Digital BW, The Print

Doug,

>>>The Epson Archival pigs are the best there are from what I can tell.

>When you say "Epson Archival pigs" are you talking about the
>OEM inks for the 2000P, or the UltraChromes for the 2100/2200,
>or something else?

The pigments I'm referring to are/were in the 2000P, 7500, 9500 &
10000/10600 when using the "Archival" (in the U.S.) or "CF" (ColorFast)
outside the U.S.

These are not the UltraChrome pigments, which have a shorter life -- a
compromise Epson made to get better gamut.

I do not mean to say that the Epson Archival pigments are good for color --
they are low gamut and suffer serious metamerism.  For color, I recommend
the UltraChromes.  Luckily, the black Archival pigment does not have a
significant metamerism problem.  That is one reason why the light black is
in the UltraChrome inkset.  Resin-encapsulated *color* pigments seem suffer
high metamerism.  However, the black coated pigments do not.  So, Epson uses
the light black instead of a combination of color pigments to achieve a
neutral tone in the UltraChrome inkset.  Among other things, it has the
effect of lowering metamerism.  (The black is also a more lightfast pigment
than the color ones.)

The experimental quad I've mixed with the Epson Archival pigment uses no
color dyes or color pigments, is dead neutral from 45%-55%, and about 0.01
unit warm outside that range (plus or minus 0.01 unit depending on other
random factors).  It seemed to run very well on my 1160.  For a neutral
quad, I'm heavily leaning toward this mix.  (The draft mix I published is
not the final one.)

On Epson Premium Luster my 7500 gets a dmax of 2.2 with the Epson Archival
black that is loaded in that.  On the 1160, the Archival black only gets to
about 1.48 on matter paper.  So, I'm leaning toward using PiezoTone Museum
black for matte paper.  I have not fade tested it, but the Cone published
fade test looks very good, and I like the look of the Museum black.

I do not know if MIS will mix the Epson Archival black quad or not.  They
are looking at it, but they do a number of tests on inks and may find that
the mix has problems that will crop up in the real world that makes the mix
inappropriate.

In general, I'm leaning toward inksets that can print on matte or glossy,
like the UltraChromes and Epson Archival inks, with the black ink being
changed to optimize the image on each paper.  I think it's time to open up
easy glossy printing to B&W.

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com