Digital BW, The Print

Steve,

Sounds worth looking at.   It's so hard to convey judgments of quality.  
I think on the old printers the quality is very dependent on what density
inks are used.  I'm assuming you're using one of the piezotone ink sets?
I.e. 4 grays plus 2 duplicates?  I've picked some of the MIS inks that have
what I figured had to best density separations.

I'm up for "optimizing" the output quality I can from my 7500.

Roy

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "quadtone4" <sdmey4@a...> 
wrote:
> Roy, I'm glad you jumped in here. I haven't givin "dots" much thought 
> recently until I read your recent post comparing the QTR RIP 7500 
> prints vs. the 7600 and you stated you could see dots with a loupe on 
> both prints. I really DO believe the dots are invisible on my 7000 
> and 9000 prints, certainly compared to 2200 rip prints and any other 
> color to Black and white work flow or vari tint workflow I've seen. I 
> have not seen QTR prints but you have already stated you can see dots 
> with a loupe. Send me your address off list and I will send you a 
> print, I'd like to know if I'm crazy :)Well I probably am, but 
> another experienced set of eyes can't hurt.
> The Darkroom has given us true contiunous tone, and this as not been 
> easy to get with digital and inkjet printing,Thanks to 16bit scanning 
> and great software the more difficult to see the dots the closer we 
> are to continuos tone.IMHO.
> I think its a technical miracle, that my dots from the 7000 appear 
> close to non existant(invisible) compared to previously mentioned 
> workflows that 
> actually produce beautiful prints.
> Quadtone BW printing is clearly a different animal than making BW 
> prints with a color set up.
> Steven Meyers--- 
> In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Roy Harrington" 
> <roy@h...> wrote:
> > 
> > Steve,
> > 
> > The 7500 is a great machine.  I run mine with quad grays and two 
> toners,
> > using QuadToneRIP and Mac OS X.  I don't think toners have any 
> detrimental
> > effect on quality and advantage of variable tone is great.
> > 
> > But I also don't think there's any way to have invisible dots with 
> a 8x loupe
> >  -- the printer puts out pretty large drops of ink.
> > 
> > I actually ran a five distinct grays system for a while (I've never 
> heard anyone
> > else do it).  It makes a different -- it is smoother but it's hard 
> to see.
> > The newer printers with variable dot size can get the same results 
> with
> > fewer grays.
> > 
> > Roy
> >