Digital BW, The Print

>--- "pr_roark" <pr_roark@...> wrote:
> 
> > Are you using Photoshop or QTR with your 7600/Carbon-6 setup?
> 
> I'd like to hear how the alternatives work in the 7600 also.
> 


Hello folks,

I am sorry for the delay.  I was traveling for a few days.

I just picked up the new 7600 on Friday.  I spent the day Saturday 
flushing the printer and testing the heads, putting it on the network, 
etc.  

It only had 1000 ml of ink through it, so it is like brand new. But the 
old carts - which expired in 2005 - were almost welded in place.  It 
still had a decent nozzle check when I got it and cleaned up with no 
problem though. ;>)

Paul, you make a good case for running profiles with curves in 
Photoshop.  I am also on Windows, so the ability to preview is 
valuable.  I will probably set up in Photoshop first, then try QTR a 
bit later. I will try the 7500 curves to start. I have an i1 
spectrophotometer to make the profiles.

I have a variety of standard matte papers - Epson Enhanced Matte, 
Ultrasmooth, Somerset Enhanced Velvet, Legion Digital Rag, Moab 
Entrada, Crane Museo Max, Hahnemuhle Photo Rag,  Harman MATT FB Mp and 
a couple of others. I'll have to choose 3 or 4 to start and test on 
matte.

I would also like to test with some of the newer photo papers - 
Hahnemuhle FineArt Baryta, Harman GLOSS FB Ai, and Epson Exhibition 
Fiber.  I will spray those to start, but I may try to get GLOP set up 
on the 7600 later.

Unfortunately I have to get a start on taxes before I spend too much 
time on this.  I also have a trip coming up in 10 days which will be a 
bit of a distraction.

I think the 7600 and 9600 are the last, great printers for 3rd party 
inks.  I can get in and reset the maintenance tank, then re-pack it 
myself. I can set the ink to Dye or Pigment (using 6 or 7 channels, 
respectively.)  I can use large 220ml refillable carts and tell the 
printer to ignore the chips if I need to.  With a pigment color ink set 
I can use the "South African" method to swap blacks by only flushing 
the one black line. (That should be SOP for the Epson printers, not 
a "bug" that Epson later disabled in the 7800!)

They use rolls, have the 24" or 44" width, are built for volume work 
and will run forever, but they cost less than an Epson 2400.  I guess I 
better buy one more as a spare. ;>)

The ink set looks like it should be great!  Simple, stable, great tonal 
range with good longevity. Thanks again Paul for all of the R&D you 
have done to put this together.  

At $33 per liter, the ink cost comes to $0.033 (three point three 
cents) per milliliter.  So a 24"x36" print would run just under $0.20 
(twenty cents - assuming about 1 ML of ink use per square foot.)  

I will try to clean up the spreadsheet with mixing calculations, 
quantities needed for buying, and pricing information and post that 
later this week. Paul, you can add that to the standard file sets if 
you like.

Have fun folks.  Keep us updated!

Best,
Michael