B&W Printing with QT RIP on an Epson 1290S, trimmed in length
2006-10-22 by stochasticscreener
Hello everyone - this is my first post and it is quite lengthy. I've had a pretty thorough look around the forum before posting but I can't seem to find an answer to my questions. I'm not what I would describe as being a 'professional' printer or image maker, however, I like to get the best out of things that I can. I have an Epson 1290S (1280 in the USA, I think), it has the original cartidges. I am using Photoshop CS2 and wanting to print my images dead centre of the media on the Epson 1290S. I have never achieved this using Photoshop's print driver alone. I also wanted to print in B&W and, as you will all no doubt be aware, the prints from the 1290 display a colour cast of one form or another. The only thing that stops this is to ensure that the check box in the Epson print driver is selected to 'Print with Black Ink only' . What I would also like to produce are 'tinted' Black & White images, (I'm not sure if that makes sense but, for example, a print of a girl wearing a hat with the hat printing as yellow with the rest of the image printing in neutral grayscale). A lot of investigations on the web have led me to discover that I need a RIP and that ColorByte Software's ImagePrint seems to fit the bill. However it isn't produced for the 1290S and the other is the price of it. I have seen B&W images selectively tinted that have been produced using ImagePrint. As a result I began to look for an alternative and I discovered Mike Chaney's QImage. Although QImage isn't a RIP, and it doesn't do tinted B&W with neutral grays, I was knocked out by the huge difference between colour prints made with it and those made with other applications. I bought the Studio edition without hesitation. I downloaded QT RIP as a result of reading an answer of Mike Chaney's to a question about printing in Black & White with QImage. So, these are my questions: a) I can see that the 1290S is available in the Printer Name field but does the Printing Model field assume a 'Model' based on the replacement of the original Epson inks using a set of Third party gray only inks? b) I have produced B&W prints through Photoshop using the 'Print with Black Ink only' option in the Epson printer dialogue box and I've also created my own curve in QT RIP to use only 100% gray (the black ink cartridge), but this also had the 'Print with Black Ink only' option selected in the Epson driver. Does this matter? c) Although the QT RIP print has shadows that are very black when compared to the results when printed from within Photoshop the overall quality is astounding. c) Is it possible to selectively tone prints or is QT RIP solely a gray ink printer? d) This is probably too costly an option for me but If I were to commit an A4(Letter size) Epson printer to B&W only, which one could be recommended? Thank you