Digital BW, The Print

After years of traditional darkroom work I'm moving into digital 
Quad (Hex) Tone printing.  

I've started with Piezography but I'm still having trouble getting 
the ink to flow with my Epson 1200.  So I'm wondering about my 
options for inks.

My interesting is in understanding the relative merits for MIS Quad-
tone vs. Lyson Quad-tons vs. Piezography.  What are people 
experience with these inks?  Which work best with the Epson 1200?  I 
have noticed that MIS Quad-tone talk about Cone's software so I'd be 
interested in experiences with MIS and Cone's software.

Please note that I have Epson 3000 waiting in the wings but kind of 
wanted to hold off until I had some success with the smaller printer.

Regards,

David

Hi David-

I use 1160s which are about the same vintage as the 1200 and 3000.

I had problems with the piezo inks, but loved the software so I 
switched inks to MIS FS and FSN in 2 different printers and love 
that. A lot of folks are using the new ultratones and piezotone inks 
and they are very impressive (you can get a set of sample prints of 
piezotones from inkjetmall.com).

I also use the Lyson Small Gamut which is a different animal being a 
dye based ink.

I think the easiest thing for you to do would be to try the MIS FS or 
FSN (if you like colder prints) and see if they clog on you...they 
ran fine for me right from the start. 

If you like that, your problems are over...you don't even need to run 
a purge to make the switch from piezo to them, but you probably 
should do one along with a pretty vigorous cleaning just to give them 
the best chance of success.

good luck.

tom o'connell


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "David_J_Simons" 
<dsimons@p...> wrote:
> After years of traditional darkroom work I'm moving into digital 
> Quad (Hex) Tone printing.  
> 
> I've started with Piezography but I'm still having trouble getting 
> the ink to flow with my Epson 1200.  So I'm wondering about my 
> options for inks.
> 
> My interesting is in understanding the relative merits for MIS Quad-
> tone vs. Lyson Quad-tons vs. Piezography.  What are people 
> experience with these inks?  Which work best with the Epson 1200?  
I 
> have noticed that MIS Quad-tone talk about Cone's software so I'd 
be 
> interested in experiences with MIS and Cone's software.
> 
> Please note that I have Epson 3000 waiting in the wings but kind of 
> wanted to hold off until I had some success with the smaller 
printer.

> 
> Regards,
> 
> David

Came over to MIS quad inksets from Piezography as well. Before 
that many years in the darkroom as well

I don't know a thing about Lysonic, but am using the Ultratones 
(w/1160, CFS) and can tell you that, using Paul Roark's curves, 
the results have been consistent and fabulous every time.

None of the Ultratone prints have  "warmed" with time either- they 
seem to remain very very stable.

Another benefit I've noticed with MIS Ultratones is that I've not had 
one clogging problem to contend with - even after the printer has 
down a week or more (pretty amazing).

I believe Ultratones in a quad or hex printer would be VERY 
worthwhile looking into.

John

"David_J_Simons" wrote:

> After years of traditional darkroom work I'm moving into digital 
> Quad (Hex) Tone printing.  
> 
> I've started with Piezography but I'm still having trouble getting 
> the ink to flow with my Epson 1200.  So I'm wondering about 
>my options for inks.
 
> My interesting is in understanding the relative merits for MIS 
>Quad-tone vs. Lyson Quad-tons vs. Piezography.  What are 
>people experience with these inks?  Which work best with the 
>Epson 1200?  I have noticed that MIS Quad-tone talk about 
>Cone's software so I'd be interested in experiences with MIS 
>and Cone's software.

> Please note that I have Epson 3000 waiting in the wings but 
>kind of  wanted to hold off until I had some success with the 
>smaller printer.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> David