Digital BW, The Print

Hello All,

I just saw this on another forum (dpReview/Epson Talk)- can anyone
verify it?

"Click on the "Main" tab, "Advanced" properties. Select
"PhotoEnhance", then click on the "Tone" drop down menu and select
"Monochrome". This will give you black only prints, even if your
original file contains color. Note the "Effects" menu also; select
"None" to turn these off."


Regards - cj

Clayton Jones   www.cjcom.net 
 Top-Down Library for Xbase++
 X-DBU Database Utility   
 X-MEMO Memo Field Replacement

I tried to verify this, but these settings are not available on the 
Mac OS X driver.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Clayton Jones" 
<cj@c...> wrote:

> Hello All,
> 
> I just saw this on another forum (dpReview/Epson Talk)- can anyone
> verify it?
> 
> "Click on the "Main" tab, "Advanced" properties. Select
> "PhotoEnhance", then click on the "Tone" drop down menu and select
> "Monochrome". This will give you black only prints, even if your
> original file contains color. Note the "Effects" menu also; select
> "None" to turn these off."
> 
> 
> Regards - cj
> 
> Clayton Jones   www.cjcom.net 
>  Top-Down Library for Xbase++
>  X-DBU Database Utility   
>  X-MEMO Memo Field Replacement

Yup, tried that first but results were unsatisfactory because prints 
came out so cool they were almost blue. The gradients (make sure that 
sharpen is set to "none" on the driver) aren't as smooth as color ink 
BW either, but not too bad. Graininess with the R800 in monochrome is 
MUCH improved over, say, my 2200 using black only. No graininess 
visible with the naked eye when printing in monochrome on the R800 at 
the "best photo" setting.

> >can anyone verify it?
> > 
> > "Click on the "Main" tab, "Advanced" properties. Select
> > "PhotoEnhance", then click on the "Tone" drop down menu and select
> > "Monochrome". This will give you black only prints, even if your
> > original file contains color. Note the "Effects" menu also; select
> > "None" to turn these off."

Hello Sandy,

>Yup, tried that first but results were unsatisfactory because prints 
>came out so cool they were almost blue. The gradients (make sure
>that sharpen is set to "none" on the driver) aren't as smooth as 
>color ink BW either, but not too bad. Graininess with the R800 in 
>monochrome is MUCH improved over, say, my 2200 using black only. No 
>graininess visible with the naked eye when printing in monochrome 
>on the R800 at the "best photo" setting.

Thanks for the report.  I'm wondering if this is true BO and the black
ink is that cool, or whether some color ink is mixed in...can you tell
with a loupe?


Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

>I'm wondering if this is true BO and the black ink is that cool, or 
>whether some color ink is mixed in...can you tell with a loupe?

As far as I can tell there are no colors being used in monochrome 
printing. The only loupe I can find around here is a 5X (can't find 
my 8X, where the heck did I put it?) and I couldn't see any other 
color with that. Also stopped a small print half way thru printing to 
check out the ink gradient as it was being laid down and saw no other 
colors.

Hello Sandy,

>As far as I can tell there are no colors being used in monochrome 
>printing. The only loupe I can find around here is a 5X (can't find 
>my 8X, where the heck did I put it?) and I couldn't see any other 
>color with that. Also stopped a small print half way thru printing
>to check out the ink gradient as it was being laid down and saw no
>other colors.

That's encouraging news.  Now if we can get some Eboni ink into it...


Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "sanfo2003" 
<SandyCornelius@c...> wrote:
> >I'm wondering if this is true BO and the black ink is that cool, 
or 
> >whether some color ink is mixed in...can you tell with a loupe?
> 
> As far as I can tell there are no colors being used in monochrome 
> printing. The only loupe I can find around here is a 5X (can't find 
> my 8X, where the heck did I put it?) and I couldn't see any other 
> color with that. Also stopped a small print half way thru printing 
to 
> check out the ink gradient as it was being laid down and saw no 
other 
> colors.

Sandy,
Recently I did a little study of the ink-laydown used by my 
Epson C80's driver when printing a 21-step grayscale wedge. One thing 
that turned up MAY be relevant to your finding out whether the R800 
uses only black ink with the settings you mentioned:
 
With the C80 driver, when "Black Ink" is selected, only black ink is 
used. No matter if I stopped the printing at the beginning, at the 
middle, or at the end, only black ink was visible. However, 
when "Color" was selected, the ink-laydown method was unexpectedly 
complex. At the beginning, in the 100, 95 & 90% steps, only black was 
used; from 85% on down, there was only cyan. When I aborted the print 
at the middle, I could the tracks of magenta and yellow coming in on 
top of the cyan -- to this point, nothing surprising had happened. 
When I interrupted the printing very near the end, though, I saw that 
the black ink in the 100, 95, and 90 steps had been overlaid by some 
cyan (and so had the steps farther down -- for them this was a second 
coating of cyan). So the question I'd raise in regard to the R800 
(which, I gather, has no explicit "Black Ink" setting) is whether  
the ink-laydown for a line includes adding cyan at the very end. 
Given that the prints you get under the "Monochrome" setting have a
bluish tone, is it possible that something like what I found with the 
C80 is going on?

John