Advice needed for neutral black and white printing on stock Epson inks with 1280 printer

I have the 780 (narrow version of your 1280) and have had good results with the standard inks on Heavyweight Matte using the same settings as for color printing (gamma 2.2). The prints resemble silver halide prints on cold-tone, single-weight paper. I don't know if you'd actually confuse them with conventional prints, but the tones and gradations are pleasing if a bit on the cool side (but I've seen silver halide prints that are bluer). Just don't look at them with a magnifier, which will reveal the microscopic colored dots of ink. I was quite pleasantly surprised when I tried some black and white prints. I've never tried it with any paper other than the Heavyweight Matte (which I use for all my photo printing).

TT: There is not such a thing as a neutral black in ink-jets because there is not such a thing as a neutral black dye, the darkest dyes are deep blue. For that you have to go a 'paint-jet' like the Epson 2200 which produces totally neutral blacks. Also, metamerism has nothing to do with the paper but to the colouring agent, dye or pigment. Some colouring agents are more metameric than others. That said, some paper surfaces can emphasize some colours thus your observation. Nonetheless, the colour is the source of metamerism and that is where the cure resides.

yes but i should be able to dial in more magenta or something to compensate for the blue cast shouldn't i?

You would think it would be that simple, but I found that shadows, midtones and highlights behave differently. With my 1200, I have made the decision to try to control the color cast rather than eliminate it.

Do a severe test crop of your full sized image, lay it out on a canvas, and do test prints of critical areas. Saves ink and paper.

T T

You can't really - although you can improve it. This is one of the bugbears of all inkjet B&W printing (excepting, perhaps, piezography which has other issues). The much lauded 2200 might be a little better but still has metamerism. I use all black ink printing - this has two issues - visible dots in highlights and less smooth gradation - but you do get a very nice black on matte paper. I much prefer it to color ink. You have to do what you prefer. As there is really no solution as of now you have to decide which you prefer and go with it. Most people I have shown my prints to prefer the all black ink, but many people will not use it on principle as they feel the comporomise on tonal scale will ruin their art. You really need to look and decide yourself. But, the fundamental thing is is that these printers are fantastic for color, but a fudge for B & W.

Without resorting to exotic B+W ink sets and their associated problems, I would suggest a custom printer/paper profile...

I did mine at profile city for my 1280....my B+W is way better than stock epson profiles...Is it perfect, well, to the causual observer, yes...to me, there is still a bit of color cross over, but it's not bad and fine for my needs.....

FWIW

The best black and white prints I've seen from the 1280 and native inks were done with a custom profile. The photographer in question used a Monaco product but there are others out there as well. As has already been pointed out, inkjets don't excel at black and white printing.

Julio says: There is not such a thing as a neutral black in ink-jets because there is not such a thing as a neutral black dye, the darkest dyes are deep blue. For that you have to go a 'paint-jet' like the Epson 2200 which produces totally neutral blacks.

Readers need to understand that Julio has his own personal definition of "ink" and "paint" in use here. Julio believes that inks use dyes and paint uses pigments, so he calls inkjet printers that use pigment-based inks "paint jets". The fact that stone-plate lithographers have been using pigment-based inks since lithography was invented in 1798 doesn't seem to persuade him that inks use pigments, too. Incidentally, one of the most famous inks in the world, "India Ink", is made using carbon black pigment.

