Digital BW, The Print

The "Roark" inksets you are talking about are all MIS products and 
many of them have been suggested and developed by Paul Roark.  Most 
are designed to work with the Epson driver. There can be a lot of 
tweaking, but there are many canned curves/profiles. See the MIS and 
Paul's web sites for more details.


The alternative approach is to use a RIP like QTR or IJC to generate 
profiles and replace the Epson driver.  

As CDTobie indicated in an earlier post, the easiest way to go for BW 
is to use an OEM inkset.  For smoothest BW my opinion is that one 
needs at least 3 shades of black (my personal preference is 4 
blacks).  This really is a matter of your taste in print output -- 2 
shades of black or black only may suit your needs.  Three shades means 
currently using the Epson K3 inkset in a matching printer (assuming 
Epson is your choice).  Other inksets and printers are on the way. 

I now refill my carts rather than use CIS systems.  The ink costs are 
identical because I buy the same bulk quantities of inks for either 
approach.  My personal experience is that CIS systems are more prone 
to problems unless you print every day and the individual cart 
approach allows me to quickly change inksets and to experiment with 
new inksets.  Moreover, the CIS carts will not likely last any longer 
than the regular refillable carts -- both will need to be replaced 
periodically (~1 to 2 years based on my personal experience).

The R1800 is a good platform for BW, but you can't use the OEM inkset 
unless you only want to do black only printing.  The R2400 is a good 
OEM BW platform, but costs a lot more than the R1800.



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Steve" 
<dazedgonebye@...> wrote:
>
> I need to read up on Mr. Roark's products.  The little bit I found 
> confused my newbie brain.  There seem to be so many approaches to 
the 
> problem.
> Are you refilling your carts yourself?  If I can't go with a CIS and 
> maintain the versatility I want, I may want to do refills.  Ink 
costs 
> so dang much more than printers....