Digital BW, The Print

Paul

Thanks for the reply. 
I definitely have the inks in the right order. I tried Tyler Boley's
curves for the 1280 on my 1270 using the 1280 driver and Photoshop 7.
The results were much better than using your vm70-NCA-w1 curve with the
1270 driver and settings that I mentioned in my previous post. I used
Tyler's Wm05 curve with SRGB workspace as he specifies in his
instructions. It is strange to me that this curve prints only slightly
warmer than your curve. I would think that by the name of Tyler's curve
that it would be more sepia. I am going to try your curve again but with
Photoshop 6 this time and see if there is a difference. I will post my
results in the next 10 minutes. 

Thanks.

  
This sounds like more than a minor settings problem.  Try the attached
purge6 pattern and see if it looks like the image file that is
attached.  There may be an ink in the wrong place.
 
PS 7 can be a problem, but I can't imagine it would throw things this
far off.
 
Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: Murray Zaharia [mailto:zaharia@...]
Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 12:10 PM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Digital BW] VMS curves question and problem - Paul, others?

RE: [Digital BW] More on 'posterization again'

This is going back to the above thread.

I have printed out the 100 step greyscale wedge (Alex Pettit from
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint/files/Image%2
0processing/ ) on my 1270 loaded with a new set of VMS inks in a CIS
onto Epson Archival matte paper. I had areas of my prints with no detail
that is clearly there on my file. It was in areas from approx 50 to 100
in the info pallet. This is confirmed on my printout of the above
mentioned greyscale wedge. There is NO visual differentiation between
any individual squares between 54 and 99 (info pallet) on the greyscale
wedge that I printed out. I also scanned the greyscale wedge printout
and checked it out with the dropper (3x3 sample) in Photoshop as well
and it confirms the same.

What is going on here? I can't see anyone being happy with this lack of
detail and the posterized look that results. Is there a possibility that
the curves are corrupted or something? Can the curves be adjusted to fix
this? I just cannot see that Paul would have been happy with these
results in the first place, therefore something must not be right.

My settings in Photoshop 7:

Working Space: Adobe RGB
Gray: Gray Gamma 2.2
Print Space: Printer Color Management

I am following to the letter Paul's instructions for his curves.

I am using an Epson 1270 with the proper 1270 curve (vm70-NCA-w1) and
printing on Epson Archival Matte paper.

Driver settings:
Matte Paper - Heavyweight
1440 dpi
High Quality Halftoning
Microweave on
High Speed off
No Color Adjustment

I have perfect nozzle checks as well.