Digital BW, The Print

There seems to be an ongoing notion that there are two distinct kinds
of B&W prints: some made with pure carbon inks and others that use
color inks and therefore somehow inferior.  But all of the methods
that produce neutral-tone B&W involve color pigments.  The majority
is always carbon pigment, but they all have color pigment added to 
give the desired color.  If you use Piezotone Selenium everything is
mixed together in the bottle so you can't "see" what's there.  If instead
you use UltraChrome inks with a RIP such as QuadToneRIP or ImagePrint,
the mixing of the inks is under control of the software.  You are right
that with a loupe you can see the different colors, but to the naked-eye
it all blends together.   The dotlessness of the different methods is
mostly a matter of delivering a small enough quantity of pigment to
an individual dot.  With older printers the volume of ink was large so
diluting the ink gave you a smaller amount of pigment -- you needed
about 4 different dilutions hence a quadtone.  With the newer printers
the volume of ink per drop has been greatly reduced so all these
7 ink UC printers are getting away with 2 dilutions.  Your BO prints
even get away with just one dilution.  

Roy


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Clayton Jones" <cj@c...> 
wrote:
> Hello Chip,
> 
> >still a bit skeptical that a system that uses color inks to make B&W 
> >can be as good as 6 or 7 gray inks, 
> 
> I have seen IP5 prints and they look terrific.  What bothers me about
> them is the cyan and magenta inks.  I am not convinced that they won't
> fade sooner than the blacks and change the print tone over time.   
> Besides the strictly technical question, I have an uncomfortable sort
> of "itch" about having the color inks in there.  I'm more comfortable
> sticking with pure carbon inks.  In addition, if having no dots is
> important then IP doesn't make the grade.  The different colored dots
> are easily seen with a loupe.  If I were to spend money on a
> "solution" I would want it to be dotless and carbon only.  I haven't
> found anything yet to make me part with my money, so I'm sticking with
> BO for now.  I'm looking forward to trying UT7 on my 2200.  Bob at MIS
> says it should be "soon".
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Clayton
> 
> 
> Info on black and white digital printing at    
> http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm