Digital BW, The Print

Andre,

I gather you have not taken the plunge and set up a B&W Quadtone 
printer yet. This is a very hard decision when you have to do it 
without ever seeing the various systems in action or even a print 
made with one of the systems!

As odd as it may seem the situation in the U.S. is not much 
different. This is all very new stuff and there is no camera store I 
can walk into an buy quality papers or inks and I live in San Jose, 
California south or San Francisco in the heart of Silicon Valley! 
Getting materials is easier and cheaper here of course but still 
sight unseen!

You have to choose between dye or pigment based quadtone ink sets. In 
the dyes there is Spectratone from www.lincolninks.com (check 
previous posts on this list) which are recording some amazing deep 
blacks, available in bulk only; Lyson www.lyson.com/ which is 
offering cool, neutral and warms tone sets in cartridges (but not for 
the newer printers yet); Ilford's ARCHIVA MONOKROME inks but these do 
not appear to be available for desktop printers. If anyone knows of 
other dye based quad ink sets, please let me know.

There are two pigment based quadtone ink sets on the market that I am 
aware of ConeTech's PiezoW 
http://www.inkjetmall.com/store/piezographyBW.html
and the MIS
http://www.inksupply.com/index.cfm?source=html/quadtone.html
which you have found already.

I am currently using the PiezoBW and am generally very pleased with 
the results. However, pigment based inks produce prints more like 
matte surface silver papers or platinum prints. If you are used to 
smooth air dried silver prints or RC print this may take a lot of 
getting used to.

The tone of PiezoBW varies with the paper it is printed on. The tones 
range from slightly warm-neutral to very warm. Piezo also can be 
difficult with printer "nozzle" clogging. Some users report no 
problems, some many problems with the majority experiencing some 
problems. PiezoBW is also software as well as inks and is very user 
friendly in this regard.

If you are interested in Piezo there is a great user's group at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/piezography3000. If you go througth 
this huge list and check out the Inkjet Mall website you will get a 
lot of information. You can also get a small sample print from them.

There seems to be less user information available on the MIS 
Quadtones but there is some information on this list and hopefully 
more to come. If you are concerned about image tone then the new MIS 
Variable Mix Quadtones looks very attractive. Users report much fewer 
clogging issues with MIS than Piezo and the cost of the inks are 
lower. MIS does not have the simple user interface of Piezo but 
certainly is workable. I am seriously considering giving these a try 
myself.

In general, there is a belief that pigment based inks are more 
archival than dye based inks. I believe that dyes are improving in 
this regard and both, if properly stored and displayed, offer 
excellent print life. Wheither either is equal to silver is unknown. 
It should also be kept in mind that the pigment inks do contain some 
dye in order to increase blacks. Dye based inks have deeper blacks 
and are more similar to silver gelatin prints in appearence (probably 
between RC and fiber papers).

If making archival quality prints is important to you, as in fine art 
print sales, the pigment inks are the better way to go at the moment. 
I think the dye inks are catching up but the final word is not in. If 
archival is not a issue and you want that silver gelatin look go with 
a dye based ink.

If I was going to chose right now, I would go with an Epson 1280 
(1290 in Brazil I believe) with the MIS Variable Mix Quadtones and a 
CIS from http://www.nomorecarts.com/ With your limited paper sources 
this would give you better tonal control. It also would leave you in 
a position to move to the PiezoBW when they come out with the 1280 
version in the next few months.

Let us know which way you decide to go.

Regarding papers, Antonis Ricos has put together an incredible 
database on all the available papers and you can download it in 
various versions from the "Files" section of the group homepage.

Martin

Um rio em Sana --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Andre 
Vallejo" <avs@p...> wrote:
> Good to know.One of the problems of living in most places other 
from North
> America is that we cannot go to the shop and choose among a variety 
of
> papers,inks,printers,etc...We have to belive in what we read,and 
purchase
> over the internet waiting long time delivers and paying high costs.
> So I'd like to hear more about "temperature" of papers,'cose I'm 
really
> looking for some high quality,cool tone,potentialy archive for BW 
quad
> tones.
> Regards,
> André
> 
(snip)