Digital BW, The Print

Hi Ernst,

I keep hearing good things about HP Z3100 and 3200 for B and W printing. I also now know that the paper types are important. However, I do not know which papers to purchase at this point. I have primarily been using Epson Premium Luster and get the impression that I should be using something else. I do not know what the Epson Luster's paper white is. Perhaps you can give me a suggestion for a whiter paper, I assume I need a whiter paper. Is that correct?

Thanks,

Jim


On Tuesday, October 28, 2014 1:07 PM, "Ernst Dinkla ernst.dinkla@... [DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint]" <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
 


  
Excellent B&W prints can be made with color printers if the drivers aim at using mainly the monochrome ink channels. Preferably 3, 4 or 5 monochrome inks then. Neutral B&W prints are easier to achieve when the monochrome inks are already near neutral so additional color inks to create neutrality are less needed. It improves constancy between print runs too. Paper white selection is as important for neutral prints. Easy printer calibration tools exist. Of the OEM printers the HP Zs score high on most aspects mentioned here. For the other brands third party solutions can  do a good job.
Ernst, op de lei getypt.
On 27 Oct 2014 23:18, "David Kachel david@... [DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint]" <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 
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>I do not know what the next step should be for me to improve this. I have seen duotones as a solution, Piezographic systems and ink, dedicated printers for just B and W, software such as Bowhaus and even Silver Efex to get better results. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that even if you have an image processed well, it is the printer that will add some color to it and cause a cast. Is this correct?
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>Please allow me to attempt to save you some of my past pain!
>I never wanted “neutral” B&W prints. “Neutral” became a holy grail only after the rise of digital print making and the funny artifacts that inkjet printers produced on monochrome prints. No one sought neutral prints in the distant past of the analog photograph. No one!
>Analog prints were selenium toned (decidedly purple) or rarely, brown/sepia toned. And of course there was always a handful of silly people who thought snow scenes should be blue, forest scenes green, etc., etc. Untoned fine art prints were almost unheard of and untoned prints had a sickly green cast in all cases of B&W papers made in the last, well, as far back as could possibly matter.
>So, the “neutral” print is very definitely a recent, digital photography affectation. Look at some selenium toned prints alongside so-called “neutral” prints and see if you don’t prefer that subtle but important purple color.
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>I like brown prints, VERY brown prints. Gave up selenium when I dove off the analog high dive into the digital pool. (No one warned me how deep it would be.)
>As it turns out, my problem and your problem are the same problem… color printers want to make color prints! And the makers of color printers DO NOT want to make B&W prints. Though Epson at least nodded in our direction with ABW.
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>Epson’s K, LK and LLK are (I believe) pure carbon inks, or close to it. But they are warmish as pure carbon inks tend to be. So a “neutral” print requires adding some Cyan to cool off the K inks. And voila(!), you have a color print. But it isn’t even that simple, unfortunately.
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>When you try to make any print with a uniform color, and “neutral” is a color from the perspective of Epson and its software, you run into the problems everyone has seen. But once you realize you are trying to print a color called “neutral” it is a little easier to understand what is going on and perhaps get some control.
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>For my brown tone prints (using Epson’s inks) I put a Fill Layer at the very top of my Photoshop layer stack, with the Mode set to color. Then I set my brown tone in that layer to H 43, S 100, B 12 or 13 (in a ProPhoto RGB color space). This gives me the brown I am after in my prints. In theory, I should be able to get that brown the same way I am getting it from my other printer where I use five pure carbon inks (MIS’s Ebony) plus one magenta and one yellow. But I can’t, and I don’t. That is because Epson’s software is deciding for me how ALL the inks should be mixed to give me the brown I have set in my fill layer. The other day my printer (the one with OEM inks) failed and stopped using several inks in the middle of making a print, accidentally showing me what was underneath my brown color. Epson’s software, I discovered, was laying down Cyan underneath all the darker tones in my brown prints. A LOT of cyan! I can’t begin to explain
 why, but there it was! I don’t want any cyan in my prints, but if I wish to keep printing this way, I have to accept it.
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>Now, you could use ABW to approach a more neutral print, BUT, those K inks of Epson's are not neutral, which means Epson’s software will mix an unknown quantity of other colors to give you what it thinks you want, whether you use ABW or my approach, though I suspect with my approach there would be a lot more color ink laid down. The closest you can get with ABW to a neutral print without hidden color inks is the “warm tone” setting in ABW, which I understand is supposed to use only the K inks, but knowing what I do now, I would bet money that is not really the case.
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>So, you can use ABW set to Warm Tone and know you are getting the best that system can offer, or you can try setting it to Neutral and hope you don’t get any of the problems you have already had. Some say those problems were resolved for them by ABW. Because of my need for brown prints, ABW was of no use to me.
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>Currently the very best solution, likely to eliminate problems under most circumstances, is aftermarket carbon inks (which have the added benefit of saving you a lot of money). MIS’s Ebony would be my recommendation. You prints will range from slightly warm to “neutral”, depending on what paper you print on. (Paper has a strong effect on final print tone.) Others here who have sought the “neutral” grail can tell you a lot more about what inks and papers will give you the result you desire. BTW, if you print glossy, Ebony is out. It won’t work.
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>One other possibility would be to use QTR to control Epson’s inks, using only the K inks and maybe a little cyan to cool them off. Some here like myself will tell you three grays are not enough, others seem to be satisfied with that. You’ll have to try it and see for yourself.
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>David Kachel
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>___________________
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