Digital BW, The Print

I'm curious what kind of experience others have had as far as inconsistencies in batches goes (non OEM inks that is).  If you were to create a new density curve each time you loaded a fresh set of inks, wouldn't that offset the batch inconsistencies?  Are others doing that?  I suppose if you only have a handful of papers, that might not be too big a chore...although irritating.  Not that you should have to do that as a consumer, but MAYBE (emphasis MAYBE) its the price of having a non-OEM inkset...thoughts?  





"Peter A. Klein" <pklein@...> wrote:                                  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
 
 
     
                       

 		
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