Digital BW, The Print

Hello Ukko,

>Some of you have reported that there seems to be some "coloration" 
>in their Epson 2400 B&W prints.
> I have never seen any in mine.
> Just to be sure, I just scanned a  Advanced B&W Mode "Warm" print on
Epson Premium Glossy (Epson 4870, Vuescan, 600 DPI, Color Photo). It
is dead neutral even at a magnification of  600 per cent.

I think I'm the one who introduced that, so let me explain.  From the
beginning of my involvement almost 4 years ago I have been unsatisfied
with the tones resulting from adding color inks to the blacks in order
to push them cool toward neutral or warm toward sepia.  Where someone
claimed neutral I could see tinges of C and M, sometimes a
blue-greenish  look.  In claimed sepia prints I could see some M and Y
and various orange-ish colors.  None of it was really convincing to
me.  I didn't see shades of black, I saw brown with colors mixed in,
both with RIP prints using separate color ink dots and grayscale ink
sets where the colors are mixed into the inks as toners.

This is one of the reasons I have stuck with BO printing all this
time, because there are no color inks involved.  By divine grace or
whatever, Eboni is a bit cooler than MK, and is rendered anywhere from
very warm to nearly pure black by various papers.  These tones are
"pure", in the sense that those various tinges of colors simply aren't
there.  Over these years I have experimented with other systems (as I
write this I am deep into some experiments using QTR and various ink
mixtures) and every time I try something I bump into this coloration
problem, in one form or another.

A few weeks ago someone sent me several 4800 prints, on a couple of
different glossy papers as well as EEM, and I recently made a 2400
MK/ABW print on PR in a store.  While these prints are all about as
good as it gets using current technology, in all cases I can see the
presence of these colors.  The simple fact is that we are trying to
emulate shades of gray using color inks, and no matter how well done,
colors are colors.

So it seems to me that while the K3 printers make it as easy as it has
ever been to get good results, there has been no real advance in the
area of tones.  They have just made it easier to do out of the box
what has already been achieved by other more laborious means.  When I
look at these prints, they look great on one level, but on the more
subtle level that I am sensitive to, nothing has changed.  I don't
want to pay $850 to get something I don't want.

I know that many (maybe even most) other users aren't bothered by the
coloration, probably don't even see it.  That's fine, but my gut
feeling is that we have been looking at it for so long now we've
simply accepted the look.  Perhaps as a group we have lost our
collective memory of what BW emulsion prints looked like.   Funny that
I should be saying that because I have continually made the case that
ink prints are a different media and we shouldn't expect them to look
like silver.  It's true, but it doesn't mean I can't strive for pure
tones.  I'm actually getting them and have been ever since Eboni
arrived in 2003.  They just come with a price - dots.  The only
difference between us BO users and everyone else is that we haven't
been willing to sacrifice certain qualities we love in order to get
rid of the dots.

I'm probably more sensitive to the coloration because I've stuck with
BO all along.  I sit here surrounded by prints that look, well, black
and white.  They are rich, black, and they glow with a gorgeous
intensity.  And when