Digital BW, The Print

Hi Jorge,

I had a $189 Epson 1400 on my front porch just last evening.  Sitting next to me now, not quite out of the box yet.  Hurray for Amazon!  Anyway, my refillable carts are showing up today I think and then I can start to play.  No 13x19 paper about just yet though :(.

Anywho, I am by no means anything like an expert and my printing experience is limited, but I would advocate for converting the 1400 to B&W and keeping the 2200 on color for two reasons.  

The first reason is based on your color print longevity, namely the 1400 uses Claria dye inks which are relatively short lived compared to the UltraChrome pigments that your 2200 uses.  So I think the 2200 is likely the better color printer if print longevity is of any concern.

The second reason is the 1400 has a 1.5pL droplet size and thus allows you to do some great pure carbon (no toning pigments) work with just a few dilutions.  You can even do really great prints using Paul Roark's 3MK approach using only 100% Eboni.  Alternatively you can get a bit smoother highlights with just one more dilution (the 2% dilution which is the Y channel in the EB-6 ink set).  This keeps your ink costs way down, just two inks to buy and you get stunning prints that also are easier to keep neutral as it is the middle dilutions of Eboni that are the warmest.  I have used this 3MK-Y approach on a R280 (which is a 1.5pL narrow carriage printer) and it is very, very nice.

You can pick-up a set of empty auto-reseting-chip carts on E-Bay for about $25 and then you only need to buy one or two dilutions of Eboni from MIS and you are off and running at minimal cost.

Anyway, just my two cents.  There are many folks here with far more experience that can probably chime in.

Ken