Digital BW, The Print

In order to verify for my self that replacing the PiezoTone black ink in the Selenium PiezoTone ink set with MIS-Full Spectrum Neutral black was the proper response to the rapid warm/fade shift of PiezoTone black ink shown by Paul Roark in his comparative fade testing of both PiezoTone inks sets to MIS-Full inks and as reported on prints by several other people, I did the following.

I printed a 21-step wedge with Selenium PiezoTone ink, including the PiezoTone black ink on Photo Rag 188 using the Piezo plug-in with the Photo Rag 188 profile and quality set to "Better". On the same sheet of paper I printed a second wedge in the same manner only for this wedge MIS-Full Spectrum Neutral black ink was substituted for the PiezoTone black ink.

I allowed the wedges to "settle" for 4 days and then measured C,M, Y and Visual densities of each step in the wedge and the 95-100 steps as well.

The Sel-PT with PT-K measured 1.83, 1.88, 1.78 and 1.84 with a "Warmth" (C-Y) of 0.04.
The Sel-PT with MIS-FSN-K measured 1.69, 1.70, 1.67 and 1.66 with a "Warmth" of 0.02.

The sheet with the two wedges was then hung in a west facing window where it received indirect or direct sunlight all day. After 14 days I removed the sheet and measured the wedges again and got the following readings:

The Sel-PT with PT-K measured 1.51, 1.63, 1.69 and 1.58 with a "Warmth" (C-Y) of -0.18.
The Sel-PT with MIS-FSN-K measured 1.60, 1.63, 1.65 and 1.61 with a "Warmth" of -0.04.

Basically the wedge printed with the PT black faded 0.26 density units and warmed 0.22 units while the wedge printed with the MIS-FSN black faded 0.07 density units and warmed 0.07 units. The shift in the PT black was 3 to 4 time the shift in the FSN black. The effects can be seen on the wedge as a slight reddish discoloration in the 90 to 100% steps.

All of the spectrophotometer readings can be found in the files section of the group homepage in folder:

Files > Ink Sets > PiezoTones > Recent tests on PT black fade

Based on this additional information,  I continue to recommend that to avoid premature fading and warming in the dark tones, 85 to 100%, with either of the PiezoTone ink sets and the Piezo plug in or other driver, that you replace the PT black with the FSN black until a more fade resistant black is available from InkJetMall.

Martin Wesley




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