Digital BW, The Print

Nick,

my comments  follow  yours:


> That is actually the problem I am having at the moment, I'm setting the ink
> limits too high (choosing the wrong step obviously), and the ink is running
> off the paper :=) 

Setting ink limits for individual inks should be a simple procedure: you print 
the "unlimited" scales, you pick the darkest patch (going from left to right) and 
use the number for that patch as the limit for that ink. Check the manual for 
more details.

So, for example, as you look at a scale, especially of the black ink, it will get 
darker and darker until at some point it either won't get any darker, or it will in 
fact get lighter. Say, step 15 may read 1.64, step 16 may read 1.65,  step 20 
may be 1.65,  but step 26 may be 1.59. The correct limit would be 16.


> 
> It would seem that if the proper ink limit was selected then the proper
> crossover curves would all be close to the same height as at some point one
> would want to use 100%, at least in theory. 

The one ink that needs 100% would be the black and you can see how that 
curve reaches to the top right corner of the grid in a typical profile. Other inks, 
may or may not need to get to the top of the grid depending on how they 
actually print.
For a new user, it may be best to start with an existing profile and tweak. This 
way the basic shapes are already dialed in.




Yet a lot of the curves in the
> provided examples don't even come close to this, so I assume I'm not
> thinking about this properly.

I think you are doing fine. A given ink may not hit the top of the grid (i.e. 
maximum output) because of other reasons, such as the density of that ink 
may be too much for that particular part of the grayscale - or there is more than 
one ink running simultaneously.



> It would be nice to be able to quickly arrive at what a black black might be
> for a given ink set, I haven't figured that one out at all. 


That's not so easy!....    What blend of black and "cyan" or other ink positions 
gives max black varies from inkset to inkset and paper to paper. It's back to 
trial and error, I'm afraid. For FS-type blacks, for example, the less the cyan 
the better.  the same goes for the Original Piezotone black. 

If you flood the paper with cyan, you loose density. In the case of the piezo 
plug in and piezo pro software, according to Jon Cone, that's exactly what 
they did: put a lot of cyan and very little black. Their reasoning was that 
because their Black faded so catastrophically on its own,  they put a lot of 
cyan under it to hide the fade. So, you had two things fighting each other: a 
black ink that had dyes to make it blacker, but a software that was putting less 
of it down because that ink couldn't hold its original density!  Fortunately, there 
is now Museum Black which will reach above 1.66 on Hahnemuhle, similar to 
Ultrachrome Black, when profiled properly. 


I am using the 4
> color in six position MIS Full Spectrum Neutral inks, care to hazard a guess
> at a good starting point for a black black with this type of ink set?

I think the included profiles should give you enough of a starting point for 
these kinds of issues.

 

> I think I get your point though - set the ink limits, then print that head
> firing just by itself by checking it's box on and print as a tweaked file
> right? 

Not exactly - but check if you can find the procedure in the manual. Your 
description above sounds confusing, and I'd rather not repeat what's already 
in the manual...




I don't see how you correlate a patch number to a point on the scale
> however.


Here is a guide:
 
step 2 = 4%
step 4 = 12%
step 6 = 20%
step 8 = 28%
step 10 = 36%
step 12 = 44%
step 14 = 52%
step 16 = 60%
step 18= 68%
step 20 = 76%
step 22 = 84%
step 24 = 92%
step 26 = 100%



> I understand there is no interaction, one could save a lot of time with an
> accurate screen preview.

May be you can suggest it to Bowhaus (software@...).



 File rotations seem especially problematic, I'm sick
> of watching RIPs choke on file rotations. I can do that in Photoshop, no big
> deal.

Very true...

> 
> I will peck away at this profile/recipe whatever for the MIS FSN inks on the
> 7000. If I ever achieve any success is there a place to post them for others
> to use?

Best thing to do is send it to me to upload to the Files section of this group.
And, btw, you can start with my 7000 profile that's included in the download, it 
shouldn't be that far off since the black is the same as yours.



Regards,

Antonis