Digital BW, The Print

----- Original Message -----
From: "iwasnvrhere" <iwasnvrhere@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 2:25 PM
Subject: [Digital BW] Help. Question on VM inksets and Sepia.


>       I have a few questions about the vm sets I hope someone out
> there can answer for me.
> First question, It seems that one would lose a portion in the density
> range by removing one the channels used for the blue-like 25% for a
> quad set. Is that true and if not how does it compare with a four or
> six channel set?

Jeff,

You could probably do just fine in B&W with just black and 2 shades of gray.
There is an ink set on the market in Europe that does just that. Epson
apparently plans to do it with black, a gray and color inks. As an very
interesting exercise print out a B&W file with the Epson driver set to
"Black Only". A nice grainy 35mm neg works best. I think you will be amazed
at how close you get with just one ink.

The one issue with the VM sets is that as you get to the extreme of having
the toner full off the curves become more radical and there is greater risk
of posterizing the image when the RGB curve is applied. This can be avoided
or the impact diminished by staying in 16-bit mode.

>
> Second: From the earliest experience with quad tone inks I've noticed
> that the paper dominates the overall warmness/coolness of the print.
> Warm paper = warm print, neutral paper = neutral or much less warm
> print. Question is: Would a dyed paper (say blue, warm,or whatever)
> used with a full quad/hex tone inkset give optimum densities and
> control over the warmth?

Well I would say that the color of the ink tends to dominate the shadows and
the color of the paper dominates the highlights. You can see this in silver
prints where the shadows may be towards green or purple but the highlights
tend towards a blue or yellow.

This brings up the idea of "complex chromaticity" which I cannot pronounce
and will instead refer to as chromatic complexity. Inkjet prints vary in hue
based on the ink color and the paper color. I find that the VM inks have
more of a "photographic" feel because they add an additional color and
increase the amount of hue variation as the tones change.

>
> Third question is about the max warmth attainable. I've done zero
> work with sepia but what I have seen of "sepia" prints look much more
> orange/brown than the warmest B&W tone. How close do any of the B&W
> inks out there come to a "true" or traditional sepia and can anyone
> point out a standard which I can use as THE SEPIA cause I've "sepia"
> range from orange to bronze. Is anyone working on a solution that can
> sweep from sepia to selenium?

If you look in the files section you can see an example of how sepia the
Sepia-VM can get. The answer is very sepia but it is a fixed sepia tone.

The real answer to all of this is a system of inks that uses Black, 2 (six
ink printer) or 3 (seven ink printer) shades of gray with C, Y, and M in the
remaining three channels. With a RIP or driver that gave you full control
over all 6 to 7 channels independently you could have so many choices you
wouldn't know what to do! If you want to stay close to neutral then a small
gamut CYM set would be ideal. (That's what I am looking for!) There is so
much that could be done if there was a profit motive. <G>

Martin