Digital BW, The Print

I think it would be more fair to accept Mr. Cone's explanation in the 
materials that, (1) if you do get a clog, it's a lot simpler to just remove 
a Canon head and flush it under warm water than to clear a clog from an 
Epson head, and (2) the availability of separate heads for Canon printers 
means users can have one loaded with color inks and another with Piezo 
inks, and do both color and B&W on the same printer with just a head swap 
(which takes about 5 seconds once the head carriage has moved into the 
center of the printer.)

As to (1), having cleared several nozzle clogs in a Canon 9000 printhead by 
rinsing the head under running water (and this is with dye only inks) I can 
confirm that it's a trivial exercise compared to the ammonia-soaked paper 
towel procedures that are mentioned regularly in these pages for dealing 
with Epson clogs.

As to (2), this is the reason I bought a Canon 9000 last year, although 
Canon has just recently released the printheads for separate sale (my photo 
shop says they can get them for $125 each.)  I do confess I don't know how 
well the heads will do loaded with ink but not sitting on the printer - I 
understand Epson printers have a cap of some sort that seals up the print 
nozzles when the head is parked, in order to keep them from drying out.  It 
remains to be seen if something similar will be needed for an unmounted but 
inked Canon head in order to keep it ready to print immediately upon 
installation.  I'm prepared to keep one sealed in a plastic bag with a wet 
sponge inside if necessary.

I took up digital photography (after 40+ years of B&W in a darkroom) only 
after determining that it might be possible to do quality B&W work 
digitally.  I started with the original Piezo inks in an Epson 860.  But I 
didn't do my homework well enough, and was disappointed to discover that 
those inks only worked on matte papers whereas I wanted to do 
glossies.  And the speed of the 860 was way too slow to do what I needed - 
which is about 800 8x10s at Christmas time.  I didn't have the discipline 
to start early in the fall in order to get it all done by Christmas Eve.

The speed of the Canon 9000 and its ability to do adequate (barely) B&W 
8x10s in around 2 minutes is what got me through this last Christmas 
season.  Now the availability of Piezo and the recent release of Lyson Quad 
Black inks for the Canon make serious B&W on glossy stock possible.

So I for one am delighted to see this new direction for Mr. Cone's efforts.

Cheers,
Kip

At 3/1/2003 02:08 PM +0000, you wrote:

>Take a look at this link. It's to Jon Cone's media kit for PMA
>http://www.piezography.com/media/PMA-2003-Media-Kit.pdf
>You will see that their new system is based on the Cannon printers
>and not Epson. The reason for this change seems to stem around the
>fact that the Cannon has a user replacable head. In other words, Jon
>Cone is expecting his inks to clog the head to the point were it
>will need rep[lacing. I can't imagine that its a cheap replacement.
>What do you think?
>
>Barry