Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Tyler Boley" 
<tyler@t...> wrote:
> There is some part of the market that will be satisfied with these
> canned solutions, some of which were not available directly from the
> multinational as a package deal in the past. However, Epson has 
been,
> and still is, a follower interested primarily in the largest segment
> of the market.
> Inks, papers, drivers, etc., Epson continues to try to play catch 
up,
> either by rebranding or implementing ideas already out of date in 
the
> bleeding edge world.
> Witness- they finally decided more than 2 blacks are needed (they 
only
> decided more than one was needed about 2 years ago) and we see 
people
> evolving to 6 and 7 mono partitioned ink solutions now, not even
> looking back over their shoulder at where Epson may be at. That's 
just
> one example.

I don't think the 3 blacks was specifically for black and white 
printing. I think it was to make smoother tonal transitions with the 
color work. And also it could provide a slightly better gamut because 
using black ink to replace CMY means you can get more ink onto the 
paper (GCR).


> The new printers will probably make a lot of people happy, so some
> market will move away I guess, and Ultrachromes in general have
> probably hampered the 3rd party color ink world quite a bit.

I don't know about that. Since the Ultrachrome inks have come to 
pass, many more manufacturers have made pigment inks for these 
printers. Way back when, there were only a couple places to get 
pigment inks, and then when the UC inks came out, several others 
joined the game. Now you have third parties making several different 
versions of ink sets, for old and new printers. Also made Canon take 
notice and start to think.


> Even with one of these new printers, I'm sure QTR and IJC will move
> them into an area of quality the Epson driver can't match, given
> knowledgeable setup.

Several other choices too like StudioPrint, Onyx RIPs, Evolution RIP. 
Yes those are much more money, but offer greater fexibility for other 
tasks. For B/W only it's going to be hard to beat the price for 
performance of QTR and Bowhaus RIP.

> The small innovators will always be ahead of the dinosaurs. But we 
are
> married to Epson as well, so more power to them if they innovate.

Canon is making it's way slowly, so we may not always be tied to 
Epson.


> Their efforts to create impressions in the marketplace and claim
> dominance over legitimate longevity concerns is of greater concern 
in
> my opinion. I wish they were putting as much effort into R&D as they
> are spin.
> They need the 3rd party guys for ideas more than they will admit,
> can't mow them all down.
> Tyler
> 
> 

Can't agree more on that last point!