Digital BW, The Print

Let's bag the varnish debate, it goes nowhere. I'm more interested 
in actually being able to do what I mentioned: monochrome printing 
witout a color component, but with 2 or 3 K inks, not BO. I've been 
printing using the QTR 'warm' curves which use only the 2 K inks. 
The results are quite good, but getting an LK that matches and 
blends seamlessly with the tone of Eboni has been a problem. I 
started by blending UT-7 LKN with standard LK and adding a few drops 
of 7600 magenta to get the tone matched. Works fine, except for the 
obvious fly in the ointment the UT-7 LKN has toners in it, and I'm 
adding more. At least you don't see Cyan/Magenta dots under a loupe 
ala R2400 ABW. What's got me bugged now, however is that I'm seeing 
signs of ink separation in the LK damper. After sitting for 3 weeks 
the prints I'm getting are distinctly yellow-green, a problem I ran 
into a lot with UT-1 and the 7500. 

So, how do I get a neutral LK with no color? An LK version of Eboni 
would be ideal, at least for matte papers. Is that possible? Has 
anyone tried it?

Steven Karafyllakis

-- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Jeff Medkeff 
<medkeff@g...> wrote:
> john dean wrote:
> 
> 
> > Wilhelm's figures could very well be off by 50%, they have 
> > been in the past.
> 
> I'm just taking an atopical diversion here, but since archival 
> properties get discussed here fairly obsessively, I might propose 
that 
> Wilhelm's numbers are perhaps best understood as unitless. I know 
that 
> the unit "years" gets attached to the results, but I'd rather 
interpret 
> this to mean "on order of unit years."
> 
> I think what Wilhelm provides are (a) testing with a consistent 
> methodology resulting in comparable results from test to test, and 
(b) 
> testing in which inconsistent methodology is documented. The value 
of 
> this (at least to those who seek a genuine understanding of the 
value of 
> the tests) is hard to emphasize strongly enough. I'm definitely 
showing 
> my geek genes here, but I'd much rather have a paper in which 
everything 
> is described in tedious detail, with measurements, and with math; 
than I 
> would read hand-waving about how things 'looked' by eye on an 
> artificially aged print, to a tester who also can't describe the 
> emission spectrum of the lights used to age it. The former is of 
far 
> more value than the unit-bound results (the longevity or 
permanence 
> ratings given in years) alone would suggest.
> 
> Now, back to your regularly-scheduled varnish debate....
> 
> --
> Jeff Medkeff
> Eagle River, Alaska