BTW, here's an article from a paint and coatings industry magazine discussing the use of pigments in ink:
(link)

well i gave in. i returned the 1280 and got the 2200. there goes my tax refund!

i got lucky, i decided to drive by my local CompUSA and although they did not have the 2200 on display, upon inquiry, i learned that they had one in back so i bought it.

i can't wait to try the matte black ink (store was sold out of that cartridge) on heavyweight matte paper. but in my first black and white test print, with the regular photo black ink installed, the black and white image on photo glossy paper looks much more even toned than the print with the 1280 did. and the tonality doesn't change nearly as much when i go under different lighting.

i surmise this is due to the fact that the 2200 adds light grey to it's pallette, whereas the 1280 had to use the CMYK colors (and it's black) to make up grey tones. i was getting blue and sometimes reddish variations with my black and white printouts on the 1280. a non quadtone inkjet black and white printout will probably never been perfect (ie. there will probably always been some color toning), but i can say that i'm much happier with the 2200 result than i was with the 1280 result (for a black and white print)

it is true that in a side by side comparison, the pure black of the 2200 is not as deep as the black from the 1280 but it's not noticeable if one doesn't point it out.

<I>i surmise this is due to the fact that the 2200 adds light grey to it's pallette</I><P>

The "Light Black" is actually sepia-brown (or dark yellow). Dan Staver posted some images using that ink on this forum a couple of weeks ago.

i surmise this is due to the fact that the 2200 adds light grey to it's pallette, whereas the 1280 had to use the CMYK colors (and it's black) to make up grey tones.

The 2200 still uses CcMmYK + k to make its gray tones. I do think it has a better driver and/or better native profiles because I've never had much trouble getting good, neutral black and white prints on the 2200 - FOR A GIVEN LIGHT SOURCE. Whereas my 870 is hard to balance across all grayscale levels. The 2200's metamerism is the real problem. I can get a nice neutral black and white print for my indoor lighting - 'daylight' fluorescent, say, but it looks green under sunlight. If I make one that looks neutral under sunlight, it looks pink under fluorescent.

And it's not just me - the "sample print" (a scene of Paris rooftops) that Epson shipped to show off the 2200's black and white printing is just as bad. Or to put it another way, I can make black and white prints that are every bit as good as the sample print Epson supplied.

i personally find nothing wrong with that included sample from Epson. yes i can see the issue and the slight metamarism under different lighting conditions, but if can come close to matching the tonality of that sample with my own black and white images, i'd be a happy camper.

i realize that i'll never be able to get real darkroom quality prints out of an inkjet printer and that's fine with me.

TT: /Peter: The substances used to make 'inks' are so diverse that the word 'ink' carries no precise chemical connotation. Traditionally it has been applied to any fluid used for wrinting or printing on paper. That is history but that will get us nowhere in understanding the problem posed by TT nor understanding any of the problems associated with the use of digital printers that use pigments as distinct from those than use dyestuffs. We get closer to understanding the issues if we realize that colouring fluids made from pigments are more like paints, in as much as paints are also colouring fluids that use pigment dispersions, not dyestuffs in solution. Yes, India Ink is a pigment dispersion and as such is more like a paint than what you get on your Epson 1280 which is a bunch of dyestuffs.

Just remember than all fluids used for writing were called inks but as I said above, that has no chemical connotation. What we need to understand here is if the writing medium is a pigment dispersion or a solution of dyestuffs as from that we will get closer to understanding not only the physical but the chemical properties which each have in common. To differentiate between the two I prefer using the word paint-jet to printers that use colouring fluids akin to paints, i.e. pigmented, like the Epson 2200 and ink-jets to those that use dyestuffs. I recognize the problem in using the word 'ink' at all, so if you prefer lets call the the 1280 a dye-jet and lets not get hung-up on the word 'ink'. The Epson 2200 uses pigments. The black pigment it uses is a carbon black. Carbon blacks are not all identical but some are more black and neutral than others but as far as I know all are more neutral black than dyestuffs can ever be. As far as metamerism, this is a phenomenom that can be found in dyes as well as coloured pigments. The yellow in the 2200 I am told is particularly sensitive to metamerism. I do not think you will see any metamerism in the 2200 blacks. Thus, if what you want to do is printing in B&W you will be better off with a 2200. Some users point to the grainy nature of 2200 prints, that is because pigments, finely ground as they may be they can never be as fine as molecules, in as much as pigments can consist of the agglomeration of millions of molecules. Hope this helps!

ps-i notice practically zero metamarism on my 2200 prints (ie. the tonality of the prints seem not to change hardly at all under differing light conditions), but i do notice bronzing (ie. if i hold the print at an angle, some of the outlines look a bit reflective).

