Anyone doing b/w on a cheap Epson?

[ocean7]

Greetings,

I am looking for a printer that would be used exclusively for black & white and up to 8x10 only. My local shop has the Epson R280 for $80 and I was thinking that maybe that would be a nice and cheap solution with the MIS Ultratone inks

Total cost about $200 plus shipping for the ink. Do you think it would be good? Let me know what you think about these MIS inks as well. I have obviously never used them 🙂

Thanks and best!

 

[iamzip]

I don't own an R280, but I was thinking about getting one. What I've read is that they are not great for B&W, but not bad considering the price. In the US you can buy a refurbished one direct from Epson for only $55, I am not sure if that option is available to you. I haven't heard much about the MIS inks, but the epson ones are certainly decent.

 

[Papa Smurf]

R280 Great for color

R280 Great for color

Hi! I own a R280 that does an excellent job on color prints with many compliments from members of our Church congregation, but they just might are being polite since I am the defacto Church photographer. The only B&W that I have done on it has been a test image that has color and grayscale graduations from saturated to subdued. It looks great to my eyes, amazing really, but then others might be more discerning than I. Like others have said, it is really cheap, so maybe it would be worth the gamble? After all it is an Epson!

 

[dfoo]

I use the 1400, which I use for black & white only printing with the UT14 inkset from MIS, and am very very happy with the quality of the prints. You have to calibrate your papers, as described by Paul Roarke, but after that what you get is very close to the screen.

 

[VinceC]

I've been using an R240 for nearly two years now. Color and black and white are both superb -- or at least the best thing I've ever gotten out of an ink jet. Fading so far seems to be minimal with the Epson inks.

 

[Peter S]

I had an Epson 2100/2200 with UT7 inkset, tried to get it to work with glossy paper (by putting gloss optimizer in the yellow position, if you really want to know) and never got good results. The majority of these ink sets work well on matte paper. The results are very different then what you may remember from your darkroom days, but that does not mean the prints are not nice, just different. You need to be willing to do some experimenting to get good results. I was lucky to be able to afford an Epson 3800 and after the first couple of prints wished I had done so earlier. They made me realize I wasted more than a year struggling with clogged printheads and mediocre prints.

If you want to spend less than 400 USD I would look at one of the HP printers (I had an 8450 whose B+W I really liked) or maybe one of the Epson printers (refurbished) that works well with QTR (quad tone rip).

 

[ampguy]

I have the R380, and get better b/w and color than Walgreens and Costco. I have not compared my images with wet lab developed images, and it might not be comparable anyways because of paper differences.

The pros are low initial cost (free, $55 or $99 or so for the printer), better image quality than Walgreens, Longs, Costco, long lasting images (100+ years).

The cons are high ink prices, and I had a quirk where a yellow cartridge wouldn't work, the printer kept saying empty, even when it was new, so Epson sent a new one that worked with no explanation. So 3rd party cartridges may be an iffy situation.

 

[mh2000]

until you go to the R2400 or above, Epsons suck for b&w. Any cheap HP that takes the gray carts will do stunning b&w. You can find an HP for $80. Do yourself a favor and buy a printer made for doing b&w if it is b&w that you want to do. HP color is fine too, but here the lowend Epson *might* be a tiny bit better...

 

[mh2000]

PS HP b&w prints on their Premium Plus paper are still the most archival inkjet output you can get (beat pigment inks on rag papers by a long shot).

 

[dfoo]

until you go to the R2400 or above, Epsons suck for b&w.

The 1400 is excellent for black and white with a black and white inkset. See http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/ for information. As I said above, with the MIS inksets the results are superb on both glossy & matte (although I prefer matte for black and white). Regarding archival, Paul Roarke

So, while it is true that not all carbon pigments are equal, the carbon-carbon bond is nature's strongest, and the best carbon pigments are probably our best B&W image-forming substance, while the best substrate remains high quality cellulose -- for example cotton/rag paper. As such, I describe my medium as "carbon on cotton," and I think it is the most archival photographic medium we have available to us.

I don't have any reason to disbelieve him.

 

[Robburrito]

I have an Epson R280 and it does an excellent job with color prints. Build quality can be a gamble, though, the first one I got was DOA straight out of the box. It may take some extra work to get a working printer. I have thought about the same thing as you, some posters may not understand you intend to replace the standard color ink set with a set of six black/grey tone cartridges. It's certainly worth a try, at some point I will get around to doing the same thing.

 

[froyd]

Have you considered using the black-only printing technique, explained in detail here: http://www.cjcom.net/articles/digiprn3.htm

I Have an Epson 2200 and use MIS Ultrachrome equivalent archival ink on either EEM, Kirkland Glossy (Costco branded Ilford?), and Crane Museum Silver Rag for the really nice prints.

On both EEM with Eboni Black ink, and on Silver Rag with Photo Black, I've gotten wonderful BW prints with incredible ease.

 

[mh2000]

Makes for good words, but go to the Wilhelm Inst. and you will find that HP dye based b&w prints on their encapsulating Premium papers out last carbon prints. Also, historically, the early Cone carbon inks started fading in less than a year... they reformulated them and they are better, but carbon/pigment doesn't automatically mean it is archival and rag paper doesn't help, especially since they still need some kind of coating to work with the inks. People buy into the whole pigment thing based on feelings, not science. Buy pigment if you prefer the look, buy HP dye if you want your b&w's to be archival and look more like real photos.

>>
Quote:
So, while it is true that not all carbon pigments are equal, the carbon-carbon bond is nature's strongest, and the best carbon pigments are probably our best B&W image-forming substance, while the best substrate remains high quality cellulose -- for example cotton/rag paper. As such, I describe my medium as "carbon on cotton," and I think it is the most archival photographic medium we have available to us.

 

[lkgroup]

One of my printers is an Epson R300 that I got used. I like the results I get from that printer. I use Black Only technique with this printer. Very nice prints.

I used Costco paper for like proof sheets. I print 6 x 9 with a thin black line in the center of the Costco Glossy paper 8 1/2 x 11 1/2. Many of these I mount and show with an 11 x 14 over mat.

I'm happy with this printer. I think I paid less than $75.

Leo

 

[wallace]

I get great results with the R800 with Ultratone BO and Quadtone Rip.
I feed it with the cheapest color ink on the remaining chanels. (is it correct english?) The main cost factor is paper then!
The same goes for the R1800 which does A3.

Thomas