What printer gives the best B/W prints?

[Shootar401]

80% of my work is B/W with the occasional colour nude or landscape. I've been eyeballing some printers from Epson and Canon and can't really see the same print side by side to compare. For those of you who have either one or knows something more than I do, if you had to buy today which printer would you buy for B/W prints? Colour is equally important also. I need enough width to print 8x10, 11x14 and 16x20. My 3 most common print sizes, 90% glossy prints.

Thanks

[Peter Mounier]

Ask your dealer for a couple of comparison prints from each printer. They should be happy to provide you with some if it means making a sale.

[ScottPhotoCo]

A lot of it has to do with calibration, set up and papers. That said, I really like my Epson 3880.

Tim
www.ScottPhoto.co

[sully75]

I'm sure it's probably a toss up. Epson's are real good. If I was to buy again, I'd be more interested in reliability, ink prices, etc. If you know what you are doing I'm sure you'd be able to make an awesome print with either. If you don't, you are screwed either way.

[Lenny Eiger]

The printer that gives the best b&w prints is one that is filled with Jon Cone's inks. (inkjetmall.com). I have two printers, one set for color and one set up with b&w. Of course, any time one uses the word "best" you have to ask "best" for whom, or best by based on what criteria. If you are in upstate NY, zip over to Vermont and take a look for yourself... at Cone Editions...

Lenny

[Kirk Gittings]

For b&w with OEM inks I prefer the Canons now. I've done many side by side comparisons and the Canons just have some hard to describe life to the tones that I just can't get with Epson's and OEM inks. Having said that I prefer Cone inks in a Epson printer.

[GG12]

+1 to the use of Cone inks. What they get out of their inks is nothing short of remarkable. That said, a friend printed some images with a large HP printer, and got pretty wonderful prints that looked like Agfa 111 silver prints. I'm pretty happy with Epson 4900 and Imageprint, but a lot has to do with the paper as well. If I could just go BW in the printer, Cone inks for sure.

[Brian Ellis]

I'm partial to Epson printers but IMHO the ink, paper, and the skill of the person doing the printing, are more important than the brand of printer. Since you apparently won't be dedicating a printer to b&w the Cone inks aren't an option. I use an Epson 3800 with Epson inks and QTR for b&w and I like that combination. I don't know that it's "the best" for a printer that combines color and b&w but it looks very good to me.

[Kirk Gittings]

Also again talking b&w only (sorry OP). Peter De Smidt (member here) has shown me prints using pure carbon inks developed by Paul Roark that are not as warm as Cone's pure carbon inks and have great potential both as the most archival injet inks tested to date and are quite beautiful in tone. See:

"For the the most lightfast inkjet prints, specify maximum carbon content, matte paper, and no third party color including blended gray inks. See http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/ for comparative fade testing. While ultimate longevity is not the most important factor for most prints, where it is critical, do the research. As a benchmark, see test ID#144 (click on AaI_20091208_SN003Lf) and note the average delta-e of 0.3 after 120 Mega Lux hours of exposure. Not all 100% carbon pigment inks and prints do quite as well as this, but the real trouble may be from the colors in gray inks that can fade differentially, causing a print tone shift, sometimes to greenish. It takes a lot of good R&D to match the fade rates of color pigments that are used to cool carbon, with HP Z3200 gray/PK pigments probably being on top of that list and what I use. Also not that it generally takes more color to cool carbon on glossy paper than on the best matte papers.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/"

[paulr]

Cone's Piezo inks are the best I've seen. I used his old 4 ink set, and made prints that were often better than anything out of my darkroom. I haven't had a chance to use the 6 or 7 ink sets.

I've been printing some black and white work for other people using the OEM inks on an epson 3880 with Roy Harrington's Quadtone Rip. This is the best non-monochrome ink b+w system I've seen. It's quite a bit better and more versatile than the printer company's built-in solutions. Subjectively I'd say it's about 3/4 of the way to piezography quality from printing in RGB black and white.

The problem with Canon printers is that Quadtone RIp and Piezography don't currenly support them. I assume this is going to change. Cone says he's working on a system for canon printers, and he uses a tweak of QTR to make piezography to work. It may be a little while before we see as robust a black and white ecosystem on canon.

Overall I'm have a much better time printing with the 3880 than with any ink printer I've had. The others were all consumer quality printers, and they spent more time torturing me than printing. I'd strongly suggest a pro level printer for piezography. The print quality won't be better, but the reliability and paper handling and the bigger ink cartridges will all make your life better.