Digital BW, The Print

I bought the C88+, a set of UT-EZN inks and some Ilford Smooth Pearl. I got the full 
grayscale prints no problem, but when I try to do black only printing, it doesn't seem to work.  
I'm using Paul Roark's instructions as my guide. 

My understanding is that BO with the PK ink will look warm, even extremely warm. My BO 
prints look exactly the same as my EZN prints. I'm changing from Color to Black in the Epson 
print controls on a Mac. Anybody have any ideas?

>... C88+, a set of UT-EZN inks and some Ilford Smooth Pearl. 
>I got the full grayscale prints no problem, 

>but when I try to do black only printing, it doesn't seem to work.
> I'm using Paul Roark's instructions as my guide. 

I don't recommend black only with that or any inexpensive printer.
Sometimes you'll get lucky, but usually they band and look bad.

Additionally, I don't like the tone of most of the black inks.

>My understanding is that BO with the PK ink will look warm, even 
> extremely warm. My BO prints look exactly the same as my EZN prints. 

Maybe they sent a version of PKN.  If you ordered the neutral inks as a set,
that set probably included the PKN instead of the PK, which would be shipped
with the warm set.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

> I don't recommend black only with that or any inexpensive printer.
> Sometimes you'll get lucky, but usually they band and look bad.

I actually got the C88 to do glossy BO prints to complement my R220 that's doing BO 
matte. I actually took your cue on this, although I know you were talking about using the 
UT-EZ set.

Right now I'm using my R220 to do both, and it appears to work well. At the highest 
settings (Photo RPM and Super MicroWeave), the detail is great. 

Do you think the R220 has enough quality to pull this off? I might just get a 2nd one, if 
that makes more sense than the R220/C88 combination.
 
> Additionally, I don't like the tone of most of the black inks.

The Eboni ink on EEM is interesting, and PKN on Ilford Smooth Pearl is very neutral. I like 
them both, though I wish I could get the Eboni just a little cooler for BO printing. 

> Maybe they sent a version of PKN.  If you ordered the neutral inks as a set,
> that set probably included the PKN instead of the PK, which would be shipped
> with the warm set.

No, they sent PK. I was able to get it to work in the R220. There's no mistaking that 
brownish look.

BO on the C88 with the UT-EZN set actually looked like it was using the gray ink only, with 
random tiny black dots strewn throughout. I wasn't expecting that. 

I know you're not a black only fan, but I think it's the look for me. My next step is to get 
the MIS PRO inks and try printing color, too.

Thank you very much for responding. Any additional advice would be much appreciated.