Digital BW, The Print

On 09/08/2013 04:56 PM, john wrote:
> That is my understanding too David. The technology is certainly there
> but the workflow of using monochrome inks has not been utilized by
> anyone as far as I can see by anyone in the POD high-speed low cost
> press realm.
>
> As Ernst just mentioned they most likely could specialize in it by using
> gray inks only with a couple of toner channels for variation, but just
> aren't. Even using one gray channel could improve things a lot but
> limiting the process to cmyk is not going to work. There is a reason in
> the offset days we used duotones in the context of book projects where 4
> color was also utilized for the color content, and that involved a
> separate printing with different inks, stripping, and registration.
>
> The problem for a POD company would be people requesting clean neutral
> bw in the same book as 4 color, and of course everyone would be
> screaming for that too and that would be expensive with the technology
> as it stands now.
>
> But with the huge assortment of competing design companies trying to
> find a market share you would think that at least one of them would
> specialize in doing black and white only books. There is surely a market
> there and some day it will be addressed, but I guess not now.
>
> John

John,

My old friend wrote me that he discussed it with sales of the printing 
company he works for and that supplies to Blurb. He thinks that the HP 
Indigo's can actually make a better quality, even in their present 
configuration, but they are strictly bound to Blurb standards that 
should guarantee equal quality for Blurb photobooks in any country.
Any change at the print plants would require a change at Blurb and that 
is not likely to happen as it aims at the biggest market share and not 
at a smaller niche market with a better quality.
Whether other companies can do better is the question but many use 
Indigo's so there is a limit on quality with existing toner sets. There 
are however improved paper qualities like the reintroduced Felix 
Schoeller Silver photo paper for Indigo. I think that the only possible 
competition to Blurb must be a better quality, both in Color and B&W. It 
is hard to imagine that a lower price/quality could do it.


-- 
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst Dinkla

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2012: 500+ inkjet media paper white spectral plots.