The Epson Advanced B/W Mode

[John R Smith]

Good morning.

Does anyone here have some technical understanding of exactly how the Epson Advanced B/W mode on the R2400, 3800 etc actually uses the black, two greys and colour cartridges to generate the B/W images? I have been using the R2400 for some while now, and find that as I print B/W pretty much exclusively the ink consumption is quite interesting. I print my stuff neutral or just the warm side of neutral, and find that the printer uses more light magenta than it does light light black. Presumably the colour inks (LM, LC and Y) are used to achieve a neutral result in some way, but why so much LM? What would happen if you could in some fashion force the printer to use only PK, LK and LLK? Not that I am complaining in any way (the results are superb) but I am just puzzled and curious.

John

[Ernst Dinkla]

Good morning.

Does anyone here have some technical understanding of exactly how the Epson Advanced B/W mode on the R2400, 3800 etc actually uses the black, two greys and colour cartridges to generate the B/W images? I have been using the R2400 for some while now, and find that as I print B/W pretty much exclusively the ink consumption is quite interesting. I print my stuff neutral or just the warm side of neutral, and find that the printer uses more light magenta than it does light light black. Presumably the colour inks (LM, LC and Y) are used to achieve a neutral result in some way, but why so much LM? What would happen if you could in some fashion force the printer to use only PK, LK and LLK? Not that I am complaining in any way (the results are superb) but I am just puzzled and curious.

John
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

You could use QTR and only use the Kkk inks. They are warm though. As far as I know the Epson ABW driver still uses CMY mixes along a heavy Black generation to keep some color control like for neutralising the warm Kkk's and the highlights still have much CLMLY composite grey, probably to allow compensation to paper color. Like in color printing LM then still can be heavily used, as with almost any 6 ink model.   The only printers where I have noticed that another ink is more used than LM  is in the 12 ink models where Light Grey is going the fastest, the neutral black inks of the Z3100 helping there too.


Ernst Dinkla

try: [a href=\"http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/[/url]

[madmanchan]

Supposedly, all inks are used when printing ABW except for Cyan and Magenta. More emphasis is placed on using LK and LLK (instead of LC and LM) compared to when using the standard RGB driver.

Fundamentally, the ABW driver uses a different ink strategy and screening method. This enables the driver to produce deeper blacks and a much more linear output.