Digital BW, The Print

In a previous post I stated that spraying prints made on Epson 
Premium Luster with MIS ultratone inks made a huge night and day 
difference in the appearance of the deep blacks. I used Golden 
Archival Varnish spray with gloss finish. I measured the dmax with 
these results. The first number is the density of the unsprayed 
print. The second value is the sprayed print.


0% 0.1 0.1
10% 0.23 0.27
20% 0.35 0.39
30% 0.48 0.51
40% 0.63 0.65
50% 0.79 0.81
60% 0.97 1.00
70% 1.18 1.23
80% 1.47 1.55
90% 1.76 1.92
95% 1.86 2.08
100% 2.02 2.28

There is a clear enhancement of dmax using the varnish. Visually, the 
separation in the shadows is enhanced with the spary and there is no 
loss of highlight separation. However, this particular spary 
increases the gloss differential. I don't find that objectionable but 
I am sure others will disagree.

Visually, the effect of the varnish on the appearance of the print is 
MUCH MORE than the damx numbers would indicate. It took me a while to 
figure out what was going on. After comparing prints made from many 
different printers (on Ep. Prem Luster) I discovered that the MIS 
INKS have a very low gloss. The Epson UC inks and in particular the 
Epson pk-black ink is much more glossy. The pk-black of the epson K3 
ink is significantly more glossy than the Ultrachrome pk-black.

On Ep Prem Luster the gloss of the black ink appears to make a huge 
difference on the appearance of the tones. The high gloss UC ink 
gives the appearance of a rich deep black in the print. The MIS black 
leads to a dull appearance in the print that does not produce 
a "convincing black" (These are my opinions. Whether it does or does 
not is obviously a matter of taste.) This is why spraying the MIS 
print makes such a huge difference in appearance to me. With a spray 
the dmax of the MIS ink increases but the dull black ink surface now 
takes on a glossy appearance which dramatically increases the 
richness of the print.

When I spray coat a print made with Epson UC inks or K3 inks the 
effect is much less noticable. Interestingly, spraying the Epson inks 
also leads to an increase in dmax. However, since the Epson inks are 
intrinsically glossy themselves, the print is rich in appearance 
before spraying and the effect of the spray is only of minor 
importance.