Digital BW, The Print

Hi Jason,

you might want to consider ink costs in addition to the printer costs. The
cost of the printer itself will pale in comparison to what you'll spend on
ink an paper during a year if you print a lot. 

I don't know what ink prices are like where you live, but here in Norway a
single cartridge for the 2100 (2200 in the US) costs almost $20 USD. I
easily run through a full set of seven cartridges in a month, so that would
be a cost of $140 per month. By ordering ink in 4oz bottles from MIS and
refilling my own cartridges I reduce the cost to about 1/10 of that. Much
more reasonable.

I would recommend the 2100. It can make excellent color and BW prints up to
13x19 without switching inks. This printer has a very large user base and
you'll easily find help for any issues you might have online. Now that the
2400 is out you might be able to find one used for a very good price. There
are many third-party color and BW inksets available. 

A dedicated BW inkset will give you slightly smoother highlights and
slightly more arhcival prints, but I suggest you try the standard inkset
with QuadToneRIP first and see whether that is good enough for you. With a
MIS inkset using Eboni black you can also try Clayton Jones' BO approach:
http://www.cjcom.net/articles/digiprn3.htm

MIS just released information about a new color inkset for the 2100:
http://www.inksupply.com/arcink_mispro.cfm

I don't think anyone has tested it yet, but I plan to order one this week
and will post my results as soon as possible.

--
Daniel Staver
http://daniel.staver.no