3 replies to this topic

[Al Benas]

Has anyone figured out what ABW color setting in the Epson driver will use just the black, light black, and light, light black inks only? In QRT, the "warm" curves usually only use the (3) black inks, but I want to set some "time" settings and need to be in the Epson driver. Thanks for any help.

[adiallo]

I ran this by Walker Blackwell, a fantastic printer who's done more tinkering with this that most. Short answer is not possible. ABW will always throw in some color ink as this controls resolution to some degree. You can, however, run the driver using black only. NOt sure whether that triggers all 3 dilutions or not, but it should eliminate color inks.

[Al Benas]

adiallo, on Apr 30 2008, 09:45 AM, said:

I ran this by Walker Blackwell, .... Short answer is not possible. .... You can, however, run the driver using black only. NOt sure whether that triggers all 3 dilutions or not, but it should eliminate color inks.

Thanks for checking into this. The last time I looked, "black only" severely limited the selectable print quality; but I'll check again. "Black only" worked quite well on the Epson 2200. Let you know if anything exciting turns up

[Al Benas]

Al Benas, on Apr 30 2008, 07:57 PM, said:

... but I'll check again. ... Let you know if anything exciting turns up

I'm still not used to the newest Epson 3800 driver ... waay different than the original one.
- Yes, I can use a "black only" setting, to any level of complication that I want to.
- No, it appears NOT to take advantage of the light blacks. However, it does produce quite a nice print; slightly "sharper" and contrastier; not quite as silky smooth as with QRT using all three blacks. Very much like a print from Tri X vs. a print from Panatomic X; sorta film-like A nice tool for the old toolbox.