B&W 13" printers

I have a Canon i9900 and I'm very happy with its color performance. However, I'm not too happy with its black and white output. The prints don't have the richness of the prints I used to make in the darkroom. I don't think it's me - I've studied B&W ink jet printing until my eyes are blood shot. Sometimes there's a green cast, other times it looks a bit magenta.

So, I'm thinking about buying a 13" printer dedicated to B&W for the rich tonal qualities that I used to get with the old fixed-grade Ilford fiber-based papers. Is such quality available in an ink jet printer and paper combo? Would I need to go with dedicated B&W ink sets, such as those offered by Media Street?

Opinions and comments on your personal experiences with B&W inkjet printing are graciously welcomed.

Thanks,

Tony

i can't remember the exact name of it, but there is a black and white group on yahoo that i used to browse. it was pretty amazing, these guys were hard, hard core black and white printers. now that i think about it, it might have been epson related also. i remember them talking about 4 different black inks, maybe even 5 replacing the inks that came with the printers, probably media street or some other 3rd party. i know they recommended rip software for best results... talked about black only printing (i think this was just 1 black ink cartridge and disabling the others).

Epson R2400. Has 3 B&W inks.

I'll second the Epson R2400 - amazing B+W reults

i found the group! http://tech.groups.yah​oo.com …talBlackandWhit​eThePrint/

ps - i too have an epson r2400. like it very very much for black and white. i'm not so hard core as to use 3rd party inks and super tweaking, but rather use the built in black and white printing options in the r2400 drivers.

since i learned to color manage my photos and monitor, and use color management when printing, i've so far never printed a black and white photo on the 2400 that didn't give me what i see on my screen - and that's important because with B&W the subtle things are what set you apart as someone with experience and who knows what they are doing. that's a double-edge comment though b/c there are printers out there from the non-digital world (aka film) that have such a knowledge of photography and making prints that are beautiful!

How's the R2400 held up? I've had two Epson printers in the past and had issues with the print heads becoming permanently clogged. After the second one (Sylus 777) I decided to go with a Canon printer and I never had clogging issues. This is what led me to buy the Canon i9900 in the first place, and it's done a great job at printing without clogging issues. Does the R2400 have such issues, or were my problems more likely due to the printers being consumer models? I'd just like a little reassurance as my experience with Epson printers has not been great.

Also, the new Canon 9500 has three blacks (actually, matte black, black and gray) and is the same price as the R2400 (and includes the Spyder 2 calibration package). Are the Epson black inks essentially the same?

Thanks,

Tony

Tony-S wrote in post #3274675
How's the R2400 held up? I've had two Epson printers in the past and had issues with the print heads becoming permanently clogged. After the second one (Sylus 777) I decided to go with a Canon printer and I never had clogging issues. This is what led me to buy the Canon i9900 in the first place, and it's done a great job at printing without clogging issues. Does the R2400 have such issues, or were my problems more likely due to the printers being consumer models? I'd just like a little reassurance as my experience with Epson printers has not been great.

Also, the new Canon 9500 has three blacks (actually, matte black, black and gray) and is the same price as the R2400 (and includes the Spyder 2 calibration package). Are the Epson black inks essentially the same?

Thanks,

Tony

i'm not sure if the inks are the same, unless you mean that you have Matte black, black and gray... the epson has Matte black, Gloss black, Light black and Light Light black. you have to switch out the M and G blacks and that can eat ink. I've ended up staying with gloss black because of much better dmax with the ink and gloss/semi-gloss/luster papers. especially for black and white printing. but it also helps in colors.

i have not had any issues with my r2400. we had a real dry winter this year (20% humidity or so is what i'd typically measure in my room) and no clogging. in fact i really only print in spurts with maybe 2-3 months in between. every now and again, maybe once or twice a month i'll run a web page print on standard inkjet paper.

the only banding issues i've had are: when ink is low, when i tried to run a thick paper through the sheet feeder instead of the manual feed.

i will continue to print when i get warnings that less than 10% ink is remaining, usually go until it warns me that 5% remains and/or when the red-light inside the printer comes on warning of low ink (the light by the cartridge not on the front of the printer) then a few prints later (8x10 or 12x18 ) it'll start to band.

the canons have been well reviewed and have a wide color gamut, wider for sure than the epson 2400 / 3800 etc... in bright colors. it's the same old, epson, canon, hp... the big leap recently has been to pigmented inks for their professional and pro-sumer printers.

OK, thanks for the info - I really appreciate it.

As the others, not a hard hard core bw maker but my 2400 has no clogging probs.

The BW aspect of the printer is very rewarding as it shows the differences made by subtle changes to the photo made in PS such as blending in small percentages of high pass or inverted layers. Much better than the single black ink printers I had before it.

Regarding papers, I use Moab Entrada for matte and Kokopelli for satin. I'm beginning to experiment with Museo Silver Rag when I want to use really expensive paper! So much to learn!

Enjoy.

Are all of these printers still 8-bit? It seems that if even a 10-bit printer could be produced it would dramatically improve the tonal qualities of B&W prints. I just don't see how 256 shades of gray can produce great images. Do you notice conspicuous changes in gradual tones, say across a landscape sky?