Digital BW, The Print

Gary Barnett wrote:

>Word has it (unconfirmed by me) from the Epson Wideformat forum that  
>these are simply rebranded inks from MIS. If you like MIS and these  
>are less expensive, perhaps they are worth pursuing. Otherwise, I  
>would do more research prior to investment. See who makes them for  
>sure. If you don't like how MIS inks work for you, these inks may do  
>the same thing.
>
>Repeat: I have not confirmed this information, only heard it from a  
>member of the other forum.
>
>Best,
>
>Gary
>
>  
>
Gary,

I have written on that subject there but not with those words. Pantone 
has a nice habit to claim that they invented color in this world. Their 
brand name suggest that the inks should be the best around and I doubt 
that. Most of the third party inkjet ink manufacturers get their ink 
ingredients from the big chemical companies and their contribution is in 
confectioning and distribution. There will not be much difference 
between the color inks. The price you pay for the Pantone sticker on the 
cart or bottle might be the only difference. MIS at least tries to bring 
some solutions for niche products like B&W inks. So I would rather 
support companies like MIS or Mediastreet who were the firsts to offer 
us solutions that were not available from the big companies.

There's a Pantone guy on the colorsync list who usually only gets off 
his lurker mode when someone utters Hexachrome when he means CMYKOG 
inks. The Pantone man then sends the message that only a Pantone 
licensed CMYKOG printer inkset can be labeled with the name Hexachrome. 
No further information than that. So Roland can use Hexachrome and Mutoh 
and Mimaki who have the same inkset can't. They all use Epson heads in 
similar printers and there's no difference in the results.

Ernst