Digital BW, The Print

Hi Steve,

>I'm reading all I can on converting a printer to dedicated black and 
>white. 

Which printer?  

How large you want to print and how much you want to spend are major
variables.

Whether you want to get involved in profiling the inkset yourself is also a
major one.  The different systems have different numbers of profiles
pre-made.  For self-profiling with no equipment or experience, the k3
(Epson) ABW mode is the best I've seen.  

>Can anyone give me a rundown of the competing systems and their 
>advantages/disadvantages?

The people on this forum mostly use Epson printers.  The most widely used
inksets on the group are probably Epson, MIS, and Cone/Piezo.

For a list of MIS inksets by printer model, see
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/ 

If I had to live with one printer today, I'd probably buy a 3800 and hope
that I'd be able to refill the carts with MIS inks.  The 3800 has the major
advantage of being able to print matte and glossy papers relatively easy for
a printer that can handle 16 x 20 prints.  Many of the MIS systems I've
worked on do it even easier (purely software/profile controlled).  The 2400
requires you to change the black cart, which is also not that bad.

>At the moment, I'm leaning toward the piezotone system because it 
>seems straightforward and because the idea of doing split tones prints 
>apeals to me.

Any variable tone system can do split tones.  The question is whether there
are ready-made profiles or how easy it is to profile the systems.  The k3
printers would require QTR of other rip to do a split tone.

Split tones that have different tones in different areas (like this
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/Split_tone.pdf ) cannot be done with QTR.
The Epson driver and IJC can do this.  

If you're interested in the new glossy offerings, Piezotones may not be the
best choice.

>I'm wishing I could get a hands-on look at output from the various 
>systems, but I can't figure how to make that happen.

At this point the differences among the newer systems are going to have more
to do with paper and the quality of the profiling than the inks.  New Epson
k3, Piezo and MIS inksets are all capable of top notch prints.  At the entry
level, the C88 MIS EZ and R220/340 MIS R2 approaches are the bargains, but
they are limited to 8x10 printing.

Good luck.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com