Digital BW, The Print

Phil wrote,

> I have run the Cone original inks, which
>warmshift to a degree I find troubling.
>I have also run MIS-FS's, which also warmshift, although somewhat
>less than the Cone originals.

I agree.

> I find their blacks lacking.

That is one reason I started using the Epson driver -- better blacks (on the
desktop machines I use -- the 7000 may be a different animal).

> Both inksets fade, in my
>experience, as demonstrated by window tests.

Every inkset -- every thing -- fades as far as I can tell.  My goal is to
find materials that are good enough that we can give the silver print a run
for it's money.  (I'm an old silverprinter.)

>  I do wonder, if the FS's are so
>pure, why do they shift at all?  What's going on there?

They all fade, and all the quads I've seen have a tendency to warm shift.
The "conventional wisdom" was that the warm-shifting was an interaction
between the ink and coating.  However, I see warm shifting with uncoated
paper also -- just slower.

When I have graphed the fading and warm-shifting (on EAM), the graphs have
similarities.  The pigmented inks shift and fade at relatively high rates at
first (like a dye), and only when they settle into a linear and lower fade
rate does the warm-shifting stop.  I think the fading and warming are
related.  However, I don't have a model that explains all that is going on.
I wish there was a good ink chemist on the list who really could explain to
me/us what is going on.  (Then again, they may not know either.)

>it must be frustrating to do the ink R&D at what is probably
>no small cost, only to have
>competitors come out with cheaper variations as soon as
>he releases his product.

I don't think any of these small, third-party ink companies really do any
serious ink R&D.  They seem to have independent chemists as consultants or
maybe even on staff.  However, all the ink inputs are coming from large and
remote chemical companies.  What the small companies that we are dealing
with can do (or try to do) is find -- directly or through other
intermediaries that they work with -- the best bulk ink inputs and come up
with blends of those inputs that optimize the final product.

>...I just want to print with inks that work.  That means ones that
>don't fade quickly, and that have an agreeable color and hold it.

I couldn't agree more.  That's the only reason I do the testing and ended up
doing my own mixing.  I just was not satisfied with what was out there.  The
goal here is simply to get the best inks.

Jeff Magidson wrote:

>That is what does not add up between the Roark fader test
>and the Cone test. If the Piezotone black warms on its own..
>much more then the MIS black one the Black only test...
>how could that be reversed on the full quad black image test??

One can overcome the black ink warmth to a certain extent.  With the
variable-tone system I felt that hitting neutral at 90% was enough to keep
the "neutral" or "cool" prints looking OK.

However, the more the black ink warms, the harder it is to suppress that
tone.  If the black ink gets too warm, it will show through the otherwise
relatively neutral midtones in the shadow areas.  This is a problem I have
been working on because all the relatively neutral inksets potentially have
the problem.  So far, I have not succeeded in getting a non-warming black
that has an adequate DMax.  I was hoping Jon had found one, but, alas, it
was not to be.

I'll test the complete PT and FS inksets as soon as practical, in part
because this black-ink-only test has opened a can of worms that I did not
intend to open.  I don't use FS inks or Piezo inks (I prefer the neutral,
"non-warming" FS-N and the vm-sepia), and I don't have the appropriate test
strips at the moment to do the testing.  In fact, I don't even have an
appropriate printer for the job.  So, it'll be a while before I have a test
of the full inksets together to see if I get the same results as those shown
by Cone.

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com