Digital BW, The Print

Hi all,

I'm a relative newbie to B&W inkjet printing. I had been toying 
with the idea of getting into this area for a while, and then 
decided to take the plunge after reading Mike Johnston's article on 
the MIS EZ inks.

I bought a second-hand Epson C86 and some Epson Enhanced Matte and 
tried printing with the Epson stock inks while waiting for my EZ 
cartridges to arrive. My first experiments with "toned" monochrome 
prints (coloured through duotones in Photoshop) were surprisingly 
good with the Epson inks and I got very nice prints pretty much 
right out of the box. I then tried "black-only" (BO?) printing and 
was totally blown away with the quality of these prints. I made a 
whole bunch of BO prints (6x9") on the EEM paper (8.5x11") and I 
have to say that they compare very favourably with darkroom prints 
in terms of tonality and "feel" while exceeding the darkroom prints 
in sharpness and ease of local tonal control. My workflow involves 
image capture on 35mm film (sometimes colour, usually B&W) 
developed at home and scanned on a Minolta Scan Dual II, with
"digital darkroom" manipulations in PS.

When my MIS EZ inks arrived I had really high hopes. I installed 
them, plugged in Paul Roark's recommended settings for the C86 on 
EEM (linked on the MIS web site) and then made some prints of 
images that I had previously made BO prints from. To be honest, I 
was a little disappointed -- while the EZ prints are excellent, I 
couldn't see any significant difference in tonality or "smoothness" 
between them and the BO prints (of the same image) at normal 
viewing distances.

One thing I can say is that the Epson OEM black ink is a little 
"warmer" than the tone the MIS EZ (I have the Neutral set) 
provides. The differences are a little more evident when I look at 
the prints through a loupe, but even then I'm surprised at how 
close the EZ and BO prints are to one another. Keep in mind that 
this is pretty much "right out of the box".

Has anyone else made similar observations with this setup? Should I 
really be seeing such a small difference between these types of 
print? Should I try another type of image (i.e. portraits -- most 
of my images are abstracts or urban scenes)? Is BO as good as it 
gets, or how do I go about getting the biggest advantage out of my 
EZ inks?

Finally, does anyone know of a good Canadian source for the 
higher-end inkjet papers (Hahnemuhle, etc.?) Even Epson Enhanced 
Matte seems to be scarce here.

Many thanks

Jordan
www.photosensitive.ca

-- 


Jordan Wosnick
jwosnick@...

wow...that is weird. I tried BO with my C86 (which I got for easy color 
snaps) and with the mac/epson driver, BO was basically horrible. Now I 
think maybe I was doing something wrong. Are you using windows? Maybe 
that makes a difference. On my 1280 BO is pretty good, but MIS is 
definitely smoother, and has no hints of banding, and you dont see the 
"dither pattern"...DM

On May 13, 2005, at 9:37 AM, Jordan Wosnick wrote:

>
>  Hi all,
>
>  I'm a relative newbie to B&W inkjet printing. I had been toying
>  with the idea of getting into this area for a while, and then
>  decided to take the plunge after reading Mike Johnston's article on
>  the MIS EZ inks.
>
>  I bought a second-hand Epson C86 and some Epson Enhanced Matte and
>  tried printing with the Epson stock inks while waiting for my EZ
>  cartridges to arrive. My first experiments with "toned" monochrome
>  prints (coloured through duotones in Photoshop) were surprisingly
>  good with the Epson inks and I got very nice prints pretty much
>  right out of the box. I then tried "black-only" (BO?) printing and
>  was totally blown away with the quality of these prints. I made a
>  whole bunch of BO prints (6x9") on the EEM paper (8.5x11") and I
>  have to say that they compare very favourably with darkroom prints
>  in terms of tonality and "feel" while exceeding the darkroom prints
>  in sharpness and ease of local tonal control. My workflow involves
>  image capture on 35mm film (sometimes colour, usually B&W)
>  developed at home and scanned on a Minolta Scan Dual II, with
>  "digital darkroom" manipulations in PS.
>
>  When my MIS EZ inks arrived I had really high hopes. I installed
>  them, plugged in Paul Roark's recommended settings for the C86 on
>  EEM (linked on the MIS web site) and then made some prints of
>  images that I had previously made BO prints from. To be honest, I
>  was a little disappointed -- while the EZ prints are excellent, I
>  couldn't see any significant difference in tonality or "smoothness"
>  between them and the BO prints (of the same image) at normal
>  viewing distances.
>
>  One thing I can say is that the Epson OEM black ink is a little
>  "warmer" than the tone the MIS EZ (I have the Neutral set)
>  provides. The differences are a little more evident when I look at
>  the prints through a loupe, but even then I'm surprised at how
>  close the EZ and BO prints are to one another. Keep in mind that
>  this is pretty much "right out of the box".
>
>  Has anyone else made similar observations with this setup? Should I
>  really be seeing such a small difference between these types of
>  print? Should I try another type of image (i.e. portraits -- most
>  of my images are abstracts or urban scenes)? Is BO as good as it
>  gets, or how do I go about getting the biggest advantage out of my
>  EZ inks?
>
>  Finally, does anyone know of a good Canadian source for the
>  higher-end inkjet papers (Hahnemuhle, etc.?) Even Epson Enhanced
>  Matte seems to be scarce here.
>
>  Many thanks
>
>  Jordan
>  www.photosensitive.ca


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On 13 May 2005 at 12:37, Jordan Wosnick wrote:

> When my MIS EZ inks arrived I had really high hopes. I installed 
> them, plugged in Paul Roark's recommended settings for the C86 on 
> EEM (linked on the MIS web site) and then made some prints of 
> images that I had previously made BO prints from. To be honest, I 
> was a little disappointed -- while the EZ prints are excellent, I 
> couldn't see any significant difference in tonality or "smoothness" 
> between them and the BO prints (of the same image) at normal 
> viewing distances.

