Digital BW, The Print

Hi Charlie

Welcome aboard.  I'm sure once you get up and running you'll feel more
positive about working in digital.  I'm sure it doesn't have all the
answers, but then working in the darkroom isn't perfect either!  You
need to find an approach which works for you - but it unfortunately
(and like working in the darkroom) it doesn't happen straight away.

It sounds to me like the printer driver may have not updated properly.
 You can check this by finding your printer properties - it should
show you the driver version somewhere.  (I'm not at home at the moment
so can't be more specific about how to find these - also I use Windows
which you may not.)  

If the correct version isn't there you might need to delete the
printer from the list of printers and then reinstall.  It might also
be worth trying a reboot with your printer switched off before
reinstalling the drivers.

When I used the 'grayscale' option (i.e. before I upgraded the printer
driver) I had colour inks installed, and it definitely laid down a lot
of blue ink.  The differences between black only and an R2 neutral
print will probably be more subtle (I don't have a neutral inkset so
again I'm a bit vague).  If you have the warm inks, then the prints
will appear noticeably different.  BO prints often have dots in
highlights which are visible to the naked eye.  The R2 prints will
most likely be much smoother.

Hopefully this will be of some use.  It sounds like you're making
headway with the R2 inks anyway - how are you getting on with these?

Good luck

Chris






> This is my first post although I have been reading the forum for 
> some time. Until recently I was a diehard darkroom worker of some 
> twenty years and felt pretty negative towards digital. But I have 
> been inspired by the forum and particular thanks to Clayton and Paul 
> for all the info on their sites.
> 
> So I have just made my first print with an Epson R220 and MIS UTR2 
> inks and have a question. I decided to do a BO print and understood 
> from the forum that the print dialogue box should have a checkbox 
> for 'black only'. If it said 'grayscale'as mine did, then you had to 
> download the latest XP driver from the Epson website - 5.5A. This I 
> did more than once and it still showed 'Grayscale'. I phoned Epson 
> technical (UK) who said there was no difference between black only 
> and grayscale.
> 
> So today I made a black and white print using all the colours as per 
> Paul Roark's method (with grayscale box unchecked) and the resulting 
> print appears virtually identical to the BO print (or was it BO). So 
> should I have 'black only' in that box? I would be grateful for any 
> help.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Charlie Francis
>