Digital BW, The Print

I'm afraid I must agree with Bob here. After following the
threads on the comparison between the 2200 and the newer
R1800 I was very much inclined on getting the 2200
especially on its QTR support and the ability to print both
b/w and color on one printer.

But then I decided to get the R1800 for the broader color
gammut and the gloss optimizer feature. I still have the
1160s for b/w work. After installing the new cartridge set
and had to use the Auto Nozzle Check and Head Cleaning
feature to get a perfect pattern, I proceeded to create
new color profiles for both the Brilliant Lustre and Innova
Soft Texture papers.

I got the expected beautiful color prints but was very
pleasantly surprised to find virtually no color crossover or
even a hint of metamerism in a b/w print. At least not that
I can visually perceive in various lighting conditions. I
haven't done a side by side comparison of prints from my
quad-tone 1160 and the brand new R1800 but I don't think I
will bother at least for the time being.

Is it possible that the 1.5 picoliter droplet allows the
printer driver to push the black ink much further into the
highlights? Is the printer driver printing black-only
implicitly? I haven't played with it enough to really
understand what's going on but at this point I'm very
much thrilled by the printer's performance. Maybe I
really have a printer that can produce quality duotone
output now.

Again about the Auto Nozzle Check feature. The printer has
a scanner that analyzes the nozzle check pattern and
performs head cleaning if necessary and it really works.
It seems to be able to focus it's cleaning on a particular
head - like cyan in my case - or am I imagining? After it
got the cyan nozzles to print perfectly I found the cyan
ink level in the monitor dropped down quite a bit.

By the way I don't use Adobe98 in the driver setting but
use the convoluted Color-Management:ICM and ICC/ICM: Color
Profile:OFF(No Color Management) using the print space of
the newly created color profiles. This resulted in breath-
takingly beautiful b/w prints. This is really unexpected
from a full color inkset using the Epson driver. I got very
neutral prints for both the gloss-optimized Brilliant
Lustre and the Innova Soft Texture. 

Anyway, this printer is looking very promising.

--nick

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Bob Frost"
<bob@f...> wrote:
> Steven,
> 
> You can't condemn all R1800's just because you got a dud! Mine is
> great, for B&W and color (using the Adobe98 setting in the driver). 
> No banding.
> 
> Bob Frost.
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Steven Karafyllakis" <steve@s...>
> and an
> > 1800 for BW?
> 
> You've got it backwards here: The 1800 does the better color,
> especially with the premium profiles provided by Epson, but is
> worthless for B&W. The one I took back showed at least some banding
> at even the highest quality settings.