Digital BW, The Print

2 cents more on this...I've been using a 1280 for over a year and a 
half, that I bought as a new/refurb from Epson....started off with 
pigment MIS "archival color" inkset, CIS, sponged  carts, w/eboni in 
the K position. Have never run dye inks through it. Have had no major 
clogs at all, no problems with the CIS at all...just 1-3 cleaning 
cycles occasionally to clean out the K and M heads mainly, no big 
deal...prints perfectly after cleaning. Most of the time it doesn't 
need cleaning. And I don't use this printer more than once every week 
or two (mainly print B/O & sepia with it.) And I live at 7500' in 
desert dry conditions, but do have a humidifier turned on when the 
humidity drops below 50% inside.  Just my experience, maybe I'm 
lucky, maybe it has everything to do with not running dye inks first. 
Another Epson I have that I DID run dye inks through at first, simply 
would not subsequently print MIS UT pigments, always clogged, so I 
gave up and switched back to dyes for that one (dye inks are ideal 
for digital negatives on Pictorico film, BTW)...Mark

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Intrinsic 
Pictures <lists@i...> wrote:
> I've loved my trial experience with my C84 and UT-EZ inks 
(well...at 
> least with the matte papers). Now I want to do the same in a larger 
> format. This seemed to point directly to the 1280, where I could 
branch 
> out a little into simple toning, or default to the sliders if I 
didn't 
> want to mess with it.
> 
> Now I read (and recall reading previously over the years) all the 
> horror stories about the 1280, clogs from hell, dye printers maybe 
not 
> being the best for pigs, etc. I don't have the time or patience to 
> fiddle with a fussy printer every day. I'm a knowledgeable 
Photoshop 
> user, but would prefer a more intuitive solution than transfer 
curves.
> 
> So is it still possible to get relatively painless 13x19-ish black 
& 
> white using the Epson driver and UT inks? In an ideal world, they'd 
> match the output from my C84 with EZ-N so I could continue to use 
and 
> sell both seamlessly.
> 
> TIA,
> Doug
> www.IntrinsicPictures.com