/Peter: The substances used to make 'inks' are so diverse that the word 'ink' carries no precise chemical connotation. Traditionally it has been applied to any fluid used for wrinting or printing on paper. That is history but that will get us nowhere in understanding the problem posed by TT nor understanding any of the problems associated with the use of digital printers that use pigments as distinct from those than use dyestuffs.

So what? That doesn't mean you have the power to change the language. The bottom line is that no one but Julio Fernandez calls the stuff in the cartrdiges in a 2200 "paint". If you meet some guy at a party who reminds you of your Uncle Guillermo - he looks like him, dresses like him, talks like him, etc, does that meam it's OK to call him Guillermo, even if everyone else calls him Luis and that's the name on his driver's license? Language is consensus reality - you can't have your own private language because no one will know what you mean so you won't be able to communicate.

TT says, i personally find nothing wrong with that included sample from Epson. yes i can see the issue and the slight metamarism under different lighting conditions, but if can come close to matching the tonality of that sample with my own black and white images, i'd be a happy camper.

(emphasis added by me) This is sort of like an earlier discussion we were having about Black Only printing. Some people said, yes, they could see the dots, or yes they noticed the slightly increased contrast, but it didn't bother them much or it was better than the alternatives they had seen, or less trouble than exotic approaches like quadtone.

One problem with forums like this is that if one person says they have a problem with some technology and and someone else says they don't, it may not represent an objective difference in the equipment or output, but simply a psychological threshold difference.

I suspect that there is no objective difference between TT's Epson sample and mine, or that of all the other people here and on the Yahoo group who find the metamerism objectionable. We just have different standards - I find any color shifts unacceptable because I don't see them in darkroom prints and TT can live with them.

true. and ultimately if my customers are satisfied, that's what counts.

"I find any color shifts unacceptable because I don't see them in darkroom prints and TT can live with them."

this is because i don't expect inkjet prints to equal darkroom prints. and why should i? it's entirely different technology. if i want the quality of a fine darkroom print, i'll go into the darkroom. if i want the convenience and speed and to get near darkroom print out of the computer, i'll go to the Epson.

that said, even though the average customer will not be able to tell the difference and will enjoy archival last-ability either way, i would never pass off a print done on the Epson as a darkroom print, or vice versa. i'm one who doesn't feel that the Epson replaces a traditional darkroom entirely. it does in many instances, but not all instances.

as an aside, several months ago i went to an exhibit of portraits of women by Annie Lebowitz. all the prints (color and black and white) where done on an inket and this was fully disclosed. and btw, most of the prints were huge, larger than life size, and were done on the matte paper. even though they were not traditional darkroom prints, they still looked beautiful and were received well by the patrons.

this is because i don't expect inkjet prints to equal darkroom prints. and why should i? it's entirely different technology.

This is another perennial debate in inkjet printing. To what extent is it reasonable to judge injket prints by different standards because it's different technology? As an artist I'm perfectly happy to judge oil paintings, acrylic paintings and pastels by different standards because I don't expect them to look the same. Although you can TRY to create oil-painting effects in acrylics and sometimes do it pretty well, they are different media with different looks and quite a few people PREFER the look of acrylics. If some new acrylic technology came along that could minic oils perfectly I suspect the "acrylic look" would not disappear.

But the question is, would anyone PREFER the look of inkjet output, or are they merely resigned to accept it until something better comes along? In some ways inkjet prints can be better than photographic ones - the black of the Epson Matte-Black ink on EEM paper is blacker than anything I've ever seen from a photographic process, for instance.

