Digital BW, The Print

I've also used this approach in the past...not to use glossy paper but to
test different black inks.  The key if you want to use the approach for
glossy is to make sure that the gray position inks are glossy compatible.
At this point that limits you to the ultrachromes, Lyson small gamut or home
made ink sets.  Paul's new VM 4.3 will be the first commercial pigment quad
solution that will be glossy compatible.   I'm now convinced that the
emerging glossy papers will give the best possible results...so I think this
approach is worth some effort.  Epson Pro Glossy is great, the Ilford
Galerie Smooth Pearl is a great low cost paper and I believe that the
forthcoming Oriental Fiber-Based Gloss will be what many of us have been
waiting for.

Another option to consider is to use a rip to drive your quads.  I'm not up
on all of the options  (particularly for windows, because I'm a mac only
house), but I know that it would be no problem to use a program like
Bauhaus's ink jet control to drive either photo or matte black with no
cartridge change necessary.  You would simply put one black in the black
position and then use one of the extra color positions (these ink set's are
only actually quads) for the other black.  I know Paul tried this with the
epson driver, but couldn't get results he was happy with.  It's easy with a
program like ink jet control because each channel is directly under your
control.  The tricky part is then balancing the various inks...but this is
easier with direct channel control than with photoshop curves that then go
through a driver like Epson's that converts them from RGB to CMYK.  I'm
guessing that Roy Harrington's new quadtoneRIP based on GIMP-PRINT may be
another similar solution for MAC and LINUX users.  The nice thing about Ink
Jet Control is that it has a linearizing function that allows you to just
get close with the curves and then use an algorithm to fine tune it.

It seems that the ideal would be to have a solution like Cone's, but not to
be tied into a particular inks set...and be able to make your own curves.
Then you could use the epson (or canon) driver and get the latest and
greatest dithers.

Robert



On 3/9/03 9:19 AM, "Shilesh Jani" <shilesh.jani@...> wrote:

> Hello All,
> 
> Like many on this forum, I have been asking myself how I can get both
> glossy and matte prints using a CIS/CFS committed to an ultra-chrome
> like (RC compatible pigment) inkset?  The problem as most know is
> that the black ink is either optimized for glossy (RC) papers or for
> matte papers.
> 
> My solution:
> 
> Use the CIS/CFS only for the color (gray) positions.  In the black
> position use a regular cartridge.  You can fill your own black
> cartridges with the choice of your ink.  So, if you want to switch
> from matte papers to RC papers for a particular job, all you have to
> do is replace the black cartridge, while the color (gray) inks loaded
> on a CIS remain the same.  Vacuum filling just a single black
> cartridge is not much of a hassle at all, and takes no more than 5
> minutes.  Black ink consumption is lower than the color (gray) inks,
> so filling frequency will be fairly low.  So, you have the
> convinience/low cost of a CFS/CIS AND the choice of switching RC and
> matte papers.
> 
> This is the approach I am taking with my color 1280 printer loaded
> with an inkset similar to ultrachrome.
> 
> Regards.
> 
> Shilesh
> 
> 
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