Digital BW, The Print

Paul,

Unfortunately I am no expert on color, just an end-user. I make my own color
profiles using my Epson 1640U scanner and Profiler Plus. I was always amazed
at the detail in the shadows of my color prints, so I tried using one of my
color profiles with the quad inks - it worked surprisingly well, with just a
slight adjustment curve. The main drawback was the mixing of the inks in the
highlights.

I believe it was Lincoln Inks who first proposed a b/w inkset matching the
densities of Epson OEM inks, so the user could simply print with the Epson
driver. Well, I have always found the Epson drivers somewhat lacking when it
came to resolving shadow detail. It just seems logical to take that idea a
step further, & use profiling software to get a better ramp, as you put it.
It also seems logical that the hextone printers, with their light inks,
would be a great fit for this kind of system, since the light & mid tones
are already partitioned in the Epson driver.

The trick would be creating b/w inks that matched the density of a color
inkset that would be easy to profile...

I don't know if these ramblings are any help. Maybe greater minds will jump
in.
-BK


----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Roark" <paul.roark@...>
To: "DigitalB&WPrint" <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 5:10 PM
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] MIS/1200 Options? - suggestion for non-partitioned
workflow


> Barry,
>
> You wrote:
>
> >...
> >Imagine that MIS created a hextone B/W inkset that matched the ink
> densities
> >of their 6-color pigment ink. We could profile the color inkset & use
that
> >profile to print either color or B&W from our photo printers. ...
>
> That might be close to where we are going.  The CMY MIS archival pigs may
> not have the same visual densities, so there might be a compromise for the
> sake of production efficiencies.  I'm currently thinking of having the
cyan
> and magenta densities equal and having the yellow be whatever is needed to
> get the best highlights.  I think the yellow has lower visual density that
> then others, which is why they can get away with only a single yellow ink.
>
> Whether the new mix is close enough to use the same paper profiles might
be
> a relevant factor to take into consideration.  Different color balance
> characteristics of the different papers would, of course, be irrelevant.
> However, to the extent the paper profiles deal with keeping the ramp
smooth
> and even, they would certainly be very useful.
>
> Any thoughts or ideas along these lines would be most useful to me as I
get
> into this.  I'm not an expert on the color inksets at all.  So, I'm really
> not that much aware of what profiles exist.
>
> I suppose the ability to work well with the profiling software would also
be
> important.  Any settings that are needed for that software to do its job
> would be most useful to know.
>
> Paul
> http://www.PaulRoark.com
> ____________________________________