Learning printing profiles.

I picked up a Epson 1100 series printer to do color transfers for T-shirts and it has sat unused due to various constraints. It's a 5 cartridge 13" wide pigment printer. Now tho I'm thinking about turning it into a dedicated b&w printer for prints and maybe for transfers using a CIS system. My color work now goes to my lab.
Since this is not a supported printer by various ink/profile suppliers to do b&w printing, I'm looking for resources, threads and websites explaining writing and testing profiles. I don't see having a problem on the CIS end as the printer is already being used with such for T-shirt transfers. The ink choice is another matter, but from what I can tell I have more then enough slots to cover a range of ink.

The 1100 is actually a 4-color printer -- CMYK with two slots for the same black cartridge. I think you would want to replace the Durabrite inks with monochrome inks for B&W printing, but neither QTR nor Piezography support the 1100 so profiling would be limited to the Epson driver and Photoshop curves for profiling. If the Epson driver supports black-only printing you can get nice prints, but they will be grainy. You might get some nice prints using MIS inks, but I'd have to say that there are better printers for B&W printing.
For about the same price the 6-color 13" 1400 would be a much better choice.

W.A.Crider said:

I picked up a Epson 1100 series printer to do color transfers for T-shirts and it has sat unused due to various constraints. It's a 5 cartridge 13" wide pigment printer. Now tho I'm thinking about turning it into a dedicated b&w printer for prints and maybe for transfers using a CIS system. My color work now goes to my lab.
Since this is not a supported printer by various ink/profile suppliers to do b&w printing, I'm looking for resources, threads and websites explaining writing and testing profiles. I don't see having a problem on the CIS end as the printer is already being used with such for T-shirt transfers. The ink choice is another matter, but from what I can tell I have more then enough slots to cover a range of ink.

Click to expand...

So let me ask a dumb question, cause I'm out of my league on this one. If I have 5 slots for ink, which I want to be various shades of black, why can't I make them do what I want them to? I mean outside the constraints of the drivers. Or there something I'm not aware of thats limiting me?

No...the only thing that's limiting you is the Epson driver, but that's a big limitation. Here's why (forgive me if this is either too elementary for you, or still too complex and over your head):

Ink and paper are a reflective medium, so they use the reflective primaries (cyan, yellow, magenta) plus black (some printers use additional colors like orange or green, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion). Our digital images use the additive (transmissive) primaries, red, green and blue. The printer driver has a formula for how to convert the RGB colors into CMYK colors, which you, as a user, have no control over, beyond selecting the paper type, which may tweak that formula a little bit. So, with the Epson printer driver, you have no direct control over the individual cartridges.

Now, if you know that your particular printer driver uses roughly equal amounts of C+M+Y (plus some amount of K) to make greys/blacks, then it might be possible to just drop in multiple black cartridges (of an appropriate dilution) and get B&W prints. This is the general idea that Paul Roark's EZ B&W workflows for some other printers is based on. See http://www.inksupply.com/blackandwhite.cfm to see what I'm talking about. (I have no connection to the company, that's just where the example is.)

There are also custom printer drivers (some times referred to as RIP's - Raster Image Processors), like QuadTone RIP, ColorBurst, or Gutenprint. These do allow direct control over individual ink cartridges, allowing you to build your own "formula" for B&W prints by using many different strengths of black/gray inks to avoid any "grain" from the dot pattern of the printer. The 1100 is not supported by QTR, but is probably supported by Gutenprint (if you're on a Mac or Linux), though setting up a B&W workflow in Gutenprint is less user-friendly (IMO) than doing it in QTR.

I hope that helps you out in understanding the ins-and-outs of custom B&W printing.

--Greg

Ok I understand it now. In fact I had just gone thru Paul Roark's site and read quite a bit before catching your response. Paul noted that one of the printers he uses is a 1400 series and a price I found is just under $200 for it discounted. It may be a smart move in the end.
I did check MIS and they have cartridges of Photoblack and Eboni black ink for my printer. Now I'm wondering if I should try them and print some images just for the heck of it.
I checked Gutenprint and they do support the 1100 and I'm on a Mac. I'm going to futz with it and see what happens.