Digital BW, The Print

This will be old news to many, but I thought I'd relate my initial
experiences with my recently acquired 7600.

 

The printer had OEM UltraChrome inks in it, so I did a little experimenting
with these to see what they could do.  My first surprise was how good the
driver with just "Color Controls" checked printed a grayscale file on EEM.
If only indoor lighting is involved, the metamerism was even less than I
expected.  Unfortunately (for Epson) outside light turned the B&W green
(metamerism).

 

The bad news with the 7600 and UltraChrome matte black is a really weak
dmax.  The only paper I tried that could break 1.6 with the Epson driver was
EEM.  All the others I tested were below my "acceptable" 1.6 line.
PremierArt 205 could only hit 1.5.  Sad.

 

The easiest way to get a better dmax appears to be to install Eboni.  With
that EEM occasionally hits 1.65.  That is the point at which I think there
is very little more to be gained in actual prints.  This also pulls
PermaJet, Photo Rag and Innova to just above the 1.6 line.  PremierArt
doesn't quite make the grade.

 

This is the first printer where I will be using a RIP.  With IJC I can hit
1.69 with my old batch of EEM.

 

With the OEM color inkset, the best dmax appears to be with a rip and cyan
added to the 100% point.  In actual IJC profiles it appears that the light
inks need to be turned off one point before the black point.  That is,
perhaps because of an artifact of the smoothing algorithm and interaction of
the jets, even if the light cyan ink is off at 100%, the dmax does not hit
its highest potential.  So, I put a second point as close to the black point
as possible and have it at 0 just like the black point.  It works.  That
allows the cyan and mk to reach the maximum dmax I see in the linearization
tests. 

 

I've now loaded the UT7 inkset into the 7600.  My first impression with this
inkset is that the combination prints a nearly perfect EEM B&W with a
grayscale file, Epson driver, Color Controls checked, and the sliders at 0.
With Eboni able to hit 1.65, this EEM printing is hard to beat if archival
paper is not an issue.

 

With the UT7 inkset also, a rip can significantly increase the dmax.  The
best dmax with UT7 is with a second Eboni in the yellow spot.  However, it's
not worth losing the slider printing.  Just by adding some dark cool gray
(magenta position ink) to the 100% spot, I'm getting within 0.01 unit of the
dual Eboni on all papers I've tested.

 

So, with UT7, the route to the best dmax I'll be taking with matte papers is
to just add M (dark cool gray) to the black point via a rip.

 

With glossy printing, the Epson driver with RGB curves does a great job.  A
Kirkland glossy with the 2200 UT7 Ilford curve is excellent, with an initial
dmax of 2.45 (with Eboni in the K spot but not used by the curves).  The
Kirkland print has almost no bronzing even without glop.

 

Paul

www.PaulRoark.com <http://www.paulroark.com/>  

 



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