Digital BW, The Print

Hey Everyone;

  I used to print with the MIS VM inks on both an 1160 and a 1280 using 
paul's curve. I liked the results that I was getting on higher contrast 
images with lots of detail like landscapes and still lifes but whenever 
I tried to print lower contrast images with delicate tonal transitions 
like portraits or nudes I would get terrible posterization that I could 
never resolve. Frustrated,  I took a long hiatus from digital B&W 
printing.

I recently decided to get back in the game with the new UT inks on my 
1160. During my hiatus I also upgraded from MAC OS 9.2 to OS 10.2. The 
results with the new UT inks have been fabulous! Not only do the inks 
clog a lot less, the tone choices are much better then the old VM inks. 
On top of that I was thrilled to see that I can now print my portraits 
with the new inks and curves without any posterization. As an 
experiment to see how the old OS 9.x  Epson driver effected the 
printing compared to the newer OS X driver I booted up in to OS 9.2 and 
made a print from a file that I had just printed in OS X. In OS 9.2 
with all the same driver settings, the portrait printed with areas of 
BAD posterization. The SAME file prints out Perfect in OS X !

It could be one of 2 things. Either the way that Photoshop 7 is 
rendering the tones in OS 9.2 or the Epson driver in OS 9.2 is the 
problem.

Perhaps this experiment will help someone that is having posterization 
problems printing in Mac OS 9.2.

I love being able to make great B&W prints in the "light room" compared 
to working in the "darkroom" but some of the technological mysteries of 
digital compared to the straightforwardness of analog darkroom printing 
can drive one a bit crazy.

-Jeff