Digital BW, The Print

I was following a discussion here, months ago, about how to get the
best B&W prints from the Epson 2100/2200 using the stock ink set.

At the time, there weren't any great solutions, as least not any that
didn't involve spending hundrdes of $$ on aftermarket RIPs. The
Epson RIP (still not free) looked promising, but results were
as yet inconclusive.

Anyhow, I'm wondering, has anything changed ?  Has a silver bullet
been found ?

Thanks, John

P.S.  Here is a writeup I did for a newbie in comp.periphs.printers
of my take on the situation with regards to B&W on the 2200:

It's kinda a big lie that B&W looks great on the 2100/2200.  The
problem is
that if you use "color" mode, where it prints B&W using all 7 inks,
then
you get an effect called metamerism - basically, the print looks
different
in tint under different light sources.  For example, when I use the
Epson
Enhanced Matte paper with the profile and "no clor adjustment", the
print
looks fairly decent (maybe a little brownish) at night under
incandescent
light; but the next morning, it looks kinda a gun-metal blue under sun
light from my windows.  Most people find this unacceptable.  There is
a
way around this, called "black only" printing; you simply check the
checkbox marked "black" (as opposed to "color") and ignore the warning
that it's suitable only for low-quality text printing, and manually
increase the resolution back up to 1440 or 2880.  And this looks
pretty
darn good - it's what I normally use.  However, since it uses only the
black ink (it doesn't even use the "light black"), the dots are a
little
coarser, and this can be noticed in highlight areas (that are a shade
of grey very close to white).  Also, it doesn't allow you to tint your
prints.  But it's not a bad solution.  The best solution appears to be
after-market RIP print drivers, but they are a significant additional
expense.  The one from ColorByte seems to be the best, but it's $500.
And Epson has a new "Pro" RIP for the 2200, which supposedly is pretty
good too, and only $200; but, since they claim this printer does
great B&W printing straight out of the box, I frankly think they ought
to give it away (I don't normally illegally copy software, but I
WOULD do it with Epson's RIP ...)  These RIP's apparently use all the 
inks except yellow, which evidently is the one that causes this
metamerism.   The last solution is after-market quad- or hex-tone
ink sets from people like MIS; but those don't exist for the 2200 yet,
and you're probably better off with a 1280 for this.

John,

look at the archives here - we have discussed this way too many times, it 
seems.  If you are on Mac OS 8 or 9 the simplest thing is OPM and its free.

Antonis

> Anyhow, I'm wondering, has anything changed ?  Has a silver bullet
> been found ?
> 
> Thanks, John
>

Antonis,

Thanks for replying.   Yes, I followed the discussion some
months ago, and then got distracted especially with all the
other discussions simultaneous to it (maybe we need a group
DigitalBlackandWhite Print Epson2200Ultrachrome :-), and was
just wondering if anything changed dramatically in the last
few months (and being lazy).

And it looks like OPM/IJC *IS* the silver bullet I was hoping
had come along in my absence !  So thanks.

I'm a little confused though.  Is it free, or is it $200 ?

Thanks, John

> And it looks like OPM/IJC *IS* the silver bullet I was hoping
> had come along in my absence !  So thanks.
> 
> I'm a little confused though.  Is it free, or is it $200 ?

John,

there are two parts to it. OPM is free, IJC is $200. Without IJC you can't make 
your own profiles - or tweak existing ones. OPM by itself works with the 
included profiles and is worth dowloading and playing  to see if you are 
interested and if it works for you. The download includes a pdf manual so you 
can get a sense of what's in store if you pay for IJC.

Antonis