Digital BW, The Print

>--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Charles Bandes <
>byronbulb@y...>" <byronbulb@y...> wrote:
>>  Tyler, John, this is so exciting!
>
>Somebody noticed.
>
>>  I wonder - could the steps you're discussing (converting greyscale
>>  into sep files for CMYK printing) apply to the VM inkset as well as
>  > the more "standard" hex sets?

>
>>  It would be a _godsend_ to be able to do away with curve files and
>>  work on true greyscale images with more ability to tweak the drivers.
>
>With the current state of the driver, you'd still have to convert to a
>color file and apply curves. So you're not really any farther ahead.
>Given the 100% GCR occuring in raw CMYK mode, I'd say curves for that
>inkset will be difficult.

I'm using PiezoTones with Gimp, and have problems with controlling 
the K in Raw CMYK. Regular "Color" seems more amenable there, but you 
may have to boost the Y and M densities.

>  I'm not sure there would be any particular
>advantage over the Epson driver other than working and building curves
>in CMYK is more intuitive than RGB, but your file will be 1/3 larger.
>The kind of work John is trying would allow assigning color inks to
>tonal values from a grayscale file, but it's way beyond me and not
>available with the standard version of the driver dummies like me would
>be using.

That is basically what the Piezo driver does, with 4 shades. With Y 
for the highlights, M down to 50%, the only remaining "dots" are in 
the lower values. With modern, six/seven ink printers, being 
constrained to 4 ink shades seems limiting.

Real hextone inks would seem to make sense as the technology evolves. 
The MIS FS "E" is really the only option there.

Bruce



-- 
Bruce C. Kinch
Associate Professor of Photography
The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University