Digital BW, The Print

Steve,

 
> If you are using the test strips I sent they were definitely 
>done in Adv B&W mode...

Yes, these are scans from your EEM "N" test strip.  I might add that I think
the test strips look very good.  

My initial surprise from your test strips was that the 4800 produced such a
good dmax on EEM and PremierArt 205 (much better than my 2200), yet the dmax
on Permajet Alpha (same coating as Innova from what I can tell) was rather
weak.  Perhaps the dither pattern is different and is the cause of this.  At
any rate, Epson has clearly "fixed" most of the dmax problems of the 4000,
and the prints from any reasonable viewing distance look very good.

> As for the "3 shades of black" being carbon, where
> did this come from?  I am not aware that Epson targeted a pure carbon 3K.

I've seen it in reviews of the new printers.  So, I'm not sure Epson is
behind it or this is being pulled out of the air by the reviewers.  In fact,
I suspect the black inks are mostly carbon even though the Epson Material
Safety Data Sheets suggest otherwise, saying (in the past) they were mostly
"proprietary dyes and pigments."  That catch-all, however, might include
variants of carbon.

> I
> am waiting for Roy to get QTR mapped to the 4800 firmware so that I can
> print his ink separation chart to see the hue of the individual inks.

That would be interesting.  The MIS supplier claims the new Epson 4800 grays
have been made more neutral with some colorant.  I'd like to see what the
spectrophotometer says about them.

> The fade tests will be key. 

Yes, but I'm not sure we'll pick up the top 10%, since the lightest patch I
have in the abbreviated fade test strips is 25%.  Could you send me a
standard 21-step test strip -- or just the 10% patch from such -- printed on
EAM/EEM in the neutral Advanced B&W mode?  I'll use the same paper to print
a 10% patch from UT7 (standard and with the UT-FSN-Y option).  That might
tell us how much the color highlights are going to affect the 4800 print
permanence.  I might be able to put the ramp in the fader, but a specific,
solid patch is more likely to be give better data.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com