Digital BW, The Print

Your question is Do we need?
We asked Do we want?
Tried it and we know why we want it.
Is it necessary?
Depends upon how high a standard you set really.
My new inks are an entirely new formulation called Piezography Neutral K7.
The prints we are making with them are of a significantly higher visual standard than what 
we have been making with three grays.

Jon Cone




--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Steve Kale" <stevekale@b...> 
wrote:
> Ink sets such as UT7 use three.  FSN has 4 (if I recall correctly).  Epson K3 has three.  
Not so 
> long ago there was chatter from UT7 users and, I believe, from Paul that three Ks were 
not 
> necessary on the small picolitre printers.  I used an ink setup similar to Carl Schofield 
which 
> ran just 2 shades of K for a particular paper (plus sepia toner for sepia prints).  Now I 
hear 
> chatter of Piezotones (?) coming out with 8 shades of grey... The dedicated B&W ink 
> manufacturers had a great niche when Epson only had 1 or 2 Ks.  The way was left open 
for 
> people to remix/dilute ink to provide B&W printers with better tonal gradation (less 
dots) with 
> quad/hex/sep setups.   I am interested in hearing from specialist B&W printers who still 
think 
> that we need more than three shades of K and why.  
> 
> (I say specialist because ideally I would like to hear from people who make a living 
printing 
> B&W for established photographers and those people who work with ink companies and 
help 
> them design/market/produce their B&W ink sets.  So bureaus/labs, Paul Roark, Jon Cone 
> types...)