Digital BW, The Print

I'm not sure RC paper have made the grade yet, but I like the surface and
price of the Ilford Smooth gloss and pearl papers.  They do seem to have a
few defects with Ultra Tone inks, however.

First, there does seem to be a little "dusting" in the deep shadows.  I was
curious if this was the paper or the UT pigs.  So, I mixed a UT inkset with
Epson UC coated pigs.  When used with Epson Photo K in the black cart, the
dusting completely disappeared.

The 100% black still has a different look, but it is much closer.  All thing
considered, the image looked excellent.

I left the UT toner as is, and there does not seem to be enough pigment in
that to make a difference.  I'm suspicious that the light gray is also so
weak that it could remain the stock MIS UT light gray.  So, I'll mix a batch
with just a cyan (quad) position ink the Epson mix and see if that gets rid
of the dusting.  That would be easy for us or MIS to mix if it cures the
dusting problems -- with the Epson Photo K.

I also noticed that this paper (perhaps like all RC papers) shows
fingerprints badly on the 100% black spot.  Interestingly, however, the
fingerprints even look deeper black.  So, I decided to rub my finger across
my face to get it extra oily.  Then I rubbed it on the 100% patch.  The dmax
leapt from about 2.05 to 2.6.  Whoa.

I did the same thing to an old Ilford Smooth Glossy test strip where the
black looked a bit veiled, even though it read about 1.8.  Again, the dmax
leapt to 2.6, and the veiling disappeared.  The depth of black was just
amazing.

I'm not sure what is going on here, but it makes me wonder if some easy
surface treatment could give spectacular results.  Perhaps there is a
residue on the surface that can easily be cleaned off with a cloth lightly
dampened with ... ?? oil??

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com