Digital BW, The Print

This is very unscientific and may not help much, but a quick check of 
my ink levels on my 2200 which has printed no color yet except for a 
color calibration target:

light grey ink is down the most. Matt black is next most used up, 
followed by Light cyan and light magenta about in equal proportion. 
regular m and c and y are hardly down at all.
Jim H.





--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Roark" 
<paul.roark@v...> 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.
> 
> >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?
> 
> >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.
> 
> >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.
> 
> 
> >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.
> 
> Paul
> http://www.PaulRoark.com