You're the first person I've heard of that's happy with BO printing 
on a C86.  I tried it and had too much banding to be acceptable.  The 
EZ inks smooth that out and are nice, but I never got a good BO print 
after many head alignment attempts.  

I'd say you got really lucky!

Lee


-- 
Lee Hiers, AA4GA
Cornelia, Georgia

"Have Dobro Will Travel"

Lee Hiers wrote:

> You're the first person I've heard of that's happy with BO printing 
> on a C86.  I tried it and had too much banding to be acceptable.  The 
> EZ inks smooth that out and are nice, but I never got a good BO print 
> after many head alignment attempts.  
> 
> I'd say you got really lucky!

I suppose I did! Perhaps I'm not being critical enough but I really 
cannot see a big difference. I have asked several friends ("fresh 
pairs of eyes") and they cannot either. There is a subtle 
difference in image tone between BO prints made with the Epson OEM 
ink and the MIS Eboni ink, with the MIS ink being more neutral. To 
my eyes the MIS EZ full-ink print, while very nice, is almost 
indistinguishable from an MIS Eboni BO print.

Jordan

-- 


Jordan Wosnick
jwosnick@...

Jordan,
While I'm just getting ready to order my inks from MIS for a C86 I 
just got on eBay, all of the reading I've done takes me to a couple 
of conclusions that I hope bear out. First, the archival quality of 
Eboni far exceeds that of the stock Epson ink for the c84/86 printer. 
And when used in combination with a quality cotton rag paper yields a 
print of high archival quality.  Second, the Eboni ink in volume, 
even in the 4oz size, yields a double cost savings over the stock 
ink.  The single cartridge price is less than the standard price for 
the C84/86 black ink cartridge and the cartridge is refillable.

So, even if the visual results are the same, I would still plan to 
stick with the MIS system because of the cost system. And, if I can 
produce an archival cotton rag print for less than a non-archival 
one, then I would expect to sell more at a show when priced the same 
and, ideally, sell more at a higher price for less cost. 
Mike Brouphy
Imagination Studio
New Orleans, LA

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Jordan Wosnick 
<jwosnick@f...> wrote:

> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm a relative newbie to B&W inkjet printing. I had been toying 
> with the idea of getting into this area for a while, and then 
> decided to take the plunge after reading Mike Johnston's article on 
> the MIS EZ inks.
> 
> I bought a second-hand Epson C86 and some Epson Enhanced Matte and 
> tried printing with the Epson stock inks while waiting for my EZ 
> cartridges to arrive. My first experiments with "toned" monochrome 
> prints (coloured through duotones in Photoshop) were surprisingly 
> good with the Epson inks and I got very nice prints pretty much 
> right out of the box. I then tried "black-only" (BO?) printing and 
> was totally blown away with the quality of these prints. I made a 
> whole bunch of BO prints (6x9") on the EEM paper (8.5x11") and I 
> have to say that they compare very favourably with darkroom prints 
> in terms of tonality and "feel" while exceeding the darkroom prints 
> in sharpness and ease of local tonal control. My workflow involves 
> image capture on 35mm film (sometimes colour, usually B&W) 
> developed at home and scanned on a Minolta Scan Dual II, with
> "digital darkroom" manipulations in PS.
> 
> When my MIS EZ inks arrived I had really high hopes. I installed 
> them, plugged in Paul Roark's recommended settings for the C86 on 
> EEM (linked on the MIS web site) and then made some prints of 
> images that I had previously made BO prints from. To be honest, I 
> was a little disappointed -- while the EZ prints are excellent, I 
> couldn't see any significant difference in tonality or "smoothness" 
> between them and the BO prints (of the same image) at normal 
> viewing distances.
> 
> One thing I can say is that the Epson OEM black ink is a little 
> "warmer" than the tone the MIS EZ (I have the Neutral set) 
> provides. The differences are a little more evident when I look at 
> the prints through a loupe, but even then I'm surprised at how 
> close the EZ and BO prints are to one another. Keep in mind that 
> this is pretty much "right out of the box".
> 
> Has anyone else made similar observations with this setup? Should I 
> really be seeing such a small difference between these types of 
> print? Should I try another type of image (i.e. portraits -- most 
> of my images are abstracts or urban scenes)? Is BO as good as it 
> gets, or how do I go about getting the biggest advantage out of my 
> EZ inks?
> 
> Finally, does anyone know of a good Canadian source for the 
> higher-end inkjet papers (Hahnemuhle, etc.?) Even Epson Enhanced 
> Matte seems to be scarce here.
> 
> Many thanks
> 
> Jordan
> www.photosensitive.ca
> 
> -- 
> 
> 
> Jordan Wosnick
> jwosnick@f...