Digital BW, The Print

On 12/12/02 7:02 PM, "Paul Roark" <paul.roark@...> wrote:

> Robert,
> 
> Thanks for the information.
> 
> One thing I've been curious about is whether the UC light black helps make
> for smoother transitions, relative to the quads we've been using, as the
> black ink is introduced.
> 
> Having received the MIS UC clone black inks, and assuming the designers of
> those got their densities right, I was interested to find that the light
> black density is essentially the same as the cyan (dark gray ink) density of
> the PiezoBW and MIS FS/VM systems.  So, in terms of ultimate performance,
> the UC ink systems are not likely to have any shadow tone advantage to our
> usual quadtone inksets.

Correct.  Actually I think the cyan channel ink is already too dark, I'm
experimenting now with a magenta/cyan mix.  This might help to get rid of
the cyan channel dots in the mid tones in the quad systems.  There is a huge
jump from the magenta channel to cyan channel in the MIS/Sundance quad
sets...too big in my opinion.

>> Epson 2200 (Ultrachrome with Matte Black):
>> ...
>> Dots are visible from the light gray ink in the highlights and also
>> around 80% when the black ink enters.
> 
> Even with the 2200 small dot size, it looks like more than one gray ink is
> needed.  The RIP must really try to hold the color inks down to a bare
> minimum.  Do they use any color inks in the highlights at all?

Very, very little.  I can see a stray cyan dot here and there with a 8x
loupe...but because of the variable droplet its really hard with an 8x to
see the cyan dots even at higher densities.
> 
>> Unfortunately, unlike the photo black ultrachrome ink, which is
>> much warmer, the matte black ultrachrome ink is so cool that
>> without adding yellow you can't warm up the print.
> 
> Actually, I think it is the light black that must be relatively cool.  The
> Epson Matte Black ink I pulled from a 7600 cart is very warm.  The quad I
> made from the inks are more like a totally warmed, old MIS quad.

Weird.  Colorbyte has been complaining about how cool the matte black is
relative to the photo black...but that might be confounded with what papers
they go on.  The semi-gloss/luster papers tend to make things much warmer in
my experience. You might be right about the light black...but it would have
to also have a paper interaction to explain the difference.

>> The yellow has a metamerism problem, so
>> IP does not use it.  ...
> 
> Interestingly, the MIS UC clone ink tones and characteristics appear to be
> reversed from the Epson product.  The MIS Matte Black is neutral, but the
> MIS Light Black is carbon warm.  The MIS Matte Black is weak on EAM but
> strong on LPM.  With the MIS UC clone ink tones, it would allow the UC
> printers with appropriate RIPs to cover a larger tone range while still
> avoiding the use of the yellow ink.

Right, well I'm still hoping that we have some new RIP options in the new
future...and I'm betting we will, wink, wink.
> 
> 
>> Epson 2200 (inks as described above)
>> Tintpicker (0/0)--Cool
>> Dmax 1.71 (1.75)
> 
>       Cyan    Magenta    Yellow    Visual
>> 25%     0.28    0.30    0.28    0.29
>> 50%     0.57    0.61    0.60    0.60
>> 75%     1.03    1.08    1.06    1.06
> 
> This is actually a medium warm/magenta set of readings.  Yellow is higher
> than cyan.  The 75% magenta reading is really high.

The labels were Colorbyte's.  Honestly I don't see a big difference visually
in any of them...one thing is very visually clear...they are all very cool
relative to Cone's Neutral-Warms.  This leads me to believe that these
spectrophotometer readings may be at the limit of their ability to
distinguish these things.  The tint picker is definitely not a substitute
for VM.  There is something else coming down the pike, however, that might
be.

Robert


> 
> Paul
> http://www.PaulRoark.com
> 
> 
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