Digital BW, The Print

There are many experts here more experienced than me. I went from an 
Epson 880 last year...to an R2400. I really didn't want to spend that 
much on a printer ( I know there are even more expensive ones out 
there). I did no color calibration. I have a mac OSX4.9. I spent 
hours tweaking my images in Photoshop to get just the right color on 
my prints and they never printed right with the R2400 and I was so 
frustrated..I started looking at EXPENSIVE color calibration devices 
Then one person (a smart person) asked me if I would just try to 'let 
the printer determine the colors' on one print and it is consistently 
so perfect, I never looked back!
Debbi



>Hi all,
>
>I would really appreciate your comments and suggestions on the following:
>
>I joined this group after undertaking basic colour management of my
>digital workflow. It seemed the worthwhile next move to try to get to
>grips with managed black and white as a necessary addition to my
>output. I have been following the various threads with great interest.
>
>I own a pair of Epson 1290 printers (I believe that's 1280 in the
>US?) one of which is fitted with Epson colour inks, the other with MIS
>UT2 inks. I don't currently sell my prints but it is my intention to
>do so when I have finished 'fiddling about' and can settle on
>profiles, software and (obviously) pigment inks.
>
>I've spent a couple of months now making prints from various sources,
>creating printer profiles, using the QuadtoneRIP with the monochrome
>inks etc. While the output is undoubtedly far superior to the
>'straight out of the box' results and while I can see what I have
>learned and what the improvements in both workflow and output have
>been, I now feel that I am sufficiently wiser to re-evaluate the
>direction of my efforts - hopefully with more relevant advice and help
>from this group.
>
>I am trying to make the best use of resources while trying to minimize
>the amount of potentially wasted effort (and money) in trying to get
>these older printers to produce increasingly 'better' prints. As such,
>I feel I have a choice. To continue with these two printers and see it
>as a solveable problem to improve their output with time, patience and
>more understanding, or to cut my lossses and invest in a new printer
>namely a 2400 or 3800 which, I get the impression, are pretty much
>'bang on' straight out of the box, or at least with just a little
>tweaking.
>
>Can any of you comment on this? Are these new printers 'that much
>better' that they represent a genuine step forward? Or is it that they
>simply make the processes involved easier while not offering
>noticeably different prints when all is said and done? I ask the
>latter because I feel that the final image is not judged on technical
>details (such as ink droplet size, or dithering algorithms) but on how
>the print actually looks when hanging on the wall. As such that's a
>pretty wide and subjective field.
>