Digital BW, The Print

Ok, and the results are in... for the first round with the MIS VM-s set.

The blacks show very little ruboff.. Best I have seen from an RC paper 
with the black from this inkset... OTOH, the re is something VERY 
strange that perhaps Paul can explain..  When running this test I ran 
the file to the printer in 16 bit grayscale and let the inks default to 
positions along the wedge without any curves..

 From 100%-90% we have Black of a single density in all three ramps... 
Very minor ruboff.. That could make this paper and the black great for 
trying out Clayton's BO process..  I may actually, therefore, finally 
give that process a shot on this media..

However, at 90-80% on the ramps we have something VERY weird...  There 
were dark blacks there with a lot of brownish tinge to them.. I say WERE 
because, when I checked them for ruboff they lost the vast majority of 
their pigment and are now actually about as light in tone as the 35% 
position..  I'm guessing that the combination of high black load and 
high "brown/sepia load" there actually may have clogged the micropores 
somehow BEFORE the ink actually ended up below the microporous surface 
layer..

Once we get down below say 70% the ramp proceeds in a nice normal 
(brownish toned as one would expect) pattern all the way down to 0 with 
negligible ruboff...

So, what now?

I'm thinking that I'm going to run the same three ramps with a no black 
set of curves, as well as a no sepia (i.e. COLD curve) and see what 
happens... Does that make sense?

Obviously, I'll run similar tests with the MIS-VM set. But hoped someone 
else could point out if I might be missing something here?

-- 

 
Keith Krebs

"Just some guy," and caretaker of the Multiverse's largest EPSON printer 
User Community (highly recommended by Vogon Poets and MegaDodo 
Publications), at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EPSON_Printers/
 
"For the rest of you out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together 
guys"