Digital BW, The Print

Hi there,

I know what you mean about printing on matte papers with pigment 
inks... I'm still trying to get decent dmax and not having much luck 
without losing almost all detail in the shadows _and_ getting blotchy 
areas where I've upped the black in an attempt to get good saturation.  
It's a bit of a struggle, but it by the sound of what some of the good 
folks on this board are saying, it's definitely possible.

You mentioned that you've tried different papers: were they all matte? 
Whenever I get über-frustrated with the results on matter paper (mostly 
EEM since I've been going through it so quickly... anything else would 
be prohibitively expensive!), I pull out the Eboni cartridge (MIS) out 
of my 1280 or 220, replace it with PK and fire off a few glossies that 
come out beautifully, even though they're pigment inks. I know enough 
not to expect _that_ kind of "pop" on matte paper, but it does enough 
to renew my faith in eventually achieving an image that is much better 
than what I'm producing on matte now.

So if you haven't tried anything on glossy yet, give it a shot... 
you'll need to substitute the photo black for the Ebony (if you're 
using MIS inks).

Cheers,
Jens

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "i_3d_c" 
<ichristie@...> wrote:
>
> 
> My first inkjet printer was the Epson 1270.
> I scanned some of my old 4x5 negs and printed them on Archival Matte
> paper. I fell completely in love with the results, which was a little
> puzzling because I had read that the 1270 wasn't really that great for
> B&W. I thought I'd like to get more serious about this B&W printing
> thing so I bought an Epson r1800 and dedicated greyscale inks. And was
> disappointed. After hours & hours of testing with different papers and
> settings (and QTR) I just couldn't achieve the look I had fallen in
> love with with the 1270. Long story short, pigment inks just can't
> achieve the same d-max as dyes.
> 
> Assuming that I'm not interested in my prints lasting hundreds of
> years  -- a couple of decades would be nice -- are there any printers
> or 3rd party inksets that have greyscale dye inks?
>