Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/07/05

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Subject: [Leica] Epson 1280: New liquid diet, or the landfill?
From: hoppyman at bigpond.net.au (G Hopkinson)
Date: Thu Jul 5 18:22:52 2007
References: <Pine.LNX.4.62.0707051745470.28525@mail.2alpha.com>

Peter, I bought and tried MSI carts in an older 890 (two carts). I used 
almost an entire cart just doing test prints to try to work
out how to approximate the tones as I saw them on screen. I made exactly one 
acceptable print but found that the image size was
constrained by the QTR RIP more than I wanted too. I gave up the experiment 
with that particular combo. 
I know lots of people do get fine results but it does seem to be a bit of a 
black art, or maybe black with occasional blue-ish
variations ;-).
The Epson 3800 makes VERY fine bw prints. The ABW mode gives very neutral, 
repeatable results. You can use it in a completely
controlled, colour managed work flow and still soft proof effectively (in 
colour) or in ABW or QTR RIP with an appropriate profile.
Here in Aus it costs about AUD 1950. It comes with AUD 900 worth of ink. 
That makes the math more attractive.

Cheers
Hoppy 


-----Original Message-----
FSubject: [Leica] Epson 1280: New liquid diet, or the landfill?

I've mentioned before on the list that I've had troubles with my
Epson 1280 with MIS Ultratone 2 carts. I've now had several
instances where I changed cartridges, and either the greytone
distribution or the "tint" of the prints changed. A while back, my
Roarke curves workflow, which had worked for 2 years, just stopped
working. Gray tones were skewed or missing. Both with the Epson
driver and with QTR, which eliminates driver problems.

Well, it just happened again. This time I changed to a new grayscale
cart, and my "neutral" workflow (EZ Slider method) turned distinctly
bluish. Changing the sliders to the "warm" settings does little to
change this.

And there are no clogs. I had a clog when I changed carts, but I cleared 
it. Every nozzle check I print comes out fine, but the prints come out 
quite bluish. The Sepia ink prints out lighter than it should on the Purge 
Pattern 6 file (compared to an earlier cart's printout of the same file).

I should also mention that when I print a Black-Only print, I get
slight to moderate banding. But if I print the same image twice in a
row, the banding will be in different places.

It's possible it's the cart, but I'm coming to the conclusion that
it's my printer. Unless MIS has much worse quality control than their
reputation, it's just happened too many times for it to have been
MIS' fault every time.

So here's my question: If it is indeed the printer that's the
problem, what are the chances that the problem would go away if I
went back to the dye inks the printer was designed for? In other
words, supposed I went back to color dye inks on the 1280, and
switched to UT-R2 grayscale inks in my R200? If it worked, I could
delay buying a 3800 for a while, and my finances would thank me. If
it didn't work, I'm out a hundred bucks of ink and some more
frustration.

If there's a good chance that my problems are some long-term
consequence of using pigment inks in a printer designed for dyes, I
might chance the color/BW switch. If it's more likely that my 1280
is just slowly dying, maybe it's time to pull the plug.

--Peter


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In reply to: Message from pklein at 2alpha.net (Peter Klein) ([Leica] Epson 1280: New liquid diet, or the landfill?)