Best (new) printer for B&W

[hasselbladfan]

I will be starting again some B&W work.

Should I go for the Epson 4900 or is there something better?

[Mark D Segal]

I will be starting again some B&W work.

Should I go for the Epson 4900 or is there something better?

You can get superb B&W results from an Epson 3800/3880 too, as well as many other printers. Results depend more on your technique and software than the printer model. Chose a printer based on the whole range of uses and features that would be important to you, including what you can learn about the relative quality of after-sales support.

[Czornyj]

Should I go for the Epson 4900 or is there something

I've replaced my Epson SP7880 with Canon iPF6350 lately, and I can recommend it for B&W work. It has separate head for MK, so there's no ink loss while PK<>MK swiching. It also has better dMax, and smoother transitions in 16 bit mode.

[Mark D Segal]

I've replaced my Epson SP7880 with Canon iPF6350 lately, and I can recommend it for B&W work. It has separate head for MK, so there's no ink loss while PK<>MK swiching. It also has better dMax, and smoother transitions in 16 bit mode.

Interesting comment on DMax, Have you measured it from a target for both printers, using the same paper? Paper influences DMax a lot, as I'm sure you know.

[Mark D Segal]

With SFEX2 and LR3 you have great tools for making excellent B&W conversions and they'll come out fine on many printers. So my initial observation holds. I'd recommend a pro-level printer - the word "pro" in this case does NOT necessarily mean a lot of money. If you're buying Epson, and don't need more than 17 inch width and don't need a roll feed, I would recommend a 3880. If you want roll feed, the 4900 would be the latest and greatest from Epson in that width. I can't speak much about Canon or HP because I don't have sufficient experience with them. I have profiled a Canon ipf6300 - but that's a big machine, 24" width. Tests of the profile results showed highly satisfactory B&W rendering too.

[deanwork]

I've been surprisingly pleased with the bw on the Canon IPF8300. I haven't even set up the True Black and White rip and I"m already very impressed. Like the Hp Vivera pigments the Canon Lucia gray inks are neutralized when made and not brown as  with the Epson grays. So you can run bw as rgb or grayscale files and no color inks are used. I was very impressed with the smoothness and lack of metamerism on both the matte and gloss papers when just doing the basic setting of the color slider in the middle 0 position for bw. With major toning that may be a factor to consider. I'll find out soon.  With the slider all the way to the right it renders a very nice sepia with no color crossover. This is just using all preliminary settings with no additional precise linearization that I will be adding to this starting point. These gray inks also have no gloss differential or bronzing with the gloss fiber papers I've tried.  I really didn't expect them to be that good in this respect. The Hp inks have a better dmax on matte media but I certainly don't see that as a reason to base a decision on. All three of the OEM sets seem to have quite good longevity from the tests in progress so  far.  It looks to me like Canon has copied the Hp grays that totally outclassed Canon's first really cold and odd gray set. If they did do that it was a very smart move on their part because it gets the job done in the simplest way possible. I still wish all these printers had one more very light neutralized gray, making for a true quad set, but I don't expect that to ever happen in the near future unless a rip does it for us with our own blends.

j

[PeterAit]

Before you lay out money for SilverEfex, I suggest you try the B&W tools in Lightroom. They are really excellent, and since I learned about them my SilverEfex stays largely unused. There's also the "Advanced B&W" printing mode in Epson printers, also capable of terrific output (I am a big fan of Epson printers for other reasons, too).

[Mark D Segal]

...............Like the Hp Vivera pigments the Canon Lucia gray inks are neutralized when made and not brown as  with the Epson grays. ................

 The Epson grays from my 4900 are not brown. I've measured them with a Pulse spectrophotometer. Of course paper tone can have a very mild influence for the lighter grays, but that would be normal for any ink on any paper.

[Mark D Segal]

Before you lay out money for SilverEfex, I suggest you try the B&W tools in Lightroom. They are really excellent, and since I learned about them my SilverEfex stays largely unused. There's also the "Advanced B&W" printing mode in Epson printers, also capable of terrific output (I am a big fan of Epson printers for other reasons, too).

Much as I really like SFEX2 for all the great canned presets, easy editing and localized control over effects it offers, I have to agree with this advice. LR3's B&W capabilities are excellent. So good to try that first, and if you find you want more capability, then buy SFEX2.

[Czornyj]

Interesting comment on DMax, Have you measured it from a target for both printers, using the same paper? Paper influences DMax a lot, as I'm sure you know.

