Digital BW, The Print

Hey everyone;


I had heard some good reports on Lyson Small Gamut inks on here. I have
been on a quest for a long time to find a way to make inkjet pints that
really have the look and finish of an air dried fiber semi gloss print
and thought these inks might do the trick. I am less concerned with the
archival issues for now.

I am using an Epson 1280 & a Macintosh. I made some prints on both Epson
premium Semigloss and Kodak premium Satin paper. 


The good news:

The prints made on the Kodak premium Satin paper REALLY look like
darkroom prints with a beautiful sheen and sharpness. For those of you
who have experimented with coating your prints.. This is the effect you
have been looking for!!! The prints on the Epson premium semigloss also
looked nice with a bit of surface texture. I prefer the kodak paper
surface but its limitation is that it does not come in a size larger
than letter size. The Epson paper comes in larger sizes.

My last inkset was the MIS VM using Paul's curves. I printed mostly on
Photorag. I got excellent prints and tones on my landscape and
architecture photos but many of my portraits where hopelessly posterized
with funky tonal transitions. Using the Lyson SG inks with the epson
driver, I printed some of these same portrait files. To my amazement
they printed wonderfully... Beautiful tonal transitions just like in a
darkroom print if not better... no digital looking transitions! That was
exciting to see because before this I had thought perhaps my scans where
flawed or that I could just not get what I wanted digitally as far as
delicate tonal transition in my prints which are essential for portraits
and nudes. So the problem with my MIS VM posterization was not the
actual files but the partitioned workflow curves I was applying before
printing... this is good to know!

The bad news:

Metamerism! Buy other posts I had read, I had thought that this inkset
would not show much if any metamerism. I had heard that Lyson QB inks
where pretty bad in this regard but that the SG inks where better. 

The prints that I had balanced to look warm - neutral under tungsten
light look terribly offensively green under daylight!  I then went back
and made some prints with a color balance that looked warm - neutral
under daylight. These prints look very magenta warm under tungsten
light. This aspect of the Lyson SG inks is very disappointing to me...
and most likely a deal breaker! That is the beauty of the MIS and Piezo
Inks... the real lack of Metamerism! Perhaps I can find a color balance
that will look good under both lighting conditions but I think that is
wishful thinking. My prints mostly get displayed out of a portfolio box
under varying types of lighting.

If anyone also has had some experience with Lyson SG... please post.

-Jeff