Best Epson desktop printer for B&W these days...?

[Tyler Boley]

in some ways the PC version is easier. It's a stand alone printing app, so you can scale and place your image in a sheet size. It has a nice GUI that is fairly intuitive, and a help section that makes a tutorial far less necessary. The main disadvantage is no color management, so you have to convert your files to the proper output space and "save as", before importing into QTR to print.

[gnuyork]

Frank,

I'd go with any printer size of your choice with the K3 inkset. I have the R2400, but the current one is the 2880. I used to make B&Ws with the 1280 and the MIS monotone inkset. When I printed my first B&W on the 2400 I was completely blown away at both how good the print looked and how friggin' easy it was after dealing with all the required custom curves and testing with the MIS setup.

Also the color prints are stunning as well.

If it were me, I'd get the 3880. I don't do much printing per year either, but when I do a good run I go through a lot of ink and it's annoying and expensive to keep replacing it.

Also, currently I am using the baryta papers and I think my prints are even better with those papers. I get to use the gloss black ink for more D max, and also I printed identical prints with my favorite matte paper vs my favorite baryta paper, and the baryta paper held more subtle detail.

[shileshjani]

Lest the passages below in bold, italic, and underscored become part of urban legend, I should clarify: In inkjet printing, there is no tone (hue) independent of density ("file info" in Tyler's parlance). When you send to the printer a colorless (grayscale) image either as a gray or RGB file, density is made up with available (or chosen) inks. The hue/tone (incidental or deliberate) depends on the inks chosen to create the density (info). This is NOT like a color wash to give the print hue, independent of density. This is very simple really to understand - all color inks used in inkjet prints have reflective density to lesser or greater extent (yellow being the least). So one cannot decouple hue from density as this post suggests. I am sure Tylers know better.

Shilesh

PS: QTR is awesome. By the way prints with Epson ABW can be linearized with ease. ABW just does not give you absolute control of Dmax like QTR does.

It is better in ways important to some, but perhaps not everyone. Also, how much better depends on the quality of the supplied curves, which are generally good but can vary.
Split toning needn't be a tool for an obvious look, but a way to subtly nail any hue. I found myself going around in circles, and never quite happy with the ABW hue control, primarily because it's global, and though perhaps technically hue linear throughout the scale (I never measured) just never very attractive to me. You needn't use the triple sectioned hue control heavy handed, you can for example add a little purple to the shadows of your otherwise neutral or cool prints, etc.
One reason I think it works better is illustrated here-
http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/...67&hl=quadtone
in the supplied image, notice not only how nice and linear the luminosity scale is in the QTR graph, but how smooth the hue lines are compared to the jumpiness of the RGB or ABW output. That may be part of why ABW output never looks "clean" to me.
I hasten to add before anyone gets mad, many are happy with ABW, land on papers and settings that work well and make dandy prints.
The QTR convention is to always supply one curve that is the black inks only, generally labeled warm, since Epson black and lighter black inks are yellowish due to being carbon. Then you blend in other curves at will to get your hue, and they all use only the color ink necessary, never all the color inks. So from a longevity standpoint, over the life of the print it's likely to maintain it's intended hue longer than a mono print made using all the color inks which fade at various rates. To be fair, the longevity tests at Aardenburg are showing the ABW prints to be doing very well, but color inks do have differential fade, and they are bound to change hue eventually.
This is a huge topic that could require a book, or a month long workshop, but additionally- the RGB driver and the ABW driver by nature have to use up a cluster of dot positions to make up a tone, and that cluster will contain dots of ink of all the colors, that's how it works. The ABW driver less, but still all the colors. Therefore dot positions that could have been used to define file detail are instead utilized for hue. Good ink setups for mono chrome usng a RIP, light inks to full advantage, and only the color ink absolutely necessary, can use more dot positions to define file info if it is present, and write more information to paper. Skip the geek hype on this page and scroll down to the image to see it illustrated-
http://www.custom-digital.com/2009/0...print-service/
even though this was done with StudioPrint, QTR is capable of the same advantage. All this with OEM ink.
Even though I do not personally use QTR, I think it is the greatest and simplest tool available for B&W artists printing with ink on Epsons. It's for B&W, not for color, and controls the inks in ways appropriate for that specifically, AND gives the kind of control discerning B&W artists would want to personalize their results. Additionally, the next step, monochromatic ink sets, it hands the designer the tools for that as well...
Enough.. too much...
So download it and try it for free, if you like it give Roy his measly $50. OK the docs suck, what do you want for $50????
Tyler