Digital BW, The Print

----- Original Message -----
From: "Austin Franklin" <darkroom@...>
To: "Digital B&W Mailing List"
<DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, August 19, 2002 8:20 PM
Subject: RE: [Digital BW] Getting perfect neutral prints from Epson
7600/9600 etc


(snip)
>
> My point is, there should be NO mix with dMax...it should only be using
the
> one black position for ink, period!  There also should be no dithering.
>
> > Getting a sharp, non bleeding
> > result with
> > smooth gradients through the dark tones is always a challenge
> > with heavier
> > blacks, but simply laying down more ink is easy. On some media,
> > adding more
> > ink may not make the resulting patch darker, on others it may.
>
> Understood, and agreed...but I'm simply, again, talking about black at the
> max.
>
> > I'll admit;
> > paper white is pretty much a fixed limit... but max black is not.
>
> Well...it depends.  If you change inks, then it should be the ink that
> changes the max.  If you have the same ink, just different "software",
then,
> I believe, there is something wrong with the software if it doesn't use
just
> black for max black.
>
> Of course, there is an issue with amount of in, on a printer that has that
> control.  But, on a printer that puts a fixed ink drop amount/size, this
> should not be an issue.

Austin,

I haven't a clue about the theory here but I have demonstrated to myself
with the original Piezo and the new PiezoTone inks that the Epson driver
produces a 100% level black square about 0.1 density units darker than the
Piezo driver. Antonis reported that IP4 pushed the same ink about another
0.03 units darker than the Epson. So for whatever reason, the driver does
play a practical role in the level of Dmax that is actually achieved.

Martin