Digital BW, The Print

Paul:
This sounds like a wonderful approach! When Allen Maertz and I were working on longer lasting dye inks, especially for B&W, it was frustrating to see the color balance of B&W change, from one media to another. We never thought of using colors in some channels to neutralize the media color shift.

BTW you should be careful on your use of color though! Dye inks are notorious for interactions between colors, which leads to premature failure of one of the dyes. In our informal fade testing of the black only dyes with various dilutions, they appeared to be "bullet proof". But in 6-color life testing by Wilhelm, even with swellable polymer papers, life was in the 15-25 years depending on the media.

We were using Ilford dyes, where we found the interacting inks to be the Cyan and Magenta. Magenta having the failure problem.

Be sure to get some early fading tests going to see if you are going to have any premature dye interaction problems on various media, especially after spraying. Hopefully the spray will help stabilize the dyes, besides sealing against oxidation problems.

John Nollendorfs 

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul" <roark.paul@...> wrote:
>
> I'm going to be taking this dye printing effort to the OEM Claria 1400 setup.  This accomplishes several things.
> 
> Perhaps most importantly, this dye approach is available without the need to mix inks.  
> 
> On the other hand, I'll continue to use the Noritsu inputs and my generic dy clear base to save money.  (So can everyone else. The formula is in fn 14, page 4 of http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/BW-Dye.pdf, 10-2011 version.)  But, one can buy the Claria inks and have the same results.  (I'll be further testing this.) 
> 
> 
> I think this also gives us a different approach to a color plus B&W printing platform.  
> 
> 
> What I've been testing recently is putting Noritsu/Claria K in the C position and "Claria LM" in the LC position of my 1400 that has Eboni-4 in the other positions.  This gives me a variable-tone capability (vary the amount of LM) with an underlying black only print. This allows me (and others) to profile virtually any paper rather easily.
> 
> Most of my prints with this setup look good -- very good or I would not further pursue this approach. There is a graininess to those images that have a smooth, plain sky.  This is typical black only with the 1400 or other 1.5 pl system.  
> 
> At the very edges of cards with 1/4 inch margins pixel peepers might notice microbanding at the edge (typical of all 1400 approaches and many newer printers).
> 
> If microbanding looks like it is going to be a significant issue, I might try something like the 3-MK approach that took care of the microbanding on the 1800. This will not be available to the Claria OEM setups, but it will still be an approach that can use 100% Epson inks with no mixing. 
> 
> Note that the easy WorkForce 30 and 1100 approaches that use the dilute LK print better.  But they require mixing, and that limits the market too much.
> 
> While carbon will remain my fine art, large display medium of choice, the Claria tests, including the black only ones at www.aardenburg-imaging.com, indicate to me that these advanced dyes are a serious contender for a number of uses, including serious display if sprayed with Print Shield.  
> 
> I think they are an approach that needs to be further developed.  You have to see and feel (no rub off or surface printing artifacts) the cards or other, non-glazed output to appreciate why I'm pushing this technology.
> 
> Paul
> www.PaulRoark.com
>