Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Mark Tucker" <mark@m...> 
wrote:

(snip)
> 
> Martin, 
> 
> I did that same thing once using the Epson dyes in my 7000. I 
> think I just printed one out as a "quick proof", with the Epson 
> driver set to "Black Only", but at 1440. I certainly didn't expect 
too 
> much from the print; I was just looking at some of the details; not 
> really going for a "final print". But I too was shocked at how good 
> it was, and also how neutral. There's a certain look of perfect 
> neutrality, and when you see it, you know it. The black-only nailed 
> it. It made me want to pursue getting more richness out of it; that 
> might have been the only thing lacking. -Mark Tucker

Mark,

What really startled me is not the differences but how close they 
were. I suspect that if you mixed a couple of mono-ink prints in an 
exhibit with some quad-ink prints most people would be hard pressed 
to pick them out and those would have to be people who have worked 
with this stuff.

Your point about the neutral tone of the images is something I forgot 
to mention. I have a terrible time with my reaction to the various 
colorcasts the different quad-ink sets produce. The only tone to the 
mono-ink print is the tone of the paper since the MIS VM black looks 
to be dead neutral. This quality says "B&W Photo" pretty strongly.

I am guessing that with the mono-ink and the good Epson driver the 
print may be close to a full 256 shades of gray. By going to a quad 
set you are probably moving up to somewhere between 512 and 1024. You 
can see this in the prints but it is not as big a difference as I 
expected.

This leads me to wonder what you could do with a duo-ink system. Use 
the black and a 50% dilution of the black. All this strongly supports 
the people who have said you really only need three inks to get a 
full tone print.

I hope someone will read this stuff, play with it and let us know.

Martin