Digital BW, The Print

Thanks, everyone!  At least now I know I'm not crazy--about the ink 
issue, anyway  :-)

A little additional information.  The tech I talked to at MIS gave me 
a link to this page:  http://www.inksupply.com/colorswabs.cfm

This page has pictures of swabs they made using bulk inks on "Epson 
Archival Matte," now called Epson Enhanced Matte.  He suggested that 
I use Q-tips or equivalent to paint a swab of ink on EEM paper, and 
compare them to the UT2 examples on the Web page.

After fooling with a Q-tip and an old cartridge, I decided that I 
didn't want to ruin the new cartridge and possibly my printer with 
cotton lint.  But I found another way to check.  There is a file on 
the MIS site called PurgePattern6 or something like that.  I've had 
it for a while.  It is basically stripes of each pure ink color, 
designed to clear the print head of old ink when changing carts, 
using a cleaning cart, etc.

I printed a 3-inch section of this file, and it does look like the 
Light Magenta position (which holds the lightest gray ink) might be a 
bit too light.  I'll talke to MIS again on Monday and see what they 
say.

As I have a 1280, if I want to print B&W with inks that don't fade, 
third party seems the only way to go. I've had great results with MIS 
inks up until now.  Are there better ways to do B&W now?  My main 
concern is to find something that works and stick with it.  So far, 
MIS UT2 has been it.  I am more interested in printing B&W pictures 
than I am in endlessly tweaking my methods.  Since UT2 worked well, I 
haven't really explored other alternatives in a couple of years. 
Also, since I use Picture Window Pro, solutions that rely on Adobe 
Photoshop-specific settings are of no use to me.

--Peter