Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Shilesh Jani 
<shilesh.jani@s...>" <shilesh.jani@s...> wrote:
> Steve,
> 
>>  The key insight you had was to make the 
> density of cyan the same as magenta, and photocyan the same as 
> photomagenta.

I actually have been using a different density for each ink; In the 
end it just got too tedious keeping track & refilling, etc., so I 
averaged out each pair, and it worked just as well... the KISS 
principle in action. 

I am surprised you made the density of yellow greater 
> than the photocyan and photomagenta. 

The biggest problem I had with this was maintaining good contrast in 
the mid-range; too much ink and the midtones posterize, too little 
and the highlights suffer. Making the yellow higher density seems to 
give better highlight detail without filling in the mid tones.

>>and I use the FS inks in a very 
> similar fashion to your method:
> 
> Cyan and magenta = dark ink (cyan FS ink)
> Photocyan and photomagenta = medium ink (magenta FS ink)
> Yellow = light ink (yellow FS ink).

I started by doing something very similar to this with the VM inks; 
It got to be too much nuisance to color-balnce those inks however, 
and I was not comfortable with the stability of the toners- my own 
informal fade tests indicated that they color-shifted quicker than a 
pure black inkset, though the difference probably wasn't that 
significant
> 
> This produces WYSISYP for Eclipse Satine papers. For EAM and 
> Hahenemuhle line, the 90 and 95% need slight lightening, while the 
5 
> and 10% need slight darkening.
> 
> It will be interesting to see if the new Piezography system does 
not 
> use this ink arrangment. 

I suspect Cone has set up his profiling system on his existing ink 
arrangement, whatever that is. After all, he can't stop producing 
those inks yet, so why come up with a whole new set of 
densities>carts>bottles, etc.?
>
> It would be amenable to profiling based 
> purely on density, not on color based saparation.  The Epson 
driver 
> (and Canon, no doubt) does this very well!
> 
> Regards.
> 
> Shilesh
> 
> PS: Excellent photographs on your web-site.  Wish you would 
> participate in O'Connell's print exchanges so I could get some of 
> your prints.

Thanks-and I will participate, as soon as I can get away from 
refilling carts-it's just too much nuisance!

Steve K
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Steven 
> Karafyllakis <stevek@e...>" <stevek@e...> wrote:
> > Hello all;
> > 
> > Between buying a wide-format printer and all the excitement and 
> > hushed (we're all sooo restrained about it) anticipation of all 
> > these new printing solutions coming on line, I'd almost set 
aside 
> my 
> > 1280 and the custom ink-set I'd been working on for it. Today 
while 
> > refilling some carts (and swearing at the nuisance of it)  it 
> slowly 
> > sank in that there may still be a temporary need for this ink-
set 
> > among 1280 users: Paul's new VM set may not be available for 
this 
> > machine for a while, and may well be based on the same curves 
(Paul 
> > might give us his thoughts on this). If that's the case, if you 
had 
> > a 1280 (as I do) that doesn't work well with those curves, you 
> still 
> > have a problem. Cone's new profiling system will be available 
first 
> > for the Cannons and then for Epsons, so it may be a few weeks to 
a 
> > few months for that, and PixelPixasso, well, who knows. At any 
> rate, 
> > I've decided to post the mix and settings; hopefully it'll 
provide 
> a 
> > workable solution for some of the 1280 owners who can't use the 
VM 
> > curves, until something better comes along. Although, for my 
1280, 
> > the only real weak points are the life-span issue, and the lack 
of 
> > variable tone. 
> > 
> > There's a link on my website: http://www.stevekphoto.com
> > 
> > 
> > I would appreciate some feedback from anyone who tries it.
> > 
> > Steve k