Do you want to make great-looking black and white prints? Do you only need to go up to 8.5x11 inches? Do you want to do this as inexpensively and as simply as possible? If so, read on...
First, I have to say thanks to all of those who have helped to get me to this point, especially Bob Michaels who was kind enough to send me sample prints of his work, along with his time and enthusiasm, and Nick Nugent, who has given freely of his time in my quest to make clog-free printing a reality, when I was black-only printing with my Epson 1280.
There are a lot of smart and helpful folks at the Yahoo Digital Black and White Print group. If you are at all interested in digital B&W printing you need to be there.
You should also spend a lot of time at Clayton Jones' Black-Only printing page. He dives into the nitty gritty details of BO printing and is one of the pioneers. Clayton has done a lot of work and shows you how to configure your printer for output. No need to reinvent the wheel here. Clayton's page on the R200/R220 is here.
I've become a big fan of BO printing for several reasons:
- It's SIMPLE from setup to calibration
- It's inexpensive
- There are only one set of nozzles to worry about
- The prints look GREAT
I've participated in several B&W print exchanges via the Yahoo group. To my eyes the Black-Only prints look just as good as the prints made with multiple inks. Here is what one person wrote about an exchange:
"I am astounded at how BO printing has taken off (thanks to Clayton's proselytizing), and in Friedman's case, to such great effect. Other BO prints in this batch, Charles' twilight shot (great mood), Davajon's cactus (way over sharpened), and Jim's shot of the young couple all make mockery of the need for full spectrum grayscale inks, especially when viewed at normal distance. I am convinced that unless handled nose-to-paper, BO prints easily out-shine grayscale ink sets in their vibrancy. Jim's print is one of my favorites."
You have to go into inkjet printing knowing that your prints are going to look different than those produced in a traditional darkroom. DT inkjet printing is just a different animal.
When I started DT printing with my 1280 I had no idea how any of this technology worked, aside from the basic premise. I soon learned that the cartridges have a sponge in them that hold the ink in suspension and allow just enough to reach the print head where it can be sprayed onto the paper. The problem with the sponge is that eventually foam can build up in the sponge blocking the flow of ink. That leads to clogging and missing nozzles.
MIS Associates have come out with spongeless cartridges for many Epson printers that promise to make sponge-related clogs a thing of the past.
A spongeless cartridge from MIS Associates
Now let's get down to business...
You can purchase an Epson R200 refurbished off the Epson website for $59 shipped. These come with a full warranty. You can probably turn around and sell the Epson inks on Ebay to cut your printer cost.
From MIS get an inkset (neutral or warm) such as the R2N-CART-SET-K, which is the neutral set ($68). This gets you all the spongeless carts for the R200 filled with ink for the printer. You can then play with full-spectrum prints and this saves you the hassle of having to fill the carts initially.
When those carts are empty and you decide that black-only printing is the cat's meow, you fill those "color" carts with clear base stock ($8.00 for 4 ounces, part # ESC-BASE-4-UC) and refill your black cart with Eboni ink ($18 for 4 ounces, part # ESC7600-4-K).
You will need a chip resetter, a syringe, bottom fill adapter and needle to refill the carts ($21). For under $200 you are set with a printer and enough ink to crank out a ton of prints. My favorite every day paper is Red River's 50lb. Premium Matte C2S. At it's current $12.49/50 sheets it's cheaper than Epson's Enhanced Matte. The Red River Paper is brighter and cooler in tone compared to the Epson previously mentioned. With Black-Only printing you control the tone from warm to cold by the paper you print on.
As mentioned above, Clayton Jones has done a great job of describing how to configure printers for BO printing. For my system I've come up with a few simple settings. I am using a Mac. I did purchase a GretagMacbeth EyeOne to calibrate my monitor, an Apple LCD Cinema Display. With the settings above and a calibrated monitor what I see on screen matches my prints. In Photoshop I set my dot gain to 20%. My settings are slightly different than Clayton's but they work for me. Don't be afraid to experiment with settings.
Below are screen shots of my printer setting.
If you have any questions or comments you can email me. If you want a sample print send me a SASE envelope and I will send you a 8.5x11 print.
If for some reason you want to see the old 1280 page when I was still using the sponge carts, click here. Good luck and happy printing.