I think one difference between painting and photography is that with photography there is an objective standard for accuracy - If I have a pure graycale - R=G=B across a full range of values from pure black to pure white then that's what I expect to see on the output. If the inkjet can do it BETTER than a darkroom print, as in the Matte Black, then great, but I'm not willing to accept something that does it less well, i.e., displaying a color cast or metamerism.

The problem I have with regard to satisfying customers or end-users, as I've detailed here before is that I've run very extensive tests with various people on metamerism and color casts with grayscale prints, and dot-visibility and contrast with black-only (I REALLY need to add these results to my webpage!). My test subjects have mainly been two groups of people: fellow engineers at my work, and musicians my wife invites over at home for chamber music ensembles or chamber orchestra parties. And the results with the same prints are all over the map. There is a HUGE variation in individual sensitivity in both groups to these problems. Some people are perfectly satisfied with prints that drive other people to distraction with their dots or color casts. No one has complained about the true darkroom prints. Since I have no way to predict what category a customer or end user will be in, it seems risky to use inkjets for them.

BTW, context is EVERYTHING. I recently had a shot of a dancer in mid air in a quarter-page display ad in a local arts newspaper. They did a great job reproducing it, but it's printed on newsprint with a slightly warm hue, and the halftoning is clearly visible on close inspection. I have inkjet and photographic prints of the same image and there is no question that these look dramatically better than the newspaper version, technically. But in its CONTEXT the newspaper version looks great because we judge that output by different standards.

I've been (emphasize BEEN) a darkroom printer for 25 years...mostly B&W. An MFA, teaching...all that good stuff. I've spent the last couple of months driving myself nuts about printing B&W on the 1280. After MUCH experimentation, I developed a set of curves coupled with another set of color settings that gave me a neutral grey and what I considered an acceptable print. There's no doubt that the dot pattern throughout the tonal scale, using CMYK is smoother. There is also no doubt in my mind that this is a royal pain and not worth the effort. I keep coming back to the notion that the IMAGE is what's important. Actually getting out there and making photographs is what's important to me. Sure you have to have a handle on the process...but that's about technique, not about big picture ideas like "what the hell are we doing this for in the first place?"

Well, I'm back to black only prints. From my 5MP camera, I can now make very nice 11 x 14's that I think are excellent. I've forsaken all of those fancy schmancy papers (yes, I've tried them all) and use the archival Matte Heavyweight. It's cheap. It's archival

We all have a tendency to make the process more complicated than it is. My opinion is that it is at the expense of more important matters of understanding what it is that we are trying to say and why is it important to us.

Steve Roberts

" Language is consensus reality - you can't have your own private language because no one will know what you mean so you won't be able to communicate." Peter: That precisely is the problem in this forum. The word 'ink' has no unique or precise chemical connotation and that has everyone confused because the same word is used to describe things that are chemically and physically different, not out of logic but custom.

As technology evolves so does language, if it did not we will not be able to communicate.

If you have a problem with my technical arguments you have yet to articulate it, though you argue profusely about one word whose technical ambivalence you seem not to understand but so strongly defend. I think it would be more enlightening to address the technical issues and leave your ethnic rhetoric for another forum.

" Language is consensus reality - you can't have your own private language because no one will know what you mean so you won't be able to communicate." Peter: That precisely is the problem in this forum. The word 'ink' has no unique or precise chemical connotation and that has everyone confused because the same word is used to describe things that are chemically and physically different, not out of logic but custom.

It's not a problem with this FORUM. There is NO PLACE where the stuff in inkjet cartridges is called anything but "ink" - no one calls it paint, in any forum.

If you have a problem with my technical arguments you have yet to articulate it, though you argue profusely about one word whose technical ambivalence you seem not to understand but so strongly defend.

