Digital BW, The Print

Bob, Paul,

I'm gettig a much better understanding of this situaton now. We are moving beyond the 
era of "colorants" as we once thought of them traditionally in art and photography, and 
into the world of new chemical inventions, and that is why is so difficult to find anything 
clear written about them, because it is all held so close to the vest.


.......think we'll benefit greatly by these big guys competing fiercely. Canon
is also not to be counted out. These are some impressive players, and we
benefit. One thing I like about the pigment approach, however, is the ability to use
the traditional cellulose papers. I still think carbon on cotton is the
combination to beat. That may not always be the case.- Paul


I agree that competition is what is going to make color imaging work the best for us. 
The thing that doesn't appeal to me at all about HP's approach is the way you are 100% 
dependent on their media-ink combination as a "system". Good marketing, bad art. I don't 
like systems. I like diversity and uniqueness. That is why I think it is so silly for Epson to 
be marketing this "system" of theirs where we are all trained to use only their appropriate 
and apporoved substrates. They are trying to kill the best thing about their own printers, 
but that dog won't hunt for them or us. People like diversity and uniqueness.

I have one final question before getting back to work. Why in the world if the yellow 
channel is the PRIMARY ( though certainly not total) change in the Epson pigment inkset 
from Archival CF to UltraChrome, is it not possible to just replace that yellow ink with the 
Ultrachrome equivilent and remake profiles and the driver for everything, with much 
improved results. I just don't get it. I am completely satisfied with the CF inks rendition of 
all colors except the ones such as yellow, red, and orange, where intensity is needed in 
these hues. The blues and greens are just beautuful to me and so much nicer than 
anything we had to work with in chemical color printing. Of course the black component is 
different but that's a different problem with different solutions.

John