Digital BW, The Print

Ginny;


 
> I'm printing B&W on the 1800 with the std. Epson inkset.
>I've not used
> any third party inks.

So you're printing with the Epson driver as well, which means it is 
trying to synthesize B&W from all the color inks. Unless you have a 
custom color profile made for each paper you want to use, this will 
never work well.
>  I'm ready to give up on the 1280 and wondering how the 2400 would 
be.
> How do prints compare with what my 1800 does? 

The R1800 is theoretically capable of matching the 2400 prints, but 
in order to do it you have to put at least two more gray inks in it, 
and learn to control them with QTR or another RIP. This means you're 
giving up color capabilty. 

The next best thing is to replace the gloss cart with a light black, 
and go 2K, again with QTR or another RIP. The gloss with the MIS 
inks at least makes no real difference, since the bronzing is no 
longer an issue with either the MIS or the Epson K3 inks.

Is the 2400 more
> 'friendly' to third party inks like MIS? 

Either machine handles the MIS inks without any problem.
The real advantage to the 2400 is that it has 3 shades of black, and 
a built-in RIP (ABW mode) so it is capable of doing excellent B&W 
out of the box. Its only major disadvantage is that you have to 
swith matte-black and photo-black carts if you want to change papers.
But all things considered, it is the better machine, unless you're 
really stuck on being able to use both glossy and matte papers 
without switching inks.

Hope this helps

Steve Karafyllakis