Digital BW, The Print

At 08:58 AM 4/9/03 -0700, you wrote:
>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
Paul,

Regarding metamerism,   virtually all colorants - paints, inks, dies - look 
different under different light.   A water color painting (which contains 
both pigment and dye) or litho print won't look exactly the same under 
every light source.   It would seem that full color ink jet images would be 
no different than with other media. It is only with attempts to create 
monochrome from CMYK inks that it becomes a problem. Or is it a 
problem?  Do we see ANY picture outside a gallery in it's ideal light? I 
don't see how  that ever can be corrected given all the paper, ink, dye 
variables. It seems to me that a more workable solution, with regard to 
gallery display at least, would be to correct for two types of light 
sources like film.  There could be a warm light or cool light set of inks 
or adjustments.

AZ