Digital BW, The Print

I found ABW to be unreliable, needing slightly different adjustments depending on the 
pictures. I also found it not completely immune to metamerism and not always neutral; 
sometimes with differing tints for highlight, mid-range and shadows. In a word, an 
improvement over previous situation but not what a dedicated B&W photographer looks 
for. With ABW you're back to the old test print system like in the wet darkroom, only more 
expensive. Besides, it seems to be engineered to use as much ink as the paper can absorb. 
I found it to produce very nice prints on Hanhemuhle Photo Rag, though. But, I don't like 
that paper much, because its surface is very hard to write on (difficult to sign) and it uses 
OBA's. It does fade from white to yellow quite rapidly if exposed unframed.

I tried to drive the printer with QTR, still using the K3 inks. QTR has a documented way to 
produce a real calibration, making the printing much more consistent once the calibration 
is nailed. Although an improvement over ABW, I found the calibration quite tedious 
because the K3 grey inks are too warm and need a mix of cyan and magenta to get 
neutral. I find that mix quite difficult to get right.

I also got completely fed up with constantly replacing cartridges. The process is designed 
again to maximize ink waste. Quite often I had to replace extra cartridges because of the 
priming process the printer goes through after each replacement.

I now use Cone's NK7 ink-set with an inkrepublic.com CIS and that seems to be what I was 
looking for. No metamerism, of course, neutral prints, with perfectly neutral grey on Moab 
Entrada Natural and slightly warm on Epson Velvet, but in a beautiful way. The tones are 
very rich, deep, seamless. Much better than anything I have been able to produce with K3. 
I have yet to see a single clog, even after letting the printer idle 2 weeks. The prints are 
simply gorgeous.