Digital BW, The Print

rrrfranklin wrote:

>I am also looking for a good b/w solution and have my hopes up for Jon Cones new 
>b/w ICC ink set due in June. My 2000P just sits there looking for somthing to do, my 
>2200 works great in the color world. So I am betting on Jon's solution, it also sounds 
>cheaper than his last b/w ink sets.
>
>
>  
>
I thought it was supposed to be out at PMA...

Then May...

Now it's June?
Keith

 

"Just some guy," and caretaker of the Multiverse's largest EPSON printer 
User Community (highly recommended by Vogon Poets and MegaDodo 
Publications), at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EPSONx7x_Printers/
 
"For the rest of you out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together 
guys"

 




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Luke writes:

> When printing black and white, the RIP doesn't
> use the yellow ink, so metamerism is pretty
> much eliminated as far as I'm concerned.

I'm confused.  I thought that, when printing black and white, all of the
color inks were replaced with special inks that are different shades of gray
and black (?).

That's one option...dedicating your printer to print black and white and replacing the supplied inks with a continuous feed ink system that uses only shades of grey.

The other option is to use the standard ink cartridges and a RIP that gets neutral black and white from those inks.
So far, I'm happy with ImagePrint, I get color and black and white from the same printer with the same inks.

There may be other options too!

Luke.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@a...> wrote:

> Luke writes:
> 
> > When printing black and white, the RIP doesn't
> > use the yellow ink, so metamerism is pretty
> > much eliminated as far as I'm concerned.
> 
> I'm confused.  I thought that, when printing black and white, all of the
> color inks were replaced with special inks that are different shades of gray
> and black (?).

Luke writes:

> That's one option...dedicating your printer to print
> black and white and replacing the supplied inks with
> a continuous feed ink system that uses only shades of grey.

Now I'm further confused.  Aren't the B&W inks just ordinary cartridges that
replace the standard B&W and color cartridges?

I prefer to dedicate the printer.  I already have a 2000P for color photos,
and it produces so-so black and white.  I'd like something better, though
(without having to spend $100 a pop for B&W prints from a pro lab).

On Friday, May 9, 2003, at 06:27  AM, Anthony Atkielski wrote:
>>
>
> Now I'm further confused.  Aren't the B&W inks just ordinary 
> cartridges that
> replace the standard B&W and color cartridges?

Yes, they come in cartridges as well as bottles for Continuous Feed 
Systems.

To print neutral prints using color inks many use RIP's to avoid color 
crossover and metamerism, others use custom profiles...

To print using quad ink sets you can go with Cone's new profile based 
system which will be available soon for his assortment of piezotones, 
or use a RIP with quad ink sets, or a custom partitioned workflow with 
Cone's or MIS's inks or other quad ink sets...

>
> I prefer to dedicate the printer.  I already have a 2000P for color 
> photos,
> and it produces so-so black and white.  I'd like something better, 
> though
> (without having to spend $100 a pop for B&W prints from a pro lab).

I've noticed a few threads concerning this question this year, perhaps 
you could find them in the archives. Here is one subject header, good 
thoughts on this thread, "How to Make the Best B&W Prints on a 1280"...

two quad ink links:
http://www.piezography.com
http://www.inksupply.com/

the piezo list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/piezography3000/

I use the 1160 with piezo (carbon sepia inks are my current favorite) 
right now.
Carolyn

I'm not sure if anyone is making replacement cartridges fo the 2200 yet. Lyson I think have a CIS for the 2200.

If you going to dedicate a printer to black and white and want to go the third party ink route, you might be better off getting a 1290 and running third party ink through that. I will work out cheaper.


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@a...> wrote:

> Luke writes:
> 
> > That's one option...dedicating your printer to print
> > black and white and replacing the supplied inks with
> > a continuous feed ink system that uses only shades of grey.
> 
> Now I'm further confused.  Aren't the B&W inks just ordinary cartridges that
> replace the standard B&W and color cartridges?
> 
> I prefer to dedicate the printer.  I already have a 2000P for color photos,
> and it produces so-so black and white.  I'd like something better, though
> (without having to spend $100 a pop for B&W prints from a pro lab).

What inks/workflow are you using with the 2000P ?

I have a setup using a custom 'tint' with PictureWindows 3 Pro
software that I find works very well. In fact, a MIS FSE inkset
with the Epson 2000P in its default ICM mode really does a quite
reasonable job , just that it 'turns on' the K at 80% and the dots are
visible. My workflow only uses K from 100%-94% and the darkest 
'grey' to 80% where the transition back to Epsons CMY and LCLMY take
over. I have never successfully gotten the lighter color transitions
to work without either a shade step or flat area in the curve.
( and I have maybe 400 test strips to prove my tenacity in attempting 
 to do so. )
Alex



<snip>   I already have a 2000P for color photos,
> and it produces so-so black and white.

Thought I'd let you know how I'm doing with the Ultratone BW inks in my
2100. For those of you who haven't read my earlier posts, what I've done
is to clean and refill old 2100 cartridges with the Ultratone inks and
use them in my printer.

- Results are pretty much consistent with my initial report. Good on
matte papers, not so good on glossy.

- On matte papers I'm getting the most beautiful prints I've ever seen
from my own printer. I'm really happy about that and it's a joy to make
prints with this inkset. 

- Previously I used iProof PowerRIP with the standard inkset to create
BW prints. While it had no metamerism and looked neutral, the dithering
was slightly more coarse than the epson driver and I had to print at
2880dpi to get decent results, which was very slow. Now I can print with
720dpi at high speed and still get nearly dotless prints.

- The resolution of the prints have increased visibly. I can see much
more details than I could previously, and the grain structure of the
picture itself actually shows instead of being masked out by the coarser
dithering of the RIP.

- On matte papers I've been able to create a curve that looks cool all
the way into the shadows. I reported problems with this earlier and it
seems to be due to the extra light black cartridge, making it harder to
get toner ink into the shadow areas.

- I've run through a full set of ink cartridges, so I'm on my second
refill now. I still haven't seen any clogs and I get consistent, perfect
nozzle checks. So far the 2100 seems to be an excellent subject for
refilling.

- I've been using Epson Matte Black instead of Eboni. The Eboni just
doesn't seem match the deep blacks I'm getting with the Epson ink.

- I can easily change back to the standard color inkset at any time,
which I've done a couple of times already. All it takes is a quarter
page of purge pattern and then everything seems normal.

- Still no luck with glossy papers. I get brown shadows and mottling in
dark areas. I tried mixing a neutral black and light black and got much
better results, but I used too much cyan and magenta (about 30%) in the
mixture which lowered dmax significantly and made the ink look slightly
purple. I think if I perfect the mixture I can get good results though,
but I suspect something has to be done about the dark cyan position in
the Ultratone inkset as well. I think the mottling may be because of
interference with this ink and the light black. When time allows I will
do some further experiments with this, but since I print on matte papers
95% of the time anyway I'm in no hurry.

- I'm seriously considering to buy an older mac and IJC to use as a
print server. It's certainly very tempting to use a solution designed
for experimental setups like mine so I could take away the guesswork and
get consistent results. With IJC I would also try mixing some of the
standard ultrachrome colors in some positions and BW inks in others
which I think could be used for interesting tinting effects. I think it
could be worth the hassle of adding yet another computer to an office
that's already crowded with equipment. 
Now, if they would only add support for the 2100...

--
Daniel Staver
http://daniel.staver.no