Digital B&W printing

[Philip Freedman]

I was happy with printing B&W on Permajet paper with a full set of Permajet

inks in my Epson 1290. It gave very neutral results with deep blacks and

graduated greys. However my 1290 now prints with banding etc and cannot easily

be fixed. I tried printing B&W on my Epson 2100 (on colour settings) and it

is quite good but has an overall blue tinge. I have tried Clayton Jones'

recommended settings on my 2100 with Black Only - the results are neutral but

the midtones are badly washed out. Any ideas?

 

Thanks Philip

[steve_bingham]

An obvious answer but . . .

1- Go through a cleaning cycle (in utilities) or two first

2- Do the print head alignment exercise as provided in utilities

After you click on Print, click on Utilities tab.

[jonathan_traupman]

Get Quadtone RIP ($50 shareware) and use it to drive your 2100. QTR yields very good results with the 2100/2200 and the standard inks.

[bruce_watson1]

Or get QTR to drive your 2100 with Cone's K7 inks.

[johnmarkpainter]

DON'T BUY ANYTHING.

 

You don't 'need' Quadtone or any RIP to get better results than what you are seeing right

now. You probably have something set incorrectly (Paper Profile, Color management etc...)

 

Try this first: http://www.gballard.net/nca.html

 

RE: Banding....

Get some Glass Cleaner with Ammonia. Get the print head to park out in the middle like

you are going to change the cartridge. Now drip the cleaner onto the Sponge pad on the

far right. The bottom of the cartridge sits on that pad and the Ammonia will disolve any

clogs.

 

You might have to repeat it a few times but just let it sit (maybe overnight)

[Philip Freedman]

Thanks you all for your very helpful responses. I have downloaded the Quadtone RIP and it works well with my 2100 and I am also having another go at cleaning the heads of the 1290. Thanks again

 

Philip

[joseph_wisniewski]

I assume that by "a full set of Permajet inks", you mean the PermaJet MONOchrome PRO. That's pretty much a "clone" of Paut Roark's work on the MIS "UltraTone" set common on my side of the pond. This is a monochrome set concocted to work through the Epson print drivers. The 1290 version has one full strength black, two dilutions of a warm black, two dilutions of a cool black, and a sepia "brown" in the yellow position. In fact, I'd hazard to guess that PermaJet is using the same basic "Image Specialists" inks that MIS is using. Generally, every Epson compatible inkset with PRO in its name comes from Image Specialists.

 

Jonathan's suggestion of QTR on the 2100 (as you're currently seeing) is a pretty good one. With two dilutions of warm black to get your density, and just enough of the Epson cyan, magenta, and yellow to "tone" the image, you'll actually get results very close to what a 1290 will do with a UT7 type inkset.

 

Bruce's suggestion to use QTR and an alternate inkset is even better. First, it will save you a small fortune on inks. And second, the monochrome sets for the 2200 (aka 2100 on your continent) are excellent. There are twp kinds of inkset.

 

Ultratone style (like MIS UT7 or PermaJet MONOchrom) use two warm or neutral inks in the K and LK positions, two dilutions of warm toner ink in the M and LM, two cool inks in C and LC, and sepia in the Y. The extra black means your pritns are always made from at least four dilutions of black. Using QTR instead of the Epson drivers improves the dithering of four black tones (less crossover). Chris Ellis, who really knows his stuff, claims that the PermaJet is the same stuff as the MIS (which, I guess means that the QTR profiles for UT7 should work as well with PermaJet inks) but he also says to order it direct from MIS, because it's cheaper, even including shipping to the UK.

 

Cone style sets use 6 or 7 different dilutions of one tone of black, so you have to use one inkset for warm prints, another for neutral, another for cool, but with the right rip, the results are incredibly smooth and free of dither, even under a magnifier. That's the way I do my B&W, except that I dilute my own inks ;)

 

As far as John's advice, well, he is right, in a limited fashion. Ignore his shouting, and do follow the caution "don't buy anything", at least just yet. Especially profiles!

 

You've already learned that Quadtone RIP is shareware, you can download it and give it a free trial. Custom made profiles for the stock 2100 color inks will not help with B&W, at all. The stock Epson inks, when used with the Epson drivers, use a lot of cyan, magenta, and yellow when mixing near neutral tones, such as you'd use for a neutral or "toned" B&W print. Such heavy use of colored inks gives the Epson 2100 a well documented problem with metamerism. Even with the most skilfully made profile, you will get a print that looks wonderfully neutral under sunlight, but turns a sick green under fluorescent light and magenta under incandescent light. There are two ways around this. Either control the Epson so that the color inks are only used in minimal quantities for toning, or replace the inks.

[winddancing__]

Gentlemen, thanks for sharing your experience and recommendations, most generous of you all.

[jtk]

Metamerism issues, as well as fading, mostly have to do with yellow. If you choose a curve (QTR) without much yellow, you'll avoid most metamerism.