Digital BW, The Print

Hey Everyone;

Following the thread about substituting the MIS VM black with the Epson
OEM black I decided to give it a try.

I'm printing on a 1280 and I ran a few prints on LPM & EAM. Comparing
the same exact file printed with the full MIS VM inkset.

The blacks on prints with the Epson OEM black ink are MUCH better and
true. The blacks with the pigment inks have always looked a bit
transparent to me. 

About print viewing lighting:

One thing I have noticed since I started making prints with pigment
inks. They tend to look better under diffused lighting <indirect window
light>  than under  Spot / track lights or a desk lamp. To me, this is
the exact opposite of every other type of photographic prints I have
ever made < b&w silver prints, C-prints, Ciba prints>.  Traditional
photographic prints always look more brilliant under gallery type spot
lighting. I think the weakness / transparency of the blacks in the
pigment prints is the culprit. Using the Epson OEM black seems to solve
this problem... but as debated on here... how stable is that black ink?

-Jeff

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Jeff Magidson <jeffm@g...> 
wrote:
> 

> Following the thread about substituting the MIS VM black with the 
Epson
> OEM black I decided to give it a try.
> 
> I'm printing on a 1280 and I ran a few prints on LPM & EAM. 
Comparing
> the same exact file printed with the full MIS VM inkset.
> 
> The blacks on prints with the Epson OEM black ink are MUCH better 
and
> true. The blacks with the pigment inks have always looked a bit
> transparent to me. 

Hmmm..interesting. To do this do you simply use the Epson black cart 
as usual and then use the CFS where the color cart would normally be?
I am preparing to get the MIS CFS and the VM's for my new 1280. I've 
been using a 2000P and Epson carts. I had never done a monitor 
calibration (nor do I know how) but apparantly never needed to. The 
prints looked pretty much the same as what I saw on the screen but 
the 2000P prints always looked a little muted to me. 

The 1280 test prints I've been doing with the epson carts that it 
came with seem much lighter than what I see on the screen and 
consequently much lighter than the 2000P prints. I'm not sure how to 
correct this other than making major adjustments to each and every 
print file that I've ever created. Is there another fix?

The major complaint I've heard about my prints has been weak blacks.
I'm probably making lots of mistakes in the process. When I printed 
b/w images using the color setting I always got a greenish tint to 
the prints. I had been converting color images to greyscale and 
printing them as such. I have read posts here about converting the 
greyscale back to RGB. Does this make a big difference? To compensate 
for the unwanted toning I put the setting on the espson driver to 
black. Was I shortchanging my imagery by using these settings? 

When I order my CFS should I not order the black and just continue 
using the black epson cart? Is my understanding correct then that 
five bottles of ink are dedicated to the large cart space and just 
one to the black? I'm sorry for all these "beginner-esque" questions 
and appreciate any thoughts any of you good folks may have. I have 
nice imagery. I just need to be able to output prints that do them 
justice.

And finally are there any preferences here of the MIS CFS versus the 
NMC CIS and if so why?
I am using a PC with Win '98 and PS 5.5
Gratefully yours, Tim T.

> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Jeff Magidson 
<jeffm@g...> 
> wrote:

> > Following the thread about substituting the MIS VM black with the 
> Epson
> > OEM black I decided to give it a try.

Hmmm..interesting. To do this do you simply use the Epson black cart 
as usual and then use the CFS where the color cart would normally be?
I am preparing to get the MIS CFS and the VM's for my new 1280.

Guys..I could use some opinions and or advice on the following issues:

I just got a new 1280. Planning to dedicate it to b/w.
I had been using a 2000P and Epson carts. I had never done a monitor 
calibration (nor do I know how) but apparantly never needed to. The 
prints looked pretty much the same as what I saw on the screen but 
the 2000P prints always looked a little muted to me. 

The 1280 test prints I've been doing with the epson carts that it 
came with seem much lighter than what I see on the screen and 
consequently much lighter than the 2000P prints. I'm not sure how to 
correct this other than making major adjustments to each and every 
print file that I've ever created. Is there another fix?

The major complaint I've heard about my prints has been weak blacks.
I'm probably making lots of mistakes in the process. When I printed 
b/w images using the color setting I always got a greenish tint to 
the prints. I had been converting color images to greyscale and 
printing them as such. I have read posts here about converting the 
greyscale back to RGB. Does this make a big difference? 

To compensate for the unwanted toning I put the setting on the espson 
driver to black. Was I shortchanging my imagery by using these 
settings? 

When I order my CFS should I not order the black and just continue 
using the black epson cart? Is my understanding correct then that 
five bottles of ink are dedicated to the large cart space and just 
one to the black? I'm sorry for all these "beginner-esque" questions 
and appreciate any thoughts any of you good folks may have. I have 
nice imagery. I just need to be able to output prints that do them 
justice.

And finally are there any preferences here of the MIS CFS versus the 
NMC CIS and if so why?
I am using a PC with Win '98 and PS 5.5

Gratefully yours, Tim T. (if this post sounds familiar I did post it 
a couple of days ago but got no response. Thought I would try one 
more time)