Black & White

I must say, working with the Epson ET-8550 printer, making BW prints on MATTE paper... now that comes suddenly much closer to real analog Black & White prints. It is a delight to see the results in that regard. I never expected it to come out that good.

The Printer has one black PIGMENTED ink tank - which likely plays a roll in how the printer combines it with the dye based black ink tank, as well the gray dye based ink - in order to produce really lovely BW Photos. Especially on MATTE paper, the combination is truly beautiful.

Or from a amateur standpoint, i would say, very close to real analog black & white prints from the darkroom. After all, I have spent 15 years in a photo darkroom with dominantly making BW prints - and know quite a lot of that department. Even studied characteristics of various papers; the long and short toe papers, which separate shadow details in different ways... and so on.

My skills are extremely basic when it comes to printing, for the simple reasons that I haven't printed much in my life. I abandoned my attempts back in 2003, due to the cost and the clogging issues destroying the printers, and the absurd price of pigmented ink cartridges, which were at the same time ridiculously small (something like 11 ml).

So, when I now judge a printed BW image, i am not as stung with niggles and criticism, as long the basic parameters are very good:

1) I want a Black & White photo look like Black & White Traditional Photography enlarged BW images - and not attached to various color tints dependent in what light source color you look at it, and it shifts tint. They need to look neutral without color shift.

2) the deep shadows and blacks should be pretty black, not gray.

3) no streaks of any kind, and separation in highlights and shadows need to be visible (instead of "sooting" or "Drowning" into a uniform dark mass)

4) Natural looking translation of gray tones and shades, natural highlight separation. (This can actually be set and changed in the settings under the "Advanced B&W Photo" setting; where you get several parameters how to steer the shadow separation, the highlight separations, the overall characteristics of the BW photo (like "print darker, lighter etc).

I assume that you also can even add a touch of color to the BW prints - as if you would tone a real print in the photo darkroom the old ways decades ago; aka Selenium toning, Gold toning, Cool toning, Sepia toning.

However, that I have not tested this yet.

This far, I kept all my printed BW photos neutral as of now, and focused mainly on the overall feeling, the separation of tones needed to feel like a print on RC or Baryt papers. One thing is for sure; the blacks on Matte papers, are deeper, compared to traditional (chemically developed) matte photo paper (in the darkroom). The latter used to have a rather limited D-MAX, where the black never would turn out black, but rather dark gray. It's never been my favorite, and i almost never used such photo paper.

The settings are important for BW

And that is what i see, when I print in Black & White with the Epson EcoTank ET-8550 printer. However, i use the Epson Print Layout software with the special setting called "Advanced B&W Photo", and you must select the paper quality "Velvet Fine Art Paper" (when printing on MATTE paper)

Then the printer enables the use of the pigmented black ink additionally to the other dye based Black and Gray ink tanks. This somehow does the magic that comes out, as really good looking BW images as a result. I am truly delighted - that is all I can say !

All from analog negative BW film

Speaking of BW images: the main photo shows those A3+ photos - which are originally all made with analog film. I still have not printed out any B" images that came from a digital camera.

At Last

To prints in Black & White like i described with the Epson Software, and you use Matte papers - is a dream come true. I don't use fancy papers, but still papers of good quality, thickness and matte surface. And get truly wonderful results. Images that actually look pretty much like real prints made in the darkroom.

And that is something truly new to me. I mean, i didn't really expect the Epson ET-8550 to be that good, that it can cover Black & White prints without any color tint. The small ET-1810 can not do this. As it exclusively uses dye based inks, with 3 colors + black, creating a BW image.

Those images have a sort of color metamorphism, resulting into various color tints dependent in which light you look at the print - it will shift in color hue. This can be counteracted with some training and experience, but you never fully get rid of it entirely. Most uncorrected BW prints i get from the ET-1810 printer, are very cold, kind of bluish-magenta to begin with.

I should however test the Epson EcoTank ET-1810 in black & white with matte paper. I have not done that yet. Just to see, if and what effect that has in B&W images.

Generously with Ink

It is just amazing, that you can now print B&W images - and if one doesn't turn out the way you like it - you can at any time afford to make several versions. you can afford get to know the characteristics of your printer, our papers, your motives, without breaking your bank account because of too high ink prices.

This makes printing as fun, at it once was in the classic darkroom, when the prices on silver gelatin BW paper, was highly affordable, even when made on fiber paper, you simply made new prints, new versions, and upped your skills over time, learning from errors, learning to judge the nuances and characteristics.

Well, back then you could do all that, without breaking the bank. Today silver gelatin photo paper, costs a literally fortune. It is almost crazy how expensive analog photo paper and film have become. As well chemistry is now getting increasingly expensive too.

Pity.