Digital BW, The Print

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Roark [mailto:paul.roark@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 9:22 AM
> To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: RE: [Digital BW] Septone system
>
>
> Martin,
>
> The reason I was curious about how warm the Septone warm inks were is that
> if there are coloring toners in it (which there would have to be if it was
> warmer than the Ultra Tone ["UT"] grays), then its longevity
> would probably
> be somewhat compromised.  From what I can tell, the new, pure carbon inks
> are better than the color pigments that are used to do the toning.  For
> example, I'd say the PiezoTone carbon/sepia is a toned ink.  According to
> Jon Cone's latest lightfastness table the PT Carbon Sepia fades at about 3
> times the rate of the PT warm Neutral, which probably has the least amount
> of colorant in it.

Paul,

I would say that in terms of appearance that the Sundance Warm Neutral is
more similar to the PiezoTone Warm Neutral than the Carbon Sepia. What that
really means in terms of added color pigment I have no idea.
>
> So, what I've been saying is that the best ink is probably the
> ink that has
> the highest percentage of carbon relative to the colorants.

At one point the MIS-FSN neutral was testing out better even though it had
some blue or cyan pigment in it. I know yellow pigments are the weakest but
is it possible that some might be as good or even better than carbon? Just
in general the pigments used in oil painting are very light fast.

Overall though I do agree with you and would go with the system with the
least colorant assuming that it looks decent. At some point though I might
opt for less stability to achieve the look. Personal judgment call.
>
> My approach to this in the UT inkset is to have the gray inks be pure
> carbon.  Then as they are toned cooler, the only colorant that is
> in them is
> the minimum needed to get them to neutral -- or whatever tone is desired.
> For reproductions of old photos, where the natural warm carbon
> tone is very
> appropriate, that is probably the best also for maximum longevity.
>
> Whether the toner is pre-mixed into the ink or in a separate toner would
> probably not matter.  I suspect the primary issue is the percentage of the
> image-forming substance that is color pigment as opposed to the
> best carbon
> base.  The less color pigment, the better.

The problem is that without some very fancy lab work we don't know which
approach, color pigment in the ink or separate toner ink, puts more color
pigment on the paper. Probably easier and more meaningful for our purposes
to just do comparative fade testing.
>
> I want to get back to an inkset that has the full range of sepia
> to neutral.
> To this, I think the best way to go (with current printers) is with a dual
> toner set -- cool and sepia.  That way one doesn't have one toner
> having to
> offset the toner that is pre-mixed into the base gray ink.

I think that is a good approach but it definitely assumes some software
other than the Epson driver to pull that off. I don't think a dual toner
system would be within the capabilities of the RGB separation curve method.
>
> Assuming the Septone warm is not toned, then what are the
> advantages of its
> approach over having a 2-chamber, stronger toner, like the UT inkset?

The advantage is in the software. As far as I know it is the only thing out
there that lets you control hue over three separate tonal ranges. They are
also providing a very large library of paper profiles in the software as
well. I don't see any reason someone couldn't design software for two toners
and have individual tonal range control but no one has done it yet. I don't
know how strong the interest is in the capability. To me personally it is
very important but for other people it is probably a worthless feature. Once
again an artistic decision.
>
> I think having 3 spots for the, in effect, cool toner, is wasting
> the 7-ink
> printer's capabilities.  Two cool toners is enough to have dotless cool
> tones, and that would leave a spot to have the sepia toner -- and one spot
> is enough, as least when one is using the UT grays.
>
> At any rate, it's just my opinion, based on theory more than practice.  I
> have not used the Septone system, nor do I have the system I'm suggesting
> might be a better approach.

Sound like a good system to me and perhaps you could do a dual toner VM in
the 6 ink printers as well. Black, 3 grays and two toners.

In the meantime the Septone seems to have something new and the price for
the 2200 plug-in seems low enough that people could give this a try on the
2200's and then switch to the type of ink set you describe with some version
of QuadTone or OPM. There is still the issue that there is no Windows
equivalent to these great software solutions.

Things sure have gotten interesting!

Martin Wesley
http://www.borderless-photos.de/guests.html