Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Antonis" 
<antonisphoto@y...> wrote:
> >So I have a pure
> > carbon quadtone -- black, dark gray, medium gray and light gray,
> > plus two single color toners. 
> 
> Roy,
> 
> whose carbons and whose toners are these? 
> 
> I guess we can't settle this without everyone in the same viewing room with lots of 
> prints in front of us, but here is the question: Is there any disadvantage to using a 
> toner vs blending between single-hue inksets? Obviously the toner will give you the 
> bigger cool-to-sepia range. But aren't there trade-offs? .... crossovers?...  
overinking 
> in the shadows?...  funny dots in the highlights?....
> 
> Just a skeptic -
> 
> Antonis

Hi Antonis,

I'm using the MIS inks.  They are all the ultratone based inks.  

I debated a long time trying to decide which approach to take for my 7500.
The large ink drops and only 6 inks made it hard to come up with a variable
tone setup.   For a while I was considering the 1 black, 3 selenium, 2 warm or cool
inks idea,  but I wasn't sure which colors I'd like the best and was also worried
about what to do with only 2 of one of the colors.  The septone idea is a lot
more obvious for this.

Anyway I used some of the UT2 inks on a 1270 and found the range of colors
very nice so I wanted to make something similar for the 7500.  1 black and
3 grays is essential for the 7500 to get smoothness (I used to use 4 grays).
So two toners was the obvious choice.

I haven't found much downside in using toners.   The toner curves are quite
smooth.  Since I can vary the amount of toner, crossovers don't show up.
I use an Eye-One and always plot out the LAB values of the stepwedge to see
what effect changes have.   I was a little concerned about toner in the
highlights too.  What I found was that the coolness of the paper (PhotoRag)
made it possible (actually necessary) to reduce the cool toner in the 0-10%
range.  For the sepia color the toner itself is nice so immediate toner isn't
objectional to my eyes.

I'm a skeptic too. I'm still open to other ideas for these old printers.

Roy