Languages have lots of ambivalent words. "Ink" is only ambivalent when we fail to use modifiers like "pigment" or dye". What I was taking issue with was that you used the word "paint" in response to another poster without explaining to him that you are the only person who calls a pigment-based ink "paint". That's only going to cause confusion. You may WISH you lived in a world where we called pigment-based ink "paint", but we don't. It's irrelevant how chemically logical it seems to you that we should use two different words for dye and pigment-based colorants, the bottom line is that the word "ink" is what we call stuff in inkjet cartridges. No one but you calls it "paint" so no one will understand you when you say "paint".

i think we're getting too caught up in semantics here. everyone reading understands that the Epson 2200 uses pigment based color in the cartridges while the 1280 uses dye. let's leave it at that.

(The Webster's online dictionary does specifically refer to paints as having pigments, while inks are a colored fluid. There is no mention that an ink may not have a pigment.)

I got my Epson 2200 last week, and here are my experiences with the default ICC profiles. The colors are best on matte paper, and the image is the smoothest on photo paper. Using Epson Photo Luster paper and Photo Black cartridge, B&W prints have a blue/pink shift, and then dry to a neutral/green shift. The amount of shift depends on the light, and may be mistaken for toning or paper qualities in a silver-based image.

If I could get quadtone or (better yet) SEPT-tone inks for this printer, I would do it in a heartbeat. I think it would be easy to do a run of color, swap the cartridges, and then do a run of B&W. I would keep the normal Epson inks in it for proofing.

I think that the multi-black ink availability is just a matter of time.

<i>"If I could get quadtone or (better yet) SEPT-tone inks for this printer, I would do it in a heartbeat. I think it would be easy to do a run of color, swap the cartridges, and then do a run of B&W. I would keep the normal Epson inks in it for proofing.

<p> I think that the multi-black ink availability is just a matter of time."</i>

<p>i agree, i think this would be very cool!

If I could get quadtone or (better yet) SEPT-tone inks for this printer, I would do it in a heartbeat. I think it would be easy to do a run of color, swap the cartridges, and then do a run of B&W. I would keep the normal Epson inks in it for proofing. I think that the multi-black ink availability is just a matter of time."

i agree, i think this would be very cool!

Rumor has it that some companies will be announcing grayscale inks for the 2200 at PMA. On the other hand a couple of days ago I was at some website (I ferget which one) where they did an estimate of the ink lost in just swapping the BLACK cartridge (i.e., swapping matte Black for Photo Black or vice versa) and came up with a dollar a swap! If true that would be $7 a swap for the whole inkset. At thar rate, how long before a second printer just for black and white would become cheaper? Also, third-party inks seem to have a higher risk of clogging than the Epson ones, based on reports here and on the Yahoo Digital Black and White group.

Another alternative to consider is the Epson RIP, which increasing numbers of reports on the Yahoo group credit with eliminating the 2200's metamerism at less than half the cost! (although it is reported they makes the prints a little warm) I wish someone on this forum would try it and report to us!

i read somewhere that when you swap the black cartridge, all the cartridges (including the color ones) are flushed. this would explain the $1.00 swap cost estimate. but it would remain $1.00 if you swap all the cartridges, or just one.

an ideal situation for me would be if Epson themselves would come out with greyscale cartridges for the 2200 but this seems very unlikely to me.

If a person is doing a *run* of prints, like a whole roll or two, then the change is not that expensive. After the run is completed, put the Epson inks back in the printer and run a purge pattern.

I've read that when a cartridge is changed in an Epson printer, like the 2200, that all of the cartridges go through the purge routine, and each squirts out some ink. Can anybody point me to some actual Epson documentation on this?

Plus, the idea is for somebody to *buy* the prints, right? Can you say, "Pass the cost on to the consumer"? There! I knew you could!

:-)

<I>i read somewhere that when you swap the black cartridge, all the cartridges (including the color ones) are flushed. this would explain the $1.00 swap cost estimate. but it would remain $1.00 if you swap all the cartridges, or just one. </I><P>

That sounds good, although since it knows that only the black was swapped why does it need to purge ALL the inks?<P>

. . . I know . . . it was a stupid question. Epson makes their money selling inks - that's the "technical" explanation.