Digital BW, The Print

Shilesh,

I'm glad someone finally did the "clear base in the black cart"
experiment -- which I've been "going to do someday" for a long time.  Thanks
for the post.

>...
>I loaded MIS clear base in the black ink position.  The color
>cartridge was Epson OEM dyes.  I printed 1-inch square pure black, ...
>1280, ... gamma 2.2, PhotoShop 5.5.  PCM unchecked, using three media
>different settings....

>... After the previous black ink was
>sufficiently purged, the 1-inch pure black squares printed white (!)...

This is what I think is the ideal situation.  To get the deepest black, the
paper ought to be loaded with as much ink as it can hold, and all that ink
should be black ink.  Otherwise, the black ink is being diluted with lower
density ink.

>... So, clearly the post by Cone is not the full story.

I don't understand how he could let a post out that would undercut his
credibility more.  I hope that the settings or whatever produced the results
in his post are explained.

>The Epson driver did not appear to use yellow ink in the
>100% square; in all of the media settings I tried
>(PQIJ, MPHW, and IJBL Film).
>...

>When I used Piezography in these experiments, I more-or-less
>duplicated what was posted by Cone.

That must mean the driver is incapable of pumping out enough black ink to
get the paper up to what it can hold -- or the thing is just purely written.
That result might explain why the Piezo driver produces a weak black
compared to the Epson driver -- at least on the printers I use (1160 &
3000).

>... I doubt the fade seen in PT-K ink
>has much to do with the so-called "workflows".

A good RIP can restrict the black to the darker tones more than the Epson
driver can.  However, this is a 2 edged sword.  The fading/warming PT-K
problem will be more hidden in some images, but the RIP image may also be
more susceptible to a posterization in the deep shadow tones.

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com