A photographer named Paul Roarke has developed B&W inksets that are sold by
MIS (inksupply.com). I think it's the Holy Grail for B&W printing. He has
inksets for a number of Epson printers, and the use couldn't be easier: you
can use PS curves if you want a lot of control or you can simply use the
Epson driver sliders. Depending upon the printer model, the inksets
sometimes include toners, so you can pick a curve or use the sliders to get
a warm, cool, or neutral print. You download the curves from their (or
Paul's) site and follow his simple directions. Easy as pie. Mind-blowing
good prints. I use both a 1280 and a 2200 and print on matte cotton paper
most of the time, though some glossy and semi-gloss papers work, too. Just
make sure you follow his directions and pick the right curve for your paper.
I even tried his EZ inkset in my $80 Epson C82 -- and the results were
stunning. Using the OEM Espon inks in the 1280 or the 2200 can't come within
a billion miles of the B&W output of the tiny cheap C82/C84 using that
inkset. And using his inkset in the 2200 is a revelation, to say the least.
And better yet the all of his inks are archival.
Since there are no color inks in the set (apart from the toners) the prints
are metamerism-free. The issue of "bronzing" remains on glossy papers,
though it isn't nearly as bad as with the OEM inks, and there are sprays
that greatly reduce that, as well. And if you put the prints behind glass
the bronzing is a non-issue. I personally greatly prefer matte prints, which
exhibit none of those artifacts. I love the way they look and feel,
especially on really nice paper like Hahnemuhle Photo Rag. To my eye, glossy
paper looks cheap and plastic next to a print on paper like HPR.
BTW, another fellow, Clayton Jones, has a ton of info on 'black only'
printing, which of course solves the metamerism problem. I've never tried it
as I'm totally sold on Paul's Ultra Tone inks, but apparently quite a few
people quite like it. Clayton has a good site with instructions for various
printers here: <http://www.cjcom.net/articles/digiprn3.htm> A real advantage
to his approach is you can use one printer for both B&W and color.
Cheers,
Matthew Born
On 10/20/04 9:29 PM, "Listar" <listar@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Called, I think, metamerism if you want to do some research on the web. I
> think this is because most inkjet printers use the colored inks even when
> printing a B&W image. In fact, I've read that if you use -only- black ink
> you get very deficient images with most inkjet printers... the real fix
> seems to be using a multi-gray ink package, which usually comes with its own
> drivers, and a whole different set of limitations.
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