From my tests with printers under $500. It seems some are better for BW and others for color. A $100 printer may do better at BW than a $500 printer. But it may not do as well with color as the $500 unit.
Are the higher end $1000 printers a 'do it all' printer and excell at both color and BW? Or does one need 2 printers for the different mediums?
Thanks
Last edited by slackercruster; 19-Aug-2012 at 09:45.
I'm happy with my Epson 3800 for both B&W and color.
Depends on how you print.
Lenny
EigerStudios
Museum Quality Drum Scanning and Printing
Actually it takes a better printer to do good b&w. With off the shelf manufacturer ink sets the better photo printers have black and additional light black inks resulting in much better b&w, considering those are also the better color printers, one printer is all you need. However many including myself consider the finest b&w ink prints come from dedicated b&w ink sets, which are not manufacturer supplied and require the user to install. If you choose that route then you will need two printers.
Tyler
I use an HPz3100, and use it for color, b/w & digital negatives.. so far the best printer i've owned
jim
Does your experience match that of this article ?Originally Posted by Jim collum
I'm surprised that we don't hear more about it on this forum.
What are digital negatives?
Wow, that is a helluva printer. Too big for me though. Just need to 13 x 19.
I don't know anything about your printer but for me Epson inks, QTR software (www.harrington.com), and my Epson 3800 printer produce excellent b&w prints as well as color. Years ago, when digital printing was in its relative infancy, I used two printers, one loaded with 3rd party dedicated b&w inks for b&w, the other for color. But I haven't found that necessary since Epson started selling the 2400 printer, which was maybe 7-8 years ago.
I'll take Tyler's word that it's still better to use dedicated b&w inks from 3rd parties such as Jon Cone, he knows more about b&w printing than I do. But for my purposes, not being a pro and not making an effort to market my work, the Epson inks with QTR work fine for both color and b&w. Which isn't to say that my standards are low, just that I haven't found a need to coax that extra 1% or whatever out of my b&w prints by using 3rd party inks and a second printer.
Digital negatives are negatives that have been made by enlarging a smaller format negative (e.g. 35mm) in a computer using Photoshop or other software, then printing it digitally. The usual purpose is to be able to make a contact print of a size larger than would have been feasible from the smaller negative.
Brian Ellis
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
a mile away and you'll have their shoes.
I too have the Z3100 and I'll attest to its performance and quality of prints. As the review states, it's a 12 ink printer, but one cart is for Gloss Enhancer, a top coat to minimize gloss differential. Also there are two blacks, which I think is the norm now; one for glossy paper and one for matte. But what makes it a good B&W printer I think are the two shades of gray. I also favored the HP because when I bought mine, Epson hadn't come out with their newest generation printers with a self contained spectrophotometer for creating custom profiles, whereas the z series printers had. I was further swayed by the sample prints I saw. One was made on the newest Epson, and the comparison print was made on the new z printer. The z printer was slightly sharper than the Epson, although it's only obvious when looking at the line pairs on the test image.
Peter
Yes... in fact, that article led me in the direction of buying the printer. I only have the 24" version, but they're pretty much identical except for the size. Have never had a head clog in the 5 years i've had it.
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