Digital BW, The Print

With reference to my previous post. Are the Epson out of the box inks good enough to print B and W? Or will I still need the piezo inks?
thanks!

> With reference to my previous post. Are the Epson out of the box inks good enough to print B and W? Or will I still need the piezo inks?

Not only the printer and inks, but also the way you drive it are of influence. There is only one person that can judge what is "good enough" and that is you. Your standard decides. Also the target audience matters (general public, connaisseurs/fellow photographers or the pixel peepers like ourselves in this group). Also archivibility demands determine quite a bit your choice.

From own experience I can compare:
- 2100 (2K 4pl printer) Epson UC inks, Epson driver: totally sucks
- 2100 Epson UC inks, QTR: not absolutely horrible 
- 2100 UT3D inks, QTR: very good, fellow photographers consider it "perfect", if I look hard enoug, I see some grain
- 3800 (3K 4pl) Epson UC inks, ABW: very good as well but lots of color pigments, not good for archivibility
- 3800 Epson UC inks, QTR: very good, with less color pigments. Again, for fellow photographers including dark room specialists "perfect", good enough for me for larger prints.
- R285 (1.5pl), UT3D, QTR: the pinnacle of what I've reached myself. Only with a loupe I can see some dots. I'm thrilled, but who of the audience cares...? ;-)

No doubt the Piezo Inks will give a smoother and more archivable result than the standard Epson inks. But I would suggest just to start with the standard inks + QTR. Look at the results, decide if they're good enough for you and take it from there....

Joost

I agree with Joost.Try the Epson inks with QTR and see how you like it. 

I print both colour and B&W and don't have the space or the money for two printers so I have worked on the QTR solution for B&W on my 3800. The 3800 does a very good job for me with QTR.

I like glossy B&W, the same as I used to make in my darkroom days, so I use the Harman FB Al for my favourite images. However, for a less expensive paper I have just characterised the "New" Ilford Smooth paper for QTR. Gives excellent linearity, good neutrality and a Dmax of almost 2.5. You can find the details on the QTR group if your'e interested.

And by the way, using my 7x loupe I can't see any dots, even at a K value of 2.

Roger

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Joost Horsten" <j.h.j.h@...> wrote:

>
> No doubt the Piezo Inks will give a smoother and more archivable result than the standard Epson inks. But I would suggest just to start with the standard inks + QTR. Look at the results, decide if they're good enough for you and take it from there....
> 
> Joost
>

I use the advanced B&W mode with the 3800 and get beautiful prints.

Vinny
www.wulfsden.com


 In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "yaakovsinclair" <sinclair@...> wrote:

>
> With reference to my previous post. Are the Epson out of the box inks good enough to print B and W? Or will I still need the piezo inks?
> thanks!
>

I use the ColorBurst "Lite" RIP and I think the B&W (And color) prints I get with it are great.