QTR-Quadtone RIP

I've been in the printing industry a long time, but have never printed black and white inkjets....the only BW i've done was traditional(darkroom), and though quite familiar with color printing in the digital realm, I have only tried BW a few times on my Epson 1800 with fairly poor results. The folks I know who print BW usually print to dedicated BW printers, or at least have printers with the 3K option.....

I read on a forum that the Quadtone Rip is great, but just glancing quickly at this forum, I'm gathering that you would need to put a whole different ink set in your 1800 to print BW...yes? no? I have the standard inks in it now, so there is just a photo black and a matte black in it, then color inks.....The person who posted says it works with all inks, but I'm feeling skeptical and would love a simple explanation/clarification before I get knee deep in something that won't even work with my equipment....thanks

printing from a Mac.....10. 5. 8, Macbook Pro.....

You'd be amazed at the output you can get with the R1800, QTR, and the standard Epson OEM inks.

It is true that you will get even better results with a dedicated set of black/grey inks.  I'm using an Epson 1280 with the Cone K6 inkset.  Amazing prints even with the finnicky 1280.

But I tried QTR with my R1800 also.  Compared with making prints through the traditional drivers, the QTR app/driver was way better.  The prints actually come out fairly neutral (to my eye) with QTR.  With the standard drivers the prints always had a pink cast.  With the standard inkset and QTR you can actually get good glossy prints, too.

I won't go so far as to call them museum or fine art quality prints, but the quality of QTR with the OEM inks is pretty darn good. It's no trouble to install QTR and try it out.  So I would give it a go.  If you don't like it you've lost nothing but a few sheets of paper.

Mike

--- In QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com, "themerrymole" <basement3@...> wrote:

>
> I've been in the printing industry a long time, but have never printed black and white inkjets....the only BW i've done was traditional(darkroom), and though quite familiar with color printing in the digital realm, I have only tried BW a few times on my Epson 1800 with fairly poor results. The folks I know who print BW usually print to dedicated BW printers, or at least have printers with the 3K option.....
> 
> I read on a forum that the Quadtone Rip is great, but just glancing quickly at this forum, I'm gathering that you would need to put a whole different ink set in your 1800 to print BW...yes? no? I have the standard inks in it now, so there is just a photo black and a matte black in it, then color inks.....The person who posted says it works with all inks, but I'm feeling skeptical and would love a simple explanation/clarification before I get knee deep in something that won't even work with my equipment....thanks
> 
> printing from a Mac.....10. 5. 8, Macbook Pro.....
>