Digital BW, The Print

Carl,

You wrote:

>  I'm curious about the composition of the UC matte black ink.

I assume it is carbon black, but Epson is not likely to tell us much.  The
reason it could be darker than previous pure carbon blacks is probably the
same as the reason the UltraChrome gamut is improved -- the companies now
appear to have available clear bases/mediums that can carry a much high load
of pigment than the older ones.

>  I tried printing a few images using only the matte
>black ink through the Epson driver on a 2200 ... the prints
>exhibited a warm tone (almost brown) that was actually quite pleasing
>for some of my landscape images.  Is this typical of the carbon based
>pigmented black inks in general?

Yes, I think it is.  The brown that the MIS and Piezo inks faded/warmed to
is apparently the underlying carbon.

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com
____________________________________________


On Saturday, November 30, 2002, at 02:39  PM, Paul Roark wrote:

> Carl wrote:
>
>> Do you have any density readings for the UC matte black on BC
>> Eclipse Satine (with and without your PUR coating)?
>
> Eclipse Satine with the 1160, UltraChrome (UC) Matte Black, and the
> Epson
> driver printing an RGB-partitioned file gives a DMax of 1.62.  With the
> Piezo driver it's 1.54.
>
> I have been printing with a Piezo/FS-compatible quad I mixed from the
> UC
> Matte-K.  It gives a warm print that is close to the original PiezoBW
> or MIS
> quads after those have totally warmed.
>
> This or some other pure carbon ink might make a very nice FS-Warm &/or
> warm
> end of the standard MIS VM inkset.  I'm doing fade testing now.
>
> I have not coated one of these yet.
>
> Paul
> http://www.PaulRoark.com