Digital BW, The Print

>...
>Now we go to a variable tone set - ...

>The two toners are single dilution inks. ...
>Sometimes you can see the dots of toner, just like you can see the dots
>of black when you do black only printing.

>And that's why, for "dotless" printing, you need a fixed tone quad ink
>set.

The hextone VM and UT inksets have light and dark cool toners.

The last time I used a flatbed scanner to get objective measures of
smoothness (measured by the standard deviation in Photoshop of 1600 dpi
scans), the hextone VM inkset in a 1280 made a smoother print than the Piezo
software and its monotone inkset.  The 1280 VM was the smoothest print I
measured.

In the 3000 I do notice the advantages of the monotone inkset over the
variable tone, but in modern printers with their small and variable-size
dots, the super-light inks are just not needed.  In my 7500, which is
arguably closer to a 3000 than a 1280 in its non-variable dot size, I do
stick with the UT1 inkset as opposed to the UT2 or UT7.  My 7500 has, then,
3 gray inks (like the full quad 3000 or 1160, or PiezoBW hextones prior to
the ICC approach) as well as light and dark cool toners.  In my view it is
dotless.

It is true that theoretically there can be some smoothness advantages to
monotone inksets, but if the dots are beyond what one can see in normal
viewing, is it worth trading theoretical smoothness for more flexibility?

In the UT2 & 7 inksets, I clearly opted for more flexibility.  I wanted to
move forward without the need to support old printers.  As such, the 1280
was the starting point.  The densities of the inks are about what Epson
uses.  However, the gamut is radically less.  So, if one thinks the 1280 or
2200 can make smooth color prints, be assured those printers can make even
smoother B&W prints.

In actual practice, with modern printers I find the defect that shows up
most often is microbanding.  Dots are really not a serious issue any more
with inksets that use gray inks (including cool and very warm gray inks) in
new printers.

When I first started to do digital output in 1994, I thought I needed to
hide the digital character of the output.  I explored all sorts of methods,
including imagesetter output using the latest stochastic (random) dot
patterns.  I would contact print these on 16x20 fiber paper.  These were,
thus, silver prints -- but they did still have a digital step.  Even with
these expensive digital negatives, if one took a loupe to the print, the
digital step could be detected.  

But even if the digital step could not be detected, what would I say if
people asked about that?  I was not about to lie.

So, if I wasn't going to lie about the digital step, the issue of what
digital output to use no longer turned on trying to hide the character of
the output from those who might use a loupe.  (It couldn't be done anyway.)
What output to use was a function of the quality of the images -- all things
considered, including cost, longevity, ease of doing multiple iterations of
prints to improve them, etc.  

With the advent of the Piezo system, the inkjet won the contest for me, and
the issue became optimizing the inkjet output, in all respects, including
the flexibility to print the tones that I like and profiling different
papers to print a more uniform tone.

Hiding the dots from the loupe users is not very high on my list of ways to
improve inkjet output, but different people have different preferences.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com 

For UT2 information, curves, and settings see:
http://home1.gte.net/res09aij/