Digital BW, The Print

If YOU are worried about MIS inks then surely we must consider alternative sources as necessary.  It would be too time consuming to profile every batch of new ink . 

When will the new inks be available?  Will the new manufacturer be testing each "run"? Should we be buying up the current inks? Questions after questions with few concrete answers.

Elliot

Sent from my iPhone

> On Nov 11, 2014, at 2:19 PM, "Paul Roark roark.paul@... [DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint]" <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> 
> David,
> 
> It's the ratio of the darker to lighter inks in a cross-over that matter, not the absolute values.
> 
> Yes, the Y=K setup is a bit off the rails, but it was worth a try, and, amazingly, it worked.  I'm not sure yet what future it might have.
> 
> (The rest is background FWIW.  Then I'm out of here for a while.)
> 
> Stepping back to the problems that may have started this thread, consistence of the materials is a real problem.  I've had talks with Epson employees who acknowledge that even Epson faces differences from one batch of ink to another.  If they have problems, you can imagine what MIS and Jon Cone face.
> 
> What lit a fire under me and got my ink experimenting going this time was that I ran out of Eboni and bought a new batch.  It crashed my system.  It took me a fair amount of work to know what was going on because the paper batch was also new.  However, I keep samples of old paper and ink, and a few draw-downs of the inks and prints on old paper nailed the problem; it was the ink.
> 
> So, I went to the wholesale source and got a sample of the current batch.  It's a bit different, but good enough that I have to move forward, since I have printing that needs to be done.  So, I've ordered a liter of the MK and new empty carts for the 7800.  All the old ink is going to be trashed, and I'll re-profile for the new batch and use it to mix my own ink as long as it lasts.
> 
> Right now, MIS's concerns are, among other things, whether the new owner of IS can deliver consistent product.  It's not a trivial issue.  Even the wholesaler really only does part of the processing and is dependent on upstream suppliers.
> 
> So, what is a consumer to do?  Knowing how to make and re-linearize profiles really helps.  Mixing my own inks also helps.  
> 
> For most users, this level of control is not realistic.  So, making profiles that are relatively tolerant of variables is part of what I am now trying to do.  If you look at Jon's curves, you'll note that he uses long trailing edges on the curves with lots of overlap.  This helps.  What I've recommended in the past also is to take some of the gray inks in the Eb6 set and make them a "toner" channel so that there are more overlaps.  The beta "carbon variable tone" even in the Epson driver is going to run a single MK the full length of the scale.  This sets up a "backbone" that will be totally unaffected by variables.  Some of my profiles do other rather unorthodox things that might help with these issues.
> 
> Then again for my best prints, I use the standard, what I call "serial" partitioning of QTR and push the dmax up to the limit.  But while a fine-tuned racing engine may be great on the track, it may not be what you want on the street.  So, Epson pulls the ink limit down and makes cross-overs that are tolerant of variables.  
> 
> Some of what I'm doing with the QTR profiles is and will be aimed at dealing with the real world problems of variability that is inevitable and can be very frustrating, discouraging the use of approaches that really ought to be more widespread.
> 
> Paul
> www.PaulRoark.com 
> 
>> On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 10:36 AM, David Kachel david@... [DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint] <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>> Â 
>> Paul,
>> 
>> So, the M-LM and C-LC Epson ink dilution ratio is approximately 30% dense ink to 70% clear base.  Eboni-6 uses the same ratios for these same ink positions.  
>> 
>> Damn, and me out of Bourbon!
>> 
>> I still don’t get it. And it seems (above) that you are saying that four ink positions (M, LM, C and LC) in the Eboni-6 set all have the exact same dilution gray ink in them?
>> I don’t follow. OEM M, LM, C and LC can’t be all the same dilutions, can they?
>> 
>> Maybe it would help to know the dilutions of all the Eboni-6 inks and those of the OEM inks. Can you tell us what they are?
>> 
>> You also seem to be saying that when a grayscale image is sent to an Epson driver in a printer with OEM inks in it, that all inks are used equally in order to get a grayscale image?
>> That might explain my observation the other day when my gray OEM inks failed, that there was a lot of Cyan ink underneath very dark areas of a monochrome (brown) print.
>> 
>> But then, I look at this sentence:
>> 
>> The main question I had with the beta Carbon Variable Tone inkset is whether the driver could handle a second K in the Y position.
>> 
>> … And I am right off the rails again. Isn’t the OEM driver laying down a very low density ink here? Then I would think the heavy black would throw everything off?!
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> David Kachel
>> 
>> ___________________
>> 
>> Artist-Photographer
>> Fine B&W Photographs
>> 
>> WEBSITE: www.davidkachel.com
>> BLOG: thetransparentphotographer.com
>> EMAIL: david@...
>> 
>> PO Box  93
>> Fort Davis, TX 79734
>> (432) 386-5787
> 
>