Digital BW, The Print

Egads, I feel like such a knucklehead. Now I don't believe I really had DSS.

Both ConeTech and MIS got their respective packages to me Friday, so I was 
able to play with the CIS this weekend. Flushing out the CIS tubing was 
less of a hassle than I expected and I managed to fill the new cartridges 
with the MIS FS inks without making a mess. After printing out several 
flush patterns with the Epson ink, I reinstalled the CIS and shortly had 
clear nozzle checks.

Then I printed the gradient with the 1" block of 100% at the dark end. I 
was shocked to still see the same sudden drop at the 100%/99% line. After 
looking at the paper closer, I flipped it over, ran it though again, and 
was even more shocked to see a perfect gradient. I have been printing on 
the wrong side of the paper. I had no idea it would affect the density in 
that particular manner. This explains why I had a perfect nozzle check, but 
still had the cramped midtones.

So then I printed out the staircase example off the CD, correctly, and 
everything looks beautiful! Comparing this staircase print to one I did 
when I first installed the CIS (both Legion Photo Matte), I see that the 
original is a little warmer, and only a little. I think I can see a little 
bit more separation in the shadows on the FS print, but again, only a 
little. It's such a close call to my eyes. It's not a perfect comparison 
considering the aging factor, but I would have to say I like the FS print 
better. That may be because of the cooler tone on the recent print. So at 
least I didn't take a step back aesthetics-wise by switching inks.

I can't speak to others' experiences, but I think Cone's service was 
outstanding. This is an issue that no one has a real bead on and they still 
sent me the cartridges without a hassle. They offered it. Due to simple 
economics, I still would have gone to the FS ink once the Cone inks were 
gone, even if I hadn't had "problems". I'm working on a pretty low budget, 
which is why I'm using the Legion paper. Thankfully I really like it. For 
me, the main draw of the Piezo system over the others is the software, and 
it has been well worth that expense.

Despite my embarrassment and the fact that I probably owe Cone some money 
now, I didn't want my goof-up to skew any variables in the already complex 
situation known as DSS.

Anyway, it looks like I'm all set to crank out those exchange images. I'll 
make sure you get them on the correct side!

Thanks for everyone's time, especially Jim's. Sorry all.
Mark

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Mark Carpenter <yahoo@b...> 
wrote:
> Egads, I feel like such a knucklehead. Now I don't believe I really 
had DSS.
> 

> Thanks for everyone's time, especially Jim's. Sorry all.
> Mark

No problem Mark. I'd just like to say to the list in general that I'm 
really happy when it turns out that someone doesn't have to do the DSS 
boogie<g>.
JIm H.

My impression is that to use the 2160-dpi PiezoBW driver without 
banding, you have to have a printer which can be precisely aligned. I 
think it was said on the PiezoBW list that about five out of every 
six Epsons could be so qualified. And that a new printer which could 
not should be returned in hopes of getting one that could. But I 
assume the lower-dpi Epson driver is less demanding. And that this is 
an argument for printing the MIS FS inks through the Epson driver?

I think I've also heard on this list or the PiezoBW list that the 
PiezoBW drivers run much faster than the Epson drivers do, both on a 
Mac and on WinTel machines, which surely would be an argument for 
printing the MIS FS inks through the PiezoBW driver. Is it true that 
the PiezoBW driver is faster? Enough to matter?

There's a third consideration for me, because I'd like to print 
captions and other text along with the old and small BW family-photo 
prints I need to re-print. Captions I guess I could do in Photoshop, 
especially Photoshop 6. But to have magazine-like integration of 
photos and columns of text, I'd need to move the images to pages 
formatted in something like InDesign and print from it or Acrobat 
without the PiezoBW driver. But is the FS Black ink black enough to 
do the text well? Because I could instead run each side of each sheet 
through the printer twice, once for the text, in blacker ink (and 
color accents) printed with the Epson driver from InDesign or 
AppleWorks, and once for the image, in FS ink. But printed with which 
driver?

I'd be glad for any advice about any this, but I feel most ignorant 
about whether the PiezoBW driver demands more precise alignment and 
about whether the PiezoBW driver is generally thought to be faster.

Thanks.

Sam

hi sam.

i'm quite new to this list, and there is finally something i can 
contribute. as a graphic artist by trade, i'm in the midst of producing 
a project incorporating bw photos and text, like you described. i've 
always found that printing from Illustrator produces the best comps on 
both my Epson 1160 and 1280. i believe that the reason is primarily 
because Illustrator previews the image far better than layout programs, 
which is important for printing to non-postscript devices. and it's 
easy to create color and bw layers for printing in two passes.

the quality of the prints printed from Illustrator on my 1160 using MIS 
inks are nearly identical to those printed directly from photoshop. but 
i do have to admit, that i'm asking myself why i undertook this (self-
promo) project in the first place, given the edition of 25, 13 pages (2 
sided) passed through 2 printers. it's taken weeks to print. but the 
results are good. 

if you have access to Illustrator, it might save you time converting 
files from InDesign to Acrobat, etc. 

wendy

> There's a third consideration for me, because I'd like to print 
> captions and other text along with the old and small BW family-photo 
> prints I need to re-print. Captions I guess I could do in Photoshop, 
> especially Photoshop 6. But to have magazine-like integration of 
> photos and columns of text, I'd need to move the images to pages 
> formatted in something like InDesign and print from it or Acrobat 
> without the PiezoBW driver. But is the FS Black ink black enough to 
> do the text well? Because I could instead run each side of each sheet 
> through the printer twice, once for the text, in blacker ink (and 
> color accents) printed with the Epson driver from InDesign or 
> AppleWorks, and once for the image, in FS ink. But printed with which 
> driver?