b/w printing?

I use Allied PhotoColor here in St. Louis. Their web site design is not that great, but here's a link.

www.alliedphotocolor.com/

They are a commercial lab with mostly corporate clients. They offer true monochrome printing. I like their "watercolor paper" as it simulates the look of the wet print paper I use to use when I printed from Tri-X. It turns out my monitor calibration is spot on with their printers. This must be dumb luck as I use LR with a Apple Thunderbolt display calibrated with the OS X built-in tools. Oddly, my color work is oddly spot on too. Allied swears they do not modify/tweak my files.

I print some B&W with MPIX. They also have true monochrome prints on B&W only paper. Their work is very nice. MPIX will tweak the gamma if you so desire and every thing they've done for me indicates their staff knows what they're doing. They also offer framing and mounting, which is convenient.

I would never, ever consider owning a printer. The ink costs are astronomical. I don't print often enough to keep a high-quality unit clean and ready to go.
 
I have a darkroom but digitally use an epson 3880 and quadtone rip or epson advanced black and white mode. Another option I have used extensively is the Paul Roark workflow with MIS inks, but I am finding less need for these pure carbon inksets these days.
 
thanks everyone for your input- looks like there's lots of options. what i am most interested in are reasonably priced home options,, inkjets with either manufacturers inks or proprietary the give good results without breaking the bank. has anyone had luck with inks or continuous flow systems from mis or any of the others out there? what printers seem to give good results? unfortunately budget concerns are an issue, so i'm looking for good results for not a lot of money. i don't need the kind of quality that hangs in a gallery, but results that i could be happy to hang on my wall or show people in a portfolio.

cheers,
rob
 
I started by following Chris Crawford tutorial. I currently do my own printing on R3000 and Hanhemule photoRag pearl paper and couldn't be happier with the results I get. I also ordered a sample print pack from John Cone and it looks even better than any darkroom print I ever seen

P.S. BIG Thanks goes to Christopher!
 
leontrotsky67 said:
thanks everyone for your input- looks like there's lots of options. what i am most interested in are reasonably priced home options,, inkjets with either manufacturers inks or proprietary the give good results without breaking the bank. has anyone had luck with inks or continuous flow systems from mis or any of the others out there? what printers seem to give good results? unfortunately budget concerns are an issue, so i'm looking for good results for not a lot of money. i don't need the kind of quality that hangs in a gallery, but results that i could be happy to hang on my wall or show people in a portfolio.

cheers,
rob
Click to expand...

If you want to try the mis route you should check out Paul Roark's webpages. Packed with information about a variety of inksets and options using eboni based inksets.

I have used mis products in refillable cartridges which seems the easier way to go. I even mixed my own inksets which is not that difficult, and used quadtone rip software to do the printing and calibration required.

The absolute easiest way is to buy an epson printer that has abw mode, but then you are generally tied more to expensive epson colour inks.
 
I use an Epson R3000. Printing on Epson Ultra Premium Presentation Matte. Good results. But I'm going to try Hanhemule PhotoRag Pearl based on arseniii's recommendation.
 
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