Digital BW, The Print

Clayton,

The slightly veiled highlights are there for a reason, it seems. They add 
the gloss to the otherwise white areas that would appear less glossy than 
the inked areas on glossy papers. The R1800 solved this by adding Gloss 
Optimizer to these areas, but the R2400 has taken a different line. You only 
see that the highlights are "slightly veiled" as you describe it, if you 
leave the white surround on the print. If you trim that off or cover it with 
a matte, then that wonderful adaptive thing - the eye - "lifts the veil" and 
sees it as white. Not so good I suppose for those who spend all their time 
measuring blacks and whites with spectros instead of looking at pictures, 
but for those who use their eyes, it is a reasonable solution to the problem 
of pigment inks that sit on top of the glossy paper.

Not sure what you mean by "subtle color in the blacks". Unless you use BO, 
all/most blacks are going to show "subtle color" aren't they? They usually 
achieve neutral, cool, or warm blacks by adding subtle colors, either in the 
black ink or from another cart. Epson uses a trace of magenta and cyan to 
get neutral black in the R2400. The MIS UT7 inks use three colored toner 
inks, I believe, to get different tones, so what is the difference?

Having just got my R2400 to add to my R1800, I shall now get rid of my 2100 
and IP with the greatest of pleasure.

Bob Frost.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Clayton Jones" <cj@...>

Amazing.  I have several 4800 prints on different papers and modes
with PK, and even on the best of them I found the overall look to be
"unconvincing" on close examination, though it looked excellent at
first glance.  I don't know if it's the shiny paper or the subtle
color in the blacks or the slightly veiled highlights (or all of the
above), but I just can't get excited about it.  I was hoping the 2400
had a BO mode because the 4800 BO print shows much promise.  But it
apparently has no BO mode.