It's ~3dL* darker than my SP7880 on the same semi-glossy paper.

[Mark D Segal]

It's ~3dL* darker than my SP7880 on the same semi-glossy paper.

Thanks - interesting to know. Do you happen to have on hand the actual L* black values for both printers for that paper? I'm curious, because depending on the paper and the range of blackness one is dealing with, a difference of 3 may or may not be visible to the human eye.

[Czornyj]

Thanks - interesting to know. Do you happen to have on hand the actual L* black values for both printers for that paper? I'm curious, because depending on the paper and the range of blackness one is dealing with, a difference of 3 may or may not be visible to the human eye.

At first I've noticed that prints from iPF have richer blacks and more "3D look" than my Epson, then I've measured it. I'm not sure about new x900 with K3 HDR, but it's noticeably better than my former SP7880 in this respect.

[Mark D Segal]

At first I've noticed that prints from iPF have richer blacks and more "3D look" than my Epson, then I've measured it. I'm not sure about new x900 with K3 HDR, but it's noticeably better than my former SP7880 in this respect.

4900 HDR probably wouldn't make much difference in this regard. My understanding is that the main difference in the inksets is that the x880 series don't have Orange and Green inks, whereas the x900 series do. But I stand to be corrected.

[Alan Goldhammer]

It's ~3dL* darker than my SP7880 on the same semi-glossy paper.

The Aardenburg database confirms this in the case of Ilford Gold Fiber Silk for which there is data from and Epson 4800 and Canon 8100.

[Sven W]

Before you lay out money for SilverEfex, I suggest you try the B&W tools in Lightroom. They are really excellent, and since I learned about them my SilverEfex stays largely unused. There's also the "Advanced B&W" printing mode in Epson printers, also capable of terrific output (I am a big fan of Epson printers for other reasons, too).

And if the OP also take a deep look at Eric Chan's very informative site about the 3800/80. Esp. the B&W parts.

/Sven

[digitaldog]

Before you lay out money for SilverEfex, I suggest you try the B&W tools in Lightroom.

Absolutely! And an awesome tutorial on the power here (and what has been historically done over the years in Photoshop), George Jadine’s new, free tutorial is a must!

http://mulita.com/blog/?p=1244

[deanwork]

...............Like the Hp Vivera pigments the Canon Lucia gray inks are neutralized when made and not brown as  with the Epson grays. ................

 The Epson grays from my 4900 are not brown. I've measured them with a Pulse spectrophotometer. Of course paper tone can have a very mild influence for the lighter grays, but that would be normal for any ink on any paper.



Your right, they are greenish brown and always have been.

[Mark D Segal]

...............Like the Hp Vivera pigments the Canon Lucia gray inks are neutralized when made and not brown as  with the Epson grays. ................

 The Epson grays from my 4900 are not brown. I've measured them with a Pulse spectrophotometer. Of course paper tone can have a very mild influence for the lighter grays, but that would be normal for any ink on any paper.



Your right, they are greenish brown and always have been.

No, they are not.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/printers/the_epson_4900_printer_hands_on_and_down_to_work.shtml; http:
//www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/printers/epson_4900_printer_review___addendum_february_2011.shtml

[Geoff Wittig]

If black & white is most important, I would humbly suggest looking first at HP's large format Z3200 printers. First, HP's black/grey inks are absolutely neutral, and in 'straight' BW prints the driver uses no color inks.
Second, it's got a visibly darker D-max on matte/cotton rag papers than either Epson or Canon printers. Enough so that cotton rag papers become more appealing for your black & white work, avoiding the annoying reflections or metamerism you get with glossier papers.
Third, HP's black & white mode is more sophisticated than either HP's or Canon's. It permits you to make the print tone warmer/cooler/lighter/darker using an interactive control that I find a lot more intuitive than Epson's ABW or Canon's iPF driver. There's no true print preview, but it's still quite usable.
Fourth, all black/grey inks are available all the time without any ink-wasting swaps.

All these features to my mind make it worth putting up with the HP's flaky driver, finicky paper handling and fragile mechanics.

[Light Seeker]

Should I go for the Epson 4900 or is there something better?

Depending on how much of a learning curve you're prepared to work through, and depending on what "better" means in your case, you might consider working with a dedicated set of black and white inks. Last night I compared a print made on my old 2200 using 7 shades of gray with one done on my 8300 using 3 shades of gray and the print made on the 2200 looks better.

There are a number of options for printing with dedicated inks, should you find this approach to be of interest.

Terry.