Digital BW, The Print

I finally have my initial digital darkroom set up at home after 
following this forum for several months, and started printing some 
images the last few days, I was actually up all last night going 
through the initial learning curve (or curves... new printer, new 
scanner, new image and scanner software etc...)  Glad I'm starting 
with the simple route, with the C84.

I have a few questions concerning printer settings with the C84.  I'm 
using Epson Matte papers to proof my prints.  I did some BO prints 
and some with the EZ Neutral inksets (MIS).  My initila BO prints 
looked pretty good, except for a slight, but very noticeable banding 
problem, even after doing a head alignment.  Then I did some prints 
using the EZ inks and the tones were much smoother with no noticable 
banding, but the prints were much too light as compared to the BO 
prints.  I'm pretty much using the same settings for both types of 
prints, I'm using the "Advanced" tab settings, which are "best 
photo", "Epson matte paper", gamma is set at 1.8 (verse's the 1.5 & 
2.2 setting) I uncheck the "fast printing" and "edge smoothing" 
settings.

I did notice that the BO prints print out much faster than with the 
EZ inks, which may be the cause of the banding when printing BO.

Any comments, suggestions or advice based on your experience with the 
C84 or simuliar printer that might help me in my quest for the 
ultimate print will be appreciated!

Thanks,
Randy Rancier

Well, I wouldn't want to claim that I make ultimate prints, but the 
settings that I've found to work best on my C84/EZ ink combination on Epson 
Enhanced Matte paper are Best Photo, Matte Paper - Heavyweight, High Speed 
On, Edge Smoothing Off, Gamma 1.8, Brightness -2, Contrast +2.  I print RGB 
images that have been processed to gray in Photoshop using the Convert BW 
Pro plug-in.

Note that Paul Roark's recommendations for EZ inks on EEM call for Plain 
Paper, Best Photo (which makes High Speed unavailable) Gamma 1.8, 
Brightness -5 and Contrast -15.  This is supposed to give the blackest 
blacks, but I found that it produced banding in some of the near black 
areas.  This banding disappeared when I selected Matte Paper 
Heavyweight.  I don't see any difference in print quality between low and 
high speed output, so I go with high.

I agree that the full EZ ink prints are smoother than BO, but as the print 
size increases the differences decrease (BO 4x5 prints aren't nearly as 
nice to look at as 8x10s.)  When I print BO with either the EZ inks or the 
Epson Durabrite black in another printer, I set Matte Paper Heavyweight, 
Best Photo, Black Only, Gamma 2.2, and brightness and contrast at zero.

In my view this is a wonderful printer/ink combination for not a lot of 
money.  I don't begrudge the ink and paper I've spent experimenting to find 
the settings I like, as I'm still well under the price of a 1280.

Cheers,
Kip

At 8/13/2004 05:33 PM +0000, Randy wrote, in part:

><snip>
>
>I have a few questions concerning printer settings with the C84.  I'm
>using Epson Matte papers to proof my prints.  I did some BO prints
>and some with the EZ Neutral inksets (MIS).  My initila BO prints
>looked pretty good, except for a slight, but very noticeable banding
>problem, even after doing a head alignment.  Then I did some prints
>using the EZ inks and the tones were much smoother with no noticable
>banding, but the prints were much too light as compared to the BO
>prints.  I'm pretty much using the same settings for both types of
>prints, I'm using the "Advanced" tab settings, which are "best
>photo", "Epson matte paper", gamma is set at 1.8 (verse's the 1.5 &
>2.2 setting) I uncheck the "fast printing" and "edge smoothing"
>settings.
>
>I did notice that the BO prints print out much faster than with the
>EZ inks, which may be the cause of the banding when printing BO.
>
>Any comments, suggestions or advice based on your experience with the
>C84 or simuliar printer that might help me in my quest for the
>ultimate print will be appreciated!