program that identifies
> > > languages and it chose Croatian or Serbian. Then I used a web page
> > > translator (
> > > http://quickfound.net/webdev/language_translation_tools_index.html) to
> > > translate the article from both languages to English. The results
> > > demonstrate that computer-generated translation technology has a 
ways 
> > to go.
> > > 
> > > This definately looks like a new line of printers, and they appear to 
> > be
> > > targeting B&W printing with three B&W inks, though it is not clear if 
> > they
> > > are different densities or hues.
> > > 
> > > Here is some of the cryptic text.
> > 
> > 
> > I would be nice if the mixing is controlled in the hardware, and not 
> > the driver, but also user adjustable. If not that, then have all three 
> > channels available to a RIP so that you gain back the user adjustment 
> > of the mixing.
> > 
> > And if that B/W output comes through, can we all say... About time! 
> > What took so long?