Digital BW, The Print

ADJUSTMENT CURVES ON THE EPSON 1270 PRINTER

I purchased my 1270 epson printer off of eBay and installed the The 
MIS  UT2 and ebony black  cartridges for black and white printing.   
MIS recommended the UT2 cartridges for the 1270.     I used epson 
archival matte paper. 

With no curves the prints were ok.  Once the curves were loaded into 
Adobe Photoshop the prints came came out posterized.    Even when 
switching from 8 bit to 16 bit mode,  there has been the problem with 
posterization.   I have been able to control this problem by 
adjusting the opacity of the layers that the curves are downloaded 
into.    Could there be a problem with my settings   or could this be 
a problem for this particular printer?   

How I Solved the Problem and What do You Think About this Technique? 


Here is how I solved the posterization problem for the epson 1270 
printer.   Curves loaded from Paul Roarks curve collection were put 
on an  ajdustment layer in Photoshop.  Opacity of the curves layer 
was put at 33% or lower. By doing this I could warm or cool my prints 
to a small degree.  I kept a second curve of my own from which I 
adjusted the tonal scale of the print.  This may be a more limited 
way to adjust warmness and coolness of prints,  but it does appear to 
work.   It may be that to get the full potential of these inks,  a 
newer and better 1280 printer would be better than the 1270.   All 
the pieces of the puzzle are not quiet together yet.  I may regret 
that I did not get a 1280 and decided to save money.

I have checked the forum and little has been said about using 
adjustment curves and varying them with opacity layers.  To my 
knowledge you should be able to just load the adjustment curve and it 
should work fine.  I have been able to make some good prints.  Its 
consistent.  Could it be that the printer has a bad cart, the printer 
has a problem or the settings are not quiet right?   Has anyone had a 
similiar situation with a 1270 printer?

I like the idea of making 2 separate layers for curves, one for 
adjusting the tonal scale and the other for adjusting the warmness of 
the print.  Is there a reason not to do this?   

Is it possible to make decent glossy prints.  I read through some 
forum discussions.  Paul Roark does not seem to endorse it.  Are 
there other options than matte that seem to work ok?


Thanks.
Dave

You may want to try QuadTone RIP. There are some profiles available 
for the MIS UT2 inks and the 1270.

I use QTR with my 1270 and the old VM inks.

Tim

Hi Tim,

I think I may try it.
Where can I get the Quadtone RIP that you use?


Thanks.
Dave




--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Tim Goodwin 
<tgvoz@f...> wrote:

> You may want to try QuadTone RIP. There are some profiles available 
> for the MIS UT2 inks and the 1270.
> 
> I use QTR with my 1270 and the old VM inks.
> 
> Tim

Hi Tim,

  All I had to do is go to the Yahoo search engine and I found the 
site!  Sorry it was not so hard to find as I thought.  I assume you 
use a mac.   I have a pc. By any chance do you use Linux?  They don't 
have Quadtone Rip for Windows XP.   Fortunately I can run 2 operating 
systems on my computer.   Learning Linux may be worth it.  I know I 
could install it.  Might be a fun project.

Thanx.
Dave
--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Tim Goodwin 
<tgvoz@f...> wrote:

> You may want to try QuadTone RIP. There are some profiles available 
> for the MIS UT2 inks and the 1270.
> 
> I use QTR with my 1270 and the old VM inks.
> 
> Tim

Hello Dave

Yes, I'm on a Mac. Sorry, but I have little experience with Linux but 
in my humble opinion it would be well worth your while if you could 
get QTR up and running on your machine.

Tim

>Hi Tim,
>
>   All I had to do is go to the Yahoo search engine and I found the
>site!  Sorry it was not so hard to find as I thought.  I assume you
>use a mac.   I have a pc. By any chance do you use Linux?  They don't
>have Quadtone Rip for Windows XP.   Fortunately I can run 2 operating
>systems on my computer.   Learning Linux may be worth it.  I know I
>could install it.  Might be a fun project.
>
>Thanx.
>Dave
>--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Tim Goodwin
><tgvoz@f...> wrote:
>>  You may want to try QuadTone RIP. There are some profiles available
>>  for the MIS UT2 inks and the 1270.
>>
>>  I use QTR with my 1270 and the old VM inks.
>>
>  > Tim

> Yes, I'm on a Mac. Sorry, but I have little experience with Linux but 
> in my humble opinion it would be well worth your while if you could 
> get QTR up and running on your machine.
> Tim

Go to the Files section of this group and open the folder "QuadTone RIP (QTR)" 

There are helpful info on installing on Linux.

QTR is worth it!

>... 1270 epson printer ... MIS  UT2 and ebony ...I used epson 
>archival matte paper. 

>With no curves the prints were ok.  Once the curves were loaded into 
>Adobe Photoshop the prints came came out posterized.    ...

Use the 1280 driver.  Just download it from the Epson web page.  The 1270
with the 1280 driver works well (with PCs) when the 1280 UT2 curves are
used.  I was not thrilled with the glossy quality, but some fine it
satisfactory.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com 

For UT2 & UT7 information, curves, and settings see:
http://home1.gte.net/res09aij/