Digital BW, The Print

Paul,

I forgot to ask you one more thing.

Do you have any opinios as to whether Ebony high stability black pigment that you 
develped would work in a configuration with the other Epson CF pigments in the same 
printer? Has anyone done this? What would be the downside of trying?  Of course I would 
have to remake all my profiles but I imagine the dmax would be worth the trouble along if 
clogging was not an issue. I know that I have been using this inkset everyday for over 3 
years and never once had even a tiny clog. To me with a pigment inkset outputting very 
large prints on every conceiveable media, that is impressive. But I want more.


> John,
> 
> I'm not a chemist, but anyone can get some information about Epson ink
> content from looking at their Material Safety Data Sheets, which are on the
> web at 
> http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/Supportmsdsmain.jsp?BV_UseBVCooki
> e=yes
> 
> I take it from these that Epson inks have a lot of proprietary pigments in
> them besides carbon.  ON the other hand, I think aside from the acrylic
> coating, I think Epson pigments are not that unique.  The pigment industry
> is rather larger than Epson.
> 
> I think the encapsulation is acrylic and is for adhesion to the glossy
> papers mostly.  
> 
> With respect to the Archival K, in my fade tests it performed more like the
> old MIS VM K than the newer, high-load MIS and UC black inks.  The MIS VM K
> had a slight amount of dye in it, as did the competing black pigments of
> that time because, from what I've been able to learn, the industry did not
> know how to keep the higher loads of the newer inks in suspension.  I've
> heard the C86 DuraBrite black is, likewise, a hybrid black.  
> 
> A large part of the new generation of inks has more to do with the
> base/dispersant (fluid) than the pigments themselves.  I see this, for
> example, in the amount of the color pigs I have to use to neutralize the
> midtone warm carbon (mostly at least for MIS, I'm told) gray inks.  The new
> MIS and UC color pigs are simply more concentrated than the older MIS and
> Epson Archival pigs.
> 
> I wish we did know more about these pigments, but the companies are rather
> protective of their products.  I've been able to learn more for the
> watercolor information (see http://handprint.com/HP/WCL/water.html)  and
> what is put out by some of the large companies like Cabot.  I have a pdf
> that is rather good from them.  I can send this off list.
> 
> Paul
> www.PaulRoark.com 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: john dean [mailto:deanwork2003@y...] 
> Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2005 9:12 AM
> To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Digital BW] Epson's various black pigments - are they carbon ? or
> what?
> 
> 
> 
> To all you digital photo chemists out there: does anyone have any idea  what
> the Epson 
> BLACK pigments are composed of chemically? I vaguely remember Paul saying
> that he 
> thought the Ultra chrome matte black was carbon pigment, similar to the
> composition of 
> some of the new generaton of quad pigments out there. What about the CF
> Epson Archival 
> inkset? Does anyone have knowledge of them also?
> 
> I know that Epson's pigments are "encapsulated" with a poly resin,
> presumably to make 
> them flow better through the nozzles without as much clogging ( according to
> Epson's 
> reps) and give better moisture and light protection, if I remember
> correctly.
> 
> Someone on one of these lists also made the statement that the Cf inkset
> might have 
> some dye in it, but I think that was just speculation. This does not make
> sense to me 
> because of the WR permanency rating that gave this inkset much higher
> ratings, and also 
> the fact that if a dye was incorporated ( which I think it is not) the dmax
> would be a lot 
> better than it is, which is less than the carbon pigments used in other
> inksets. Since that 
> inkset was designed for outdoor as well as indoor imaging, that would
> certainly be counter 
> productive.
> 
> Just curious. I like to know as much as I can about these things from
> unbiased sources.
> 
> John
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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