Black and white printing on Epson 4000

[des adams]

Amid the scramble at Photokina I managed to get an Epson demonstrator

to make a black and white print on the Epson 4000. The A3 he

produced was very impressive, no metamerism. The technician told me

that he had only used the black and grey cartridges; he said he only

ever used those two cartrides when printing black and white. Because

of language difficulties it may be I misunderstood him but I

specifically asked him again and I am fairly convinced that is what

he said. Being quite interested in this printer I have read a fair

amount of probably biased reviews but have not heard that it was

possible to select just these two cartridges for black and white. Is

it?

[sidceaser]

It is. When setting up the "print with preview" you can go to "Print color management" and the one directly above that "print settings". After selecting your profile and paper type, you can then select "b&w and color", or just "black inks only" (can't recall the "offical" wording".

 

I've done some diana camera shots on the superB (13x19) Velvet paper using just the blacks, and they look extremely nice.

[bill_schmidt]

Does anyone know of any hope of getting this ability on the 2100/2200? Now black only IS BLACK ONLY, no light black. New driver?

[silvergull]

The drivers provided by GIMP-PRINT and GHOSTSCRIPT from the open source community

at www.gimp-print.sourceforge.net provide a "two level grayscale" option under the

"printer features" selection after selecting the "print with preview" under the "file" heading.

These drivers are designed to work only with the Mac OS 10.2 and higher, I believe.

 

I have been using this option with a 2200 from the beginning and it produces what IMHO

are beautiful prints.

[kirk_thompson]

Sid, are you sure that the black-only option gets you both the Matte/Photo Black & the

Light Black? Isn't it only the former?

[des adams]

Sid thanks very much for your swift response.

 

Does this mean that if one is only interested in black and white then the colour carts can be removed? I imagine not. And if not then it occurs to me to ask why doesn?t Epson market a version of the 4000 with just these two cartridges? The 4000 black and white model. OK, of course, money, print black and white only but use up all the other cartridges in cleaning cycles. I would have thought from what one reads on this site alone about people chasing the holy grail of a black and white neutral print machine and spending big bucks on Epson machines with third party inks and clog problems etc, then if Epson did make this two ink cart model available they?d actually make more money? One black and white only printing system I saw at Photokina, a continuous ink affair based on the Epson 2100/2200 cost around ?1500. A full colour version of the 4000 can be had for around ?2200. And of all the examples of black and white inkjet prints I saw at Photokina the 4000 print was the most impressive. The R800 produced a fine quality small print but even with the Epson technician at the controls it had the same old metamerism. (HP?s 8450 sample was ok but for archival you need to print on plastic paper). Does anyone reckon an Epson black and white only model will ever get made?

[ethan hansen]

Rich, dark blacks contain significant amounts of CMY ink. The Epson UltraChrome black just is not that dark, and has a warm cast. You will not see any metamerism - that derives almost entirely from the yellow ink - but will lack both DMax and absolute neutrality. Third party drivers and RIPs are available that disable the Epson yellow for B&W printing. Just enough cyan and magenta are added to the mix to neutralize the output and boost DMax. Now, why Epson can't develop a decent driver on their own is something I have wondered for years.

[des adams]

You maybe right about CMY but to repeat what I said above about the print I saw made, reputedly with only the black and grey cartridge, it is very impressive, I can not fault the print, and to my eyes the black looks very black, very dense. Yes there is a very slight warm skin tone, but for me neutral in the sense that there is no metamerism under any light source. A nice warm tone I can live with already, metamerism is dreadful. In any event I am absolutely sure I am not alone in not wanting to make black and white prints with 7 or 8 cartridges when a black and grey can do as good a job as all those coloured carts. (Clayton Jones talks on his web site about black and white prints made with colour carts running into trouble anyway because the colour fades faster than the black, although maybe that would apply to black and light black too). If there was a dedicated black and white A3 printer made by an original manufacturer I would buy it immediately, I do not want to experiment with other sets of inks. Currently I run a HP with just the 59 grey cartridge in place ? no coloured cart installed ? it is good for small prints, but it is dye inks and you have to print on plastic. I also use an old Epson for BO printing. When I want a large print it is still the darkroom, which is a pity cause Photoshop is so good. Why Epson will not make a black and whiter printer, who knows, maybe we should start a petition?

[des adams]

Further to this ???? I have just read that Epson are supposed to introduce a four colour version of the 4000 in 2005 ?. ideal for a black and white dedicated model with a black and three greys/light blacks ?.. I shall E Mail them and suggest same ?? obviously they will pay great attention.