Digital BW, The Print

Jerry,

You wrote:

>.... Did you get some Prize winning photos of Alaska?

I hope so.  Some bad weather made for some very nice cloud shows.

I used T400CN film in the Fuji GA645Zi for this trip, since it was with
family and I needed to be able to do fast shooting.  As you know, I prefer
Tmax 100 and Microdol 1:3 with 3 minute agitation intervals to get maximum
sharpness.  So, I'm a bit apprehensive with respect to the quality I'll be
able to get.  Also, of course, I don't entirely trust commercial labs with
developing.  I'll see the negatives today.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

>How were the Mosquitoes?

The civilized parts of AK are not as bad as those photos of the north slope
you see.  I worked in Anchorage for a summer and really never had a mosquito
bite there.

In the sticks you do run into them (some say it should be the AK state
bird).  However, deet (the active ingredient in Cutters and many others)
works as well in AK as in the Sierras.  For backpacking my regular group now
uses what the Army tests show to be a close to perfect combination for
mosquitoes and ticks: deet (close to a 20% concentration seems optimal) on
the skin and permethrin spray on the clothes.  It really takes care of the
little beasts.

>A Monster storm hit Grand Forks day before yesterday.
>It did major damage ...

Sorry to hear about that.

>Did you get the prints I sent as you were leaving for vacation?

Yes, I'll do another iteration of the 1280 curves today, with luck.

> I got a set of MIS archival Color inks,
>with their double density black for my color printer.

Don't confuse what MIS now sells as "Double Density" ink with the test inks
called "Double Density."  The new MIS DD inks was one of the ones I didn't
like for the variable-tone.

The best of the blacks I tried was as co-solvent formula like Piezo black.
It is now sold as part of the VM and Spectratone inksets.  It has the
characteristic solvent smell of Piezo inks, and appears to be virtually
identical to Piezo black.  (In terms of both blackness and fade resistance,
it beat Piezo by just a hair -- probably not a significant margin.  I
consider them identical.)

The new MIS DD black, however, which is sold to beef up the blacks of the
standard MIS quads and, apparently, the Archival Color inkset is not a
solvent based ink.  You can tell which black you have by smelling it.  The
DD black may be great for the standard MIS quads and color inksets.
However, with the variable-tone inkset it tended to block up the dark tones.
So, you might want to check out the dark tone separation and see if it is
doing the same thing in the color inkset.

> Have you ever used the MIS color
>pigmented Archival inks, and if you have,
>how do they compare to the Generations?

I have not used them as a color inkset.  I use them to make the toner for
the variable-tone, and those inks appear to be identical to the Generations
pigments.  My understanding is that MIS and the Generations 3 use the same
color pigments.  Gen 4 went to the new yellow to get better light fastness
(the yellow MIS is the limiting factor -- but still good to 50 years).  MIS
decided against the new yellow for color reasons, but MIS will sell it if
requested.

So, color-wise, the MIS and Gen 3 should be identical.

> I chose the MIS set because Bob said the double density black
>inks would work with their color archival inks,
>and it's really black!

If the new DD black works well with the color pigments, it may take care of
the primary complaint people seem to have with MIS inks -- weak blacks.
However, I note that the new Piezo color inkset black is even less black
than standard MIS black -- some say this helps reduce metamerism.  I also
beleive that the Generations Enhanced (Beta) Black is still darker, but it
also seems to increase metamerism in the quad tests I've done.  It also
fades faster, but that may be irrelevant in the color inksets.

So, with respect to the depth of blacks, it appears there is simply a trade
off.  In general, deeper blacks also means more fading, color shifting, and
metamerism.  In my quad experiments, the Piezo black seemed to give the best
combination, but for a price.  Now the MIS VM or Spectratone black gives the
same performance for MIS prices, and now gets my vote as the black ink of
choice.  But this is for quads.  I don't know how it would do in the color
inkset.

Having thrown in all this confusing information, just go with what works for
you.  I assume MIS is selling the DD black for the color inkset because it
does the job.

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com