Digital BW, The Print

* -----Original Message-----
* From: johngeyles [mailto:jge@...] 
* Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2003 11:23 AM
* To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
* Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Its time to jump? Septones for 2100?
* 
* 
* > I had decided that if I purchased the Septone system,
* > it would only make economic sense with the CFS.
* 
* The start up cost of the Septone system is largely the
* software required.  Is there anything to prevent QTR or
* OPM/IJC users from creating their own profiles for the
* Septone inks, and/or sharing them here ?
* 
* Does this make sense ?  In other words, is the value of the 
* Septones primarily in the inks themselves or in the software ?
* 
John,

The inks look similar to the warm and cool Piezotones and the MIS-FS and
FSN. What is unique is the software which allows you to vary the hue of the
print separately in the shadows, middle grays and high lights. I don't know
of anyone else who has offered this capability. I think this is a great
concept but not everyone sees this as a benefit. A lot of people struggle to
eliminate any variation in hue. A matter of personal taste.

The other way to get this kind of hue control would be with the MIS-VM inks
and apply different RGB separation curves to different tonal ranges of the
image. In practice the results I have seen were too strongly split and
overall tonal smoothness suffered. 

In theory I would think you could do this with QuadTone and OPM/IJC but you
might need pairs of curves for each zone. This implies combining 6 curves
which may be overly complicated in regular use. While the Septone plug-in is
not free, $195 doesn't seem too bad. If you have a wide format printer it is
another story where you would have to buy the PixelPixasso RIP at $1,495.

Perhaps either MIS-FS or PiezoTone inks could be used with the Septone
software since they have the same ink densities as the Sundance inks. From
what we saw with the Piezo/R9/Image Export plug-in there can be problems in
using inks other than what the software was designed for. While the
alternate inks are very close in density they may not be exact resulting in
a loss of linearity in the tone ramp. We saw some problems with this when
people switched from the original Piezo inks to the PiezoTone inks. Some
people were able to change over without a problem or even an improvement and
others encountered a drop in the quality of their step wedges. The different
experiences seem to be due to printer-to-printer variations within the same
model as well as a less than perfect match in ink densities.

The big thing I see lacking with PixelPixasso and the Septone plug-in is the
linearization feature that are available in QuadTone, OPM/IJC and
StudioPrint. Given the fact of printer-to-printer variations as well as
lot-to-lot variations within the same brand of ink and paper, some sort of
calibration function seems very desirable. While you can eyeball these
changes and create your own compensating curves in PS, I like the idea of
automating this and using information gathered with a densitometer or even a
scan of a step wedge.

At this point if I had a 2100/2200 I would be giving the Septone plug-in a
try. If I was on a Mac I would also be checking out QuadTone RIP. As to
which grayscale inks I would use I guess I would start with the Septones but
also plan on trying the Piezotone gray inks as well. A lot of possible
combinations. Assuming you can eventually buy ink in bulk, I would not let
ink cost be a deciding factor. Your paper costs are so much greater than the
cost of the ink you should use the ink that looks the best to your eye.

Martin Wesley
http://www.carolyn.cc/Guests/MartinWesley/pages/MW_01.html
http://www.borderless-photos.de/guests.html