Digital BW, The Print

>... Paul ... I cant wait to see what all you 
> come up with for it.

I'm trying to get some feedback from MIS, among others, to help me 
prioritize the goals.

Here are a few of the assumptions I'm working with:

First, I think the market will move more toward CIS type units, as I 
think they can be made such that they do not infringe any Epson 
patents.  As a practical matter, they are available.  They do raise 
the bar a bit in the sense of a barrier to using third party inks, 
but that same characterisic may also make them less of a concern to 
Epson.  I'm sure Epson does a cost/benefit analysis in deciding what 
to target.  I'm hoping they see it in their interest to allow a 
small, dedicated B&W market to use this printer. 

With this assumption, a dedicated B&W inkset must "do it all" (within 
reason) without changing inks -- matte, glossy, neutral, and warm.

Second, while the fixed Lab A (cyan-magenta mix) of the older 
variable-tone inksets like UT2 and UT7 were a frustration to me, that 
limitation greatly simplifies profiling and accomplishing the other 
goals.  Additionally, the automated profiling that I'd hoped would 
happen with the UT-3D inkset didn't work as well as I'd hoped.  As 
such, I'm inclined to move back to a variable tone approach that uses 
a carbon channel and a cool channel and simply varies the Lab B by 
moving a slider (in effect and in QTR) that alters the ratio of the 
channels.

In short, I think an easier to profile variable tone inkset like the 
UT2/UT7 is a better direction than a 3D approach.

I'm leaning toward glop being in the Y position.

While it may not be something I'll be using for most of my printing, 
I understand the appeal of the new glossy papers.  They (as well as 
matte papers) must print as well as possible with an Epson driver 
workflow.  (My preferred Eboni black only does just fine with QTR.)

So, that's where I'm tentatively heading.  So far, so good.

Paul     
www.PaulRoark.com