Digital BW, The Print

Stan,

You wrote:

>David Brooks at Shutterbug Magazine has suggested to me that
>perhaps the reason I don't see metamerism in my 1270 prints
>with MIS VM inks is that the inks are not 100% pigment. ...

Not all pigments are significantly affected by metamerism.  Also, dyes are
not free from it.  The Lyson quads, for example, are, I believe, afflicted
with the problem even though they are dye based.

As it turns out, the MIS VM inks appear not to be pure pigment.  The black
used to make the grays (the old MIS Archival black) probably does have some
dye in it.  However, that has nothing to do with the lack of metamerism.
The new MIS Ultra Tone B&W inkset is pure pigment and does not have any
significant metamerism problem.

I suspect the reason many associate metamerism with pigments could be that
the Epson pigments are badly affected by it, perhaps due to the resin
coating on the particles.  It may also be the case that the color third
party pigments have some metamerism.  However, I don't think I've ever seen
a significant problem with carbon black pigments, which is mostly what the
MIS pigment-base quads are.

In fact, the yellow pigment is the one ink that is usually blamed for most
of the metamerism problem with color pigments.  With the MIS VM and Ultra
Tone inksets, carbon is the base pigment, and the toners are composed of
cyan and magenta -- there is no yellow pigment in them.  (The VM-S does have
yellow in the toner.)

I hope this helps.  (And I wish magazine writers would spend more time
learning what the quad inks are all about.  It's still the only way to get
top notch digital B&W output at a reasonable price.)

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com