I attended an exhibition this year (colour as well as monochrome!) and an image with vibrant colours caught my eye. It was reminiscent of Cibachrome but there was something about it that made me ask questions. It was printed on inkjet transparency film and so I just had to experiment using this media for monochrome.
 
The image is prepared in the usual way in your preferred software. Before starting to print, rotate the image horizontally so that the screen is a mirror of the final print. Use you normal workflow to select your printer, orientation and colour profiling.

I use Photoshop, so my method is:

• File
• Print
• Select Printer (In my case Epson R800, I usually Center Image and Scale to Fit Media)
• Select Color Management and Document
• Set Color Handling to 'Photoshop Manages Colour'
• Select an appropriate Printer Profile. (I do not have one especially for transparency film so I use the standard SPR 800 Photopaper)
• Set Rendering Intent to 'Relative Colormetric'
• Tick the 'Black Point Compensation' box
• Select Print and Preferences
• Select Ink Jet Transparencies (If this is not an option on your printer you will need to experiment with the Printer Profile and what options you do have. This automatically sets quality to 'Best Photo' on my printer).
• Untick all of the Print Options (for my printer this is High Speed, Grayscale, Smoothing)
• Select ICM and turn off colour management
• OK and Print

Allow plenty of time to dry because the surface is virtually non-porous
 
There are different types/makes of transparency film. I have only used Hewlett Packard Premium Inkjet Transparency Film as I acquired a packet several years ago during an office move. I print on the 'rough side' otherwise the inks will not dry. With this particular film there is a handling strip on the leading edge which obscures a thin line of the image. I usually adjust the image size before printing to allow for this.
 
The reason for rotating the image horizontally before printing is that the side of the film printed on is the reverse. Once dry lay the image on a piece of white paper to view the result. For mounting purposes I use self-adhesive white backing board. This has a three fold benefit when printing on film. One, obviously, is that it is white but just as important is that the effect of using film is best seen when the film is perfectly flat on its white background. The third benefit is that the printed side is not outward facing so the ink cannot be damaged once the film is attached to the board.
 
My results have varied as it was necessary to experiment with different printer profiles. The monochrome images are not as impressive as those using colour images. I have had better results with toned images or high contrast monochrome as opposed to  a full range of tones.
 
Tony Lucas, April 2009