Some new things I'm trying out for printing

Here it is --I finally got fed up with ink costs on my epson 9600(85dollars a 220 cart) and went to a bulk/refillable cart system. I bought MIS pro inks . Compatable to epson inks without flushing and colors match without a visible difference so far(not all of my carts of epson ink are used up yet so have not been replaced). So I'm happy so far. And the new inks don't appear to clog up nearly as bad as the epson inks. Supposedly these inks are an improvement over the epson ultrachrome yet match all epson specs too. They list the improvements on their website but I'm not clear if all those listed improvements are over the OEM epsons, or their own previous eqivalent ink offering to Epson's OEM ultrachrome. At any rate--I can't see a difference in the colors-- so far. I've yet to pop in the bulk black cartridges. Well with 1 bottle(pint), it's 50 dollars, and that is four times the ink in one 220 ml cart from epson. Thats a lot of savings and I was pretty happy about it.

But then after following some forums I found out about a company called imagespecialists.com who as it turns out sells to MIS their inks. You buy the ink by the pound(which is about a pint). You can buy a pound or a 55 gallon drum, or one of those containers they load onto ships. One pound costs 17 dollars. WOW. If this works out -ink costs will no longer be a big deal for me. If anyone is interested I will post my thoughts as I progress using these new inks.

The other thing I'm trying out is this Innova F-Type gloss. It's 300g's, has an unbelievable gamut and is not really a gloss but more like a semi or luster look. This paper is incredable--and --as you would expect expensive. But for some pics justafiable. I've been buying it from shadesofpaper.com and what's nice is that -Jim- the owner is phone accessable and informative. To me support means a lot these days.

Benvista now has photozoom pro 2 out. Of all the interpolating programs this is by far the best I have tried. It's s-spline technology, and with this new version it's called s-spline XL . They still could use a "history brush" like feature (as in Noise Nija)but that can be accomplished in PS if need be. Photozoom, although the best I've tried overall, is not the best in every situation. It's unbeatable for pics that have edges. But for extracting small detail the king is sizefixer by fixerlabs. It does funny looking things to the image however, like repeating warbley patterns. These don't show up real bad in print-depending on things. Edges can get some funny results that I'm not happy with.

What I do now--and it's working out great --is resizing with both programs overlay one over the other, mask, invert and brush in as needed---thereby combining the best features of both programs. This all is not a big deal for smaller enlargements but when your enlarging to 40 X 54 inches as I'm doing with canvas, the difference can be dramatic.

Justpassing along some info for you all and any feedback is appreciated and welcomed.

Thanks for your notes, Paul. I'm making note of various interpolation techniques people are using for large printing. Qimage is doing okay for me currently up to 13" wide stock on my R2400, but I anticipate needing to get bigger next year and may need some tools for it.

I've been looking at some of the new papers too. I am liking Hahnemuhle Fine Art Pearl so far. At 285 gsm it's a bit lighter than your Innova paper but also very nice luster like surface and good Dmax from my R2400.

And a little less pricey. I haven't tried fine art pearl yet but was going to. From what I've read by others it's now my second choice of papers which I'll confirm after trying and comparing to the innova.