Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "mike_nunan" 
<mike.nunan@c...> wrote:
> I'm mainly hoping Roy and Paul can shed some light on this, but if 
> anyone else wants to jump in, please feel free.  I've been looking at 
> Roy's very interesting scans of prints, posted in the thread "Dots 
> and More Dots". I must admit, I'm slightly surprised by the 
> differences. On my monitor, the images measure 4"x4", so that's a 16x 
> enlargement factor relative to the physical print. That means that 
> viewing the screen from 8ft away is like looking at the print itself 
> from 6", which is about as close as I can focus with my naked eye.
> 
> What I'm surprised by is the fact that there is such a difference in 
> visible dot between the 2200/UT7 print and the 1270/UT2+1160/VM 
> prints, especially against the UT2 prints as I thought the inkset 
> used a very similar set of grey tones to UT7. If anything, I would've 
> expected the 2200 print to be finer due to the smaller drop size, but 
> instead the reverse is true. The difference is clear at an effective 
> 6in viewing distance and still noticeable at 8-12in, so this would 
> definitely be a concern to me in a real print. Any idea what gives?
> 
> TIA
> 
> -= mike =-

Hi Mike,

I was also a little surprised at that difference as well.  I think the
dotsizes of both printers is advertized as 4 picoliter so that 
shouldn't be a factor.   I don't know if there's any difference in the
densities of the inks in the two sets.  Maybe Paul can address that.
That pretty much leaves the driver as the only signiicant
difference.  The 1270 print was done with QTR with curves I made.
The 2200 print was done using the Epson driver so its a little
hard to say what ink is used where.  My guess is that it uses one of
the darker inks (maybe the LK) at a lighter gray.

Roy