design transfer on a Mac... "rich black" not good

[rod]

There have been posts that talk about the ease with which PC computers using Windows can specify "use black cartridge only" and get crisp and easy design transfer with Tom's solution or some equivalent, whereas us luckless Mac users don't seem to be able to disable the color cartridges and Epson ends up printing a "Rich Black" when you ask to print black only. Rich black mixes in other colors and may be very nice for other applications, but not for design transfer.

Sam and I have discussed work-arounds, such as filling your color cartridges with black ink, but remember that nice ink is not the same mix as your standard ink refill bottle.

It will not work to simply remove the color cartridges, as the printer will then stubbornly refuse to work with only the black cartridge in place.

Let's face it, an Epson C86, or other similar printer, can be bought for about $70 with ink cartridges included, so not a big deal to dedicate one of these printers to black printng only.

Here is what I just did.... but you will need that little electronic gizmo that resets the cartridge to pretend it is new... google it...costs about $20.

Take out the color cartridges one by one, use a small screw driver to dig into the bottom delivery nipple and you can pull out a rubber ring washer and then with tweezers pull out the small spring loaded plug and the spring. Wipe the ink away with a Q-tip. Add a sprinkle of baking soda down into the hole that is left, and a drop of super glue. This instantly seals the ink and prevents it feeding into the printer. Don't put much baking soda into the cavity, because the cartridge goes back into the printer and you need to leave room for the little feed nipple on the printer not to be squashed.

Now use the third party reset gizmo to turn the cartridge setting from red light to green light. The printer will now think it is a new Epson cartridge and is full.

Repeat this for the three color cartridges. Replace these in the printer, and switch on. Make up a three-color page in Photoshop and print this, until the residual color ink is used up and the page is blank.

I have gotten this far successfully, and now I print "black cartridge" only. Tonight I will see if my transfers work better with not so much burnishing. Stay tuned! If it dos not make any difference, than don't bother trying this.

Guess this is the time when somebody will reply saying..."Heh, there is a Mac checkbox that does isolate the color cartridges!"

best

Rod

 

[Brian Hochstrat]

Rod, I use a Mac and an Epson CX4600, you can customize your print set up and it has a Black cartridge along with color cartridges, alowing you to print in Black only. Used with the Epson Transperancies I get perfect transfers and no time consuming hassle with refilling cartridges or multiple printers. Not trying to knock your process, just mentioning there is another option. Regards, Brian

 

[rod]

Thanks for getting back to me, Brian!

Yes, the C86 has a separate black cartridge.

Certainly there is a "black only" checkbox, but the experts say that when this is checked, and I always do this, it still delivers that mix known as "rich black" and contains small amounts of colors as well as the black cartridge. It does not say what the windows printing on a PC says ..."Black Cartridge only"

I have been getting pretty good transfers this way, but the black cartridge only users say it is important for easy transfer. Of course I could be erring in some other settings but I do follow Tom's recommended setting for gamma 2.2 etc. ??

Or am I missing some other window? I would very much like to wrong, and have discussed this with many pros?

best

Rod

 

[Bill Tokyo]

Printers and Inks

There are a tremendously wide range of 3rd party inks made for Epson, and these are no cheap inks to
just beat the high price of cartridges, but rather very specialized inks for a variety of graphic purposes.
As many are made by ink manufacturers, quality is excellent.

Another way to get a round this problem is to buy a HP. I vastly prefer HP products because they are much
more solid for office work than Epson. Epson, however gives you more choice of individual ink colors
in the cartridges, but HP now has a somewhat similar system.

Another good choice may be Kodak.

 

[Mike Cirelli]

I use a lexmark z23 you can probably buy one now for 20 bucks , it transfers fine. I just set it to print black only and all text set to black. I do a light burnish with a chop stix.
You should convert your image to grayscale.

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Hi Rod
I use a HP 3550 printer (it's an old model now). It's dirt cheap and you can take out the colour cartridge and it still works. It uses a #27 cartridge which works great.

A thing that you may try.............................

If in photoshop/Corel photo paint/corel draw or whatever you are using............use CYMK mode (not RGB). In the levels dialouge box set the black/dark to as high as possible............then print.

RGB black is not CYMK black. RGB is a screen black and looks OK on the computer screen but in actual fact only prints a dark grey.

CYMK is an actual print mode and will give you more black in your printing. This works for both inkjet and laser.

It made a big difference to my transfers by doing this.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[rod]

Thanks for all of these valuable inputs, y'all!

I will take them all into consideration, and report back!

best

Rod

 

[JCP]

I use a hp psc1315v all in one printer and have found nothing that works at all. I've used the 3m 3480 and cg6000 and whatever transparency from wally-world. no success at all.............HELP!