Digital BW, The Print

Tom OConnell wrote:

>7960 print quality may turn out to be ok...so far I'm finding a 
>bluish cast to BW rgb prints that I don't like at all. 
>
on that note, here's some comments from CD Tobie about color of the 
prints in response to my referring to the #50 cartridge as the 
"Ash"cartridge (something I had heard some HP staff calling it..

"Ash is an interesting description. When I print with the HP 7960 in 
black and white (black and grays, really) mode, the results are 
relatively smooth, though there are a few very visible breaks in the 
gradients and quite color consistant, with a pleasant warm tint 
throughout that Ash describes nicely. When I print through a custom 
ProfilerPRO profile built at the no color adjustment setting (which they 
have interestingly named "sRGB") from that same desaturated gray image, 
the result is noticably cooler (a bit blue, but most people pick it as 
the "gray" one) without the breaks in the gradients, but with the bit of 
color wobble that you would expect to find when printing B&W with color 
inks. Six of one, half a dozen of the other... "


>I've also 
>found that most papers require you to "catch" them one at a time and 
>set them out to dry individually for at least an hour before they are 
>ready to be handled at all.
>
That would support Paul Roark's findings of extended dry down time for 
these print..

> At the fine print setting, it prints very 
>very slow. 
>
Well, it seeems that the best B&W print quality (the least driver 
sharpening and artifacts), in my experience, is with setting the print 
to Max dpi, not "best."

>All of that said, I may keep the 7960 for the ocassional glossy 8x10 
>and for the extra tray for holding 4x6 paper for the ocassional 
>snanpshot sized pic that can still be a very good desktop text 
>printer, but it just doesn't measure up for a production printer of 
>quality BW photos.
>  
>
Basically, that's  my own opinion too at the moment..



 
Keith Krebs

"Just some guy," caretaker of the Multiverse's largest EPSON printer 
User Community (highly recommended by Vogon Poets and MegaDodo 
Publications), at:
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and  the Multiverse's largest Canon printer User  Community at:
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"For the rest of you out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together 
guys"