Digital BW, The Print

Hello Rgoldman2,

Thanks for a good overview and for including mention of my articles.

I am disturbed by one thing, however, and that is you make a "guess"
at something and then infer that a technique produces lower quality
prints based on that guess.  I refer specifically to this, referring 
>to the 2400 workflow article:

>"I guess is that these prints look very good but lack a certain 
>richness or depth. But you, as do many others, my find the 
>look quite pleasing."

It really would be more helpful to forum readers only to post things
based on actual experience.  My own experience is that these prints
have exceptionally good richness and depth, in fact, they are as good
or better than I've seen from any system that uses all the color inks
to make BW.  Since you have a 4800, how about trying this workflow
next time you use MK on matte paper and then report your results.


>Jones until recently was using the black only printing technique 
>on the 2200 (see below), but he seems now to be using the full 
>Epson ink set on his 2400 without a third party rip (see message
>68027 and  his website). 

Actually I still use BO along with the 2400 for full ink prints.  For
prints that work well with it, Eboni BO prints have a beautiful glow
and intensity that, IMO, can't be beat by any full ink system I've
seen yet.  But it's also true that some images don't work well with
BO, and all along I've been experimenting with various multi-ink
aproaches for those, the most recent up until the 2440 being UT7 and
some variants.  My general approach is to work up proofs in BO, and if
it's one of those that doesn't work well then I switch to the 2400.



>My own view is that the 2400 is a better printer (a really good 
>printer) compared with the 2200 for making black and white prints, 

Agreed.  My respect for the 2400 continues to grow.  It's really a
beautifully engineered machine (and I'm sure that includes all the
models) and huge development in the industry.  As someone else said
the other day, it's the first OEM out of the box solution for good BW.


Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm