[grhazelton]

Frustration mounts!

I have yet to produce a satisfactory black and white print from any source - digital images, scanned bw negatives - with my Epson R1800. I'm using Elements 6, my monitor is calibrated with the Spyder 3, I develop profiles with Profile Prism for the MediaStreet inks, and I still get faint color hues and metamerism. This is especially frustrating when I work with scanned negatives which, back in the day, yielded excellent prints on fiber paper in the wet darkroom.

Does anyone have any magic solutions to offer? I realize that the R2400 would have been a better choice for black and white, but it was too expensive. Has anyone tried any of the more exotic solutions, such as the graduated inks from Cone, etc? Or can anyone suggest a good lab to to the job for me? Or should I haul out the enlarger, remodel the laundry room, banish the washer and dryer to the garage, and deal with expensive BW paper in decreasing variety?

Thanks for any suggestions.

[Ivan Glisin]

Frustration mounts!

That sounds familiar... I was looking for a good B&W inkjet solution and I had to learn a lot in the process. The main thing is that you can not, and I repeat can NOT get good B&W results if you are printing in color - that is - using color inks to simulate shades of gray. No matter how hard I tried it was practically impossible to get rid of total or partial hue and metamerism.

Long story short, I have learned that it is a must to have grayscale inks for good B&W output. Period.

I have found the solution in HP Vivera 100 Photo Gray ink cartridges and ILFORD Classic papers. Note that HP 100 cartridges are with dye-based inks, however, according to Wilhelm Research print permanence on HP Premium Photo paper is 100+ years. ILFORD Classic series is of equivalent quality and I would expect ~100 years without noticeable fading with ILFORD as well.

I am not familiar with R1800, but according to the website there are no inks for grayscale printing (Epson calls them K, LK, LLK). So you can not get good B&W results with it. Consider Epson R2400 or HP B9180 (or similar but cheaper B8850) if you want larger format and pigment inks. Epson UltraChrome K3 inks are good but HP Vivera 38 series for B9180/B8850 offer some insane print permanence ratings of >250 years on quality papers under glass and >100 years displayed without glass, album storage >300 years. (Note that accelerated print permanence ratings estimate after how many years print will show visible difference compared to a reference print. We are talking about a shade of gray difference here! It does NOT mean that print will fade away in X years. With print permanence of 200 years it would probably translate to >1000 years for a print to appear obviously altered by aging.)

See more at:
WIR HP Photosmart Pro B9180
WIR Epson R2400

[grhazelton]

Thanks for the quick reply, Ivan. If you see my new post you'll see that your advice may be taken more quickly than I'd hoped, since the Epson R1800 is acting up. Never a dull moment!

[Nesster]

I've managed around this by split toning (or equivalent) my b&w files before printing them on my R1800. In fact, having grown up around photo papers, I don't think a 'pure' black and white gamut is in fact a good thing. Most of the better prints I've seen tend to at least a bit of tone, whether warm or cold, and many of the better darkroom printers used tone to advantage, especially with the old papers that contained more silver and heavy metals.

[Ivan Glisin]

Most of the better prints I've seen tend to at least a bit of tone, whether warm or cold, and many of the better darkroom printers used tone to advantage, especially with the old papers that contained more silver and heavy metals.

I agree that toned darkroom prints have their appeal. However there are two important differences between inkjet and darkroom toned prints: (1) there is no metamerism in toned prints, and more importantly (2) there is no differential fading that can ruin tonal range.

For producing good toned inkjet B&W prints there is a need for duo-, tri-, or quad-tone grayscale inks with different "warmth". That would eliminate mentioned problems and create look similar to toned darkroom prints.

Toned PiezoTone inks are one available solution. Have a look at:
Piezography - PiezoTone Quad Black monochromatic inks

[PeterAM]

I have been using an Epson 2200 for several years and could not get decent black and white prints until I started using a piece of software called Quadtone RIP. This is very inexpensive and does a great job, with the regular Epson inks.

QuadToneRIP Overview

[Buddha Jones]

According to PopPhoto, the R1900 is the best B&W printer out there, and the new R2880 holds the sam great B&W printing and just upped the ante on the Color side.