[worklog] Diy Piezography Epson 6 color

[fotofreek]

granted that we are a forum of experimenters, have you checked out any of the vendors that sell B/W ink sets for Epson printers? I used to buy my refill inks from MIS before I found Precision Colors. I remember that MIS had B/W ink sets for four color Epsons that could be purchased with different tones - warm, cold, etc. They might have sets for the six color printers also. Their email address is http://www.inksupply.com/inks.cfm.

 

[3dogs]

@fotofreek Yes I have been looking at them for about a year now but had other priorities getting in the way all the time.
Last few weeks, I have been able to do a lot of catching up. I have a plan
First find the outer limits of the Printer I have to work with and the Cone inkset. When the ink I have cant deliver what I want, I will have by then learned a whole lot I don't know now.
Second, along the way research as much as practical, I have learned SO MUCH in the last two months right here. As I have said, been down many, many blind alleys and found where they came out was way behind where I started.
Third and probably more important than the rest put together (above) enjoy good company here!

Cheers,

Andrew

 

[fotofreek]

Andrew - I do appreciate experimentation. Without many people having tinkered with printers and their cartridges we would still be buying OEM carts and tossing the empties into landfill. Without precision instruments I expect that translating OEM colored inks into equivalent tones of black and gray is a daunting task. Even with the gray inks that presently exist, using them to set up a suitable inkset for a printer for which they were not developed would, I am certain, be difficult.

About ten years ago I seriously considered buying an Epson four color printer to use exclusively with the B/W inksets and custom profiles that were readily available. Instead, I managed to produce reasonably neutral B/W prints with my printers and their refill colored inks. I'm pretty certain that the available B/W inksets would have been better, but my efforts were directed in different directions at the time --- like traveling to OZ and other favorite locations!

 

[mikling]

B&W was always an art requiring imagination and some experience or knowledge of what was happening.
The use of filters was always part of taking good B&W images. As a result of this, when we capture a color image and convert it to grayscale, this is only one step of many before creating a B&W work of art. Silver Efex has some of the tools to perform the conversion and allow adjustment that you could also do within Photoshop but it is a lot easier. Then the conversion of colors to a proper grayscale needs to be filtered to give the effects like one would use using B&W film and various filters....and you need to understand what you're trying to do.
Then afterwards, don't forget what work went on in the darkroom itself.
So in actuality, B&W is a lot more involved than what many would think.
There's a reason why some images are real works of art in B&W. It's monochrome, should be easy right?

A lot is left to interpretation because we don't see in B&W, at least I don't, so I have no reference. However, what is skill is seeing an image in color and knowing what can be done to it in B&W and how to do it and then presenting it. B&W is an open invitation to be creative. Greats works are nothing short of stunning and way way beyond the often used word of awesome....

 

[3dogs]

@mikling said:
"A lot is left to interpretation because we don't see in B&W, at least I don't, so I have no reference. However, what is skill is seeing an image in color and knowing what can be done to it in B&W and how to do it and then presenting it. B&W is an open invitation to be creative. Greats works are nothing short of stunning and way way beyond the often used word of awesome...."

Spent MANY happy hours in the wet dark room, it was an adventure watching the prints emerge, Digital is good But that was special.

Agree that a "GOOD" B&W really can speak, because I believe, it engages our imagination where colour (is Great) but is in your face a bit more.