Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Roark"
<paul.roark@v...> wrote:

> If the old UT was pre-November 2004, you may have a batch that 
> had a lot of magenta in it -- too much for most people.  
> Also, since the old UT used magenta pigments and the new does 
> not, there could be more of a difference between EEM and PR 
> with respect to how they react to the new inks (which are
> based in part of R800 blue clone pigment instead of magenta).

Yes! My UT's *were* pre-November 2004. I didn't mention the 
magenta in the UT prints because I thought it would confuse the
issue. This explains a lot--but it's too bad, because the resulting
UT tones were extremely clean and bright on matte papers, 
and I liked them very much. Perfect would be the same results
minus the almost subliminal magenta bias.

> There are differences in UT and UT7 inksets that could show 
> up in curves, depending on how they are written.  The UT toner 
> uses the same mix of color pigments (ignoring the carbon 
> content) as does the UT7 light cool ink (LM). The UT7 dark 
> cool ink (M) and light black use a different and less magenta,
> more green mix of color pigments... so, if the curves put much 
> UT7 LK or M into the mix above 50%, the tone will be thrown off. 

Clarification: by "above 50%" you mean the highlights, correct?

In the curves I've been using, equal parts of light cool (LM) 
and light warm (LC) are mixed to render the highlights. Dark
cool, dark warm, and LK begin to fade in at 25%, and 50% 
there is a roughly equal mix of all 5 inks. The worst of the 
greeny muddiness, though, happens above 50% density--at least to
my eye.

> By the way, if you use only IJC (or QTR), you might consider 
> putting UT-FS-Y in the LK spot.  For IJC, I have a 7600 
> neutral curve that utilizes this for dotless highlights.  It 
> should easily linearize on the 2200.  I'll try PhotoRag with 
> this curve and see how it looks soon.

Yes, I run exclusively with IJC, so if you want to share that
curve I could probably learn from it. But I'm confused about this 
LK substitution. I was already considering swapping the 
UT-7-Y (sepia) for UT-FS-Y (light gray), since I don't use the 
sepia. Did you really mean swapping UT-FS-Y for the UT-7 LK, which 
is a middle gray? Don't you need the extra density of the LK for 
the shadows?

Thanks,
David