Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/12/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Benjamin, My "Continuous Flow System" arrived today and I got it up and going (after a nerve-wracking glitch, I'll get to that). The bottom line ... as we already heard ... what's there to say? It works and works beautifully. Some settings to start with can be found here: http://www.inksupply.com/index.cfm?source=html/c86_comments.html I'm using the "warm" inks and the black for matte paper (Eboni Black, not the Photo Black for glossy). You really don't have to do much fiddling around at all. I tried the settings in the above link for "Epson Enhanced Matte" (+3 Brightness and -15 contrast at 1.8 gamma). I thought it looked to light so I went to 2.2 gamma and started liking it much more. The third try I changed the contrast slider from -15 to -5 and that's almost a perfect match for my screen. All of these settings are set in the Epson driver so you don't need Photoshop to print. Anything that will print to the printer can be used (Word, for example). I decided it can't be a crime to print with Eboni Black (intended for Matte) on glossy paper so I tried out a print with Epson Premium Glossy. It "works" ... but the black sections are definitely not "glossy" (and the lighter sections really are). The glossy print comes out a _lot_ warmer. I've just been printing for a couple of hours ... but I like it. It sure is a relief to not have to battle with magenta and green. Paper choice is subjective. I'm almost wondering if a good compromise might not have been to use Photo Black for glossy, but to use semi-gloss paper. Epson's Premium Semi-gloss is pretty nice. The "glitch"? Epson has small chips on their cartridges to tell the driver if there is ink in the cartridges or not. When you use MIS inks they have a special chip that resets itself to "full" every time you turn the printer on and off. Well ... the chip on the black cartridge was defective, telling the driver that the cartdrige was empty and you could get it to budge. What to do? I pried off a chip from one of the original cartridges from Epson and put it on the MIS cartridge instead. Unfortunately .... I had thought it was a waste not to use those color cartridges before I chucked them (this is a b/w only system for me) and let my daughter print out "8x10"'s to her heart's content inorder to use up the ink. So the chips on all of those cartridges are almost "empty". :-( Nice stuff. An Epson C86 from OfficeMax for $49 after all the rebates and a set of Quadtone inks from MIS ... hassle-free b/w printing. No curves, no profiles just nice prints. If you're thinking about the CFS system I'd consider the empty cartridges from MIS. I hear they are so easy to refill that the CFS system is almost over-kill. Best, Daniel On Sun, 19 Dec 2004, Benjamin Marks wrote: > Do any LUGgers have experience with the new MIS UltraTone EZ inkset? This > is the B&W inkset for inexpensive Epson printers that Mike Johnston claims > needs no PS workflow. It all sounds too good to be true . . . So. I'm > looking for a little empirical evidence. Anyone out there? > > BTW: the link to Mike Johnston's column in which he discusses his > excitement (but not his results) is here (midway through the page): > > http://www.photo.net/mjohnston/column63/ > > Ben Marks > benjamin marks at verizon dot net (no spaces and the standard nomenclature > to respond off list) > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >