Digital BW, The Print

> > Just a quick note to let Digital BW forum members know that Owens Valley Imaging, Inc (OVI) recently contracted with AaI&A to test its HTv ink set on a couple of samples of Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Duo 276 gsm paper.

Did Tom (Mallonee) indicate whether he was going to offer these inks again to the general public?  If you go to his main web page you will see that in June he decided to phase out the ink and support parts of his business activities.  I was the last customer he accepted. He was going to continue to support existing customers as well as use the ink himself, so these tests could be for the benefit of that limited group of people.

At some stage he was in discussion with MIS about licensing them to distribute the inks, but I don't think it came to anything.  (The pure black in his set is MIS Eboni.) I think he may have had some concerns about quality control. In addition, as nearly as I can tell ink formulas made from "off the shelf" ingredients are treated as "trade secrets" (rather than being protected by patents) and so Tom might legitimately be concerned about maintaining his "intellectual property". 

I am using the OVI inks in an Epson 4880. I have not yet tried profiling a new paper, but I gather that this is somewhat more difficult than usual.  The Epson Enhanced Matte profile is close enough to Moab Lasal that I haven't fretted about it.  Transitions and highlights are beautifully smooth, and shadow detail is *much* better than I normally achieve. 

It was, however, worrying to devote my "big" printer to monochrome alone, especially when ABW generally does a very good job and has respectable stability. 

Myron