Digital BW, The Print

I'm back to report my first experience with monochrome printing.
I've bought brand new Epson 1400 from OfficeMax for $200 and MIS UT14 inks. Today I had finally got inks and here the fun started.

Early in the day I've prepared some prints on my Epson 7900 on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag printed with ABW driver and QTR created profiles.

When I've got 1400 working I've printed the gray wedge, measured it after drying and made a profile. The I've printer wedge using profile and compared it to 7900 printed wedge. I can't display Excel graph here but I'll try to give the numbers, it's luminosity
Epson   Epson
1440     7900

96.67	96.88
94.3	95.64
92.06	94.2
89.43	92
87.24	90.82
84.94	89.2
82.01	87.26
79.26	85.9
76.65	84.25
73.55	82.34
70.27	80.58
68.07	79.14
65.43	76.9
63.34	75.55
61.61	73.95
59.45	71.82
57.22	70.41
55.66	68.7
53.68	66.89
51.33	65.16
49.63	63.42
47.56	61.34
46.02	59.76
44.51	58.04
42.26	55.87
40.67	54.37
39.31	52.58
37.18	50.79
35.78	48.9
34.82	47.03
33.55	44.81
33.19	43.26
32.75	41.26
31.64	39.26
31.39	37.66
30.82	35.62
29.79	33.82
29.53	31.95
29.18	30.25
28.17	28.4
27.91	26.97
27.49	25.4
26.63	23.77
26.53	22.5
26.01	21.51
25.14	20.52
24.57	19.28
23.92	18.9
22.79	18.35
22.32	17.9
16.34	17.2

AS you see 7900 has much better linearity.

Then I've printed out 4 images on 1400 to compare with prints from 7900. When I compared prints (dark, light and mid-tone images) I didn't see them different enough to speak about. Pretty much the same. Which is not a bad thing for $200 printer to give quality on a par with $4000 printer.  

My 7900 does have problems with darks, some images have more details 
on screen than on prints and I hoped monochrome inks would improve it, but no luck. May be QTR curves will improve it?
Jacob Mann
 
 website: http://www.photo3dart.com
 blog: http://photo3dart.com/wordpress


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "flashinet" <flashinet@...> wrote:
>
> Hello everybody,
> 
> I'm fine art photographer working mainly with black and white. I print my own photographs on Epson 7900 using ABW driver and like the results, I also exhibit my prints. 
> Still I'm reading about dedicated B&W printers and monochrome inks like Paleography or MIS and I'm worried that I'm missing something in quality .  
> I've made some research and figured that I can give it a try by buying Epson 1400 printer and UT14 inks.
> 
> But the question is: Is it worth it? Is quality going to be so much better so it's worth all this money and trouble?
> 
> Thanks you very much,
> Jacob Mann
> 
> website: http://www.photo3dart.com
> blog: http://photo3dart.com/wordpress
>