Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Steve Kale 
<stevekale@b...> wrote:
> Diane
> 
> Unless I am missing something, the QTR curves for the standard 
Epson inks
> have always been "2K".  That is to say, they have always used a 
greyscale
> compiled from K and LK with the tone of the latter controlled 
using LC, LM
> and Y. 

Steve; 

I suppose you can call the above a "2k" printing method, but to me 
it seems a bit contradictory, since (except for the 'warm' carbon-
only curves) you're laying down at least two more inks to balance  
those warm Epson blacks. At any rate, lets call what I'm playing 
with 2KO (2 black ONLY) to differentiate, yes? 

My current interest is to find a simple arrangement that strikes a 
better balance between the dottiness of BO and the more filled-in, 
veiled look too much ink on the paper can produce. 2KO provides a 
smoother print than BO,  with better dmax and better mid-to-
highlight luminosity than I was getting with UT-1. That says nothing 
about anyone else's favorite combination, they may all do better 
than UT-1, but I think this is well worth exploring.

Of course until MIS gives us a true neutral LK that matches Eboni 
(the UT-7 LK doesn't come close)  there is the added nuisance of 
having to mix your own LK ink. Not all bad, since you get to 
customize to your own taste. The other downside is the fact that you 
have upset the proverbial applecart where the other pre-packaged 
curves and resulting tonalities are concerned. I'm having to tweak 
the sepia curves to give me a couple steps further in that 
direction. But that's turning out to be easy enough, and I'm quite 
happy with the results. 

None of which addresses the banding problem that started this 
thread, and considering I use a 7600 not a 2200, I'm not sure I can 
help if the previous poter's printer is set to 1440-super 
and 'better' printing. I did notice however that when I went into 
the driver to set the above as defaults, the(super) box was 
unchecked. When I checked it virtually all of the remaining banding 
I had with QTR went away. Could that be a bug in QTR? 

Hope this helps-someone.

Steve Karafyllakis

http://www.stevekphoto.com