Anyone using a Designjet for B&W?

[Ed Richards]

HP sent me some black and white demo prints on photo satin. The prints look great, with great blacks. However, they have no fine detail. It is hard to tell if the original images did not have fine detail, or if it was lost in the printing. I am curious if anyone has compared the detail to that from the Epson printers. The VC camera article praised the blacks, which are very good, but did not mention detail.

[Michael Gordon]

I have the DJ130 but do not use it for b/w. Yes, any detail in the negative will be visible in the print. It seems that HP is not much for hyping their products with *good* sample images. The cheetah sample they use to promote the printer is not even touching the capabilities of it. I have not seen the monochrome samples. All this being said, without a RIP or tweaked inkset the DJ130 will produce metameristic monochrome prints.

[Mike Lewis]

I tried desaturating a color image then printing it on my DJ130 in black-and-white. The result looked awful. I'm sure it's because I don't know what I'm doing; I haven't printed a lot yet with this printer. I'm also pretty sure I will have to buy a RIP in order to get the most from it. Color images printed on this printer don't seem to lose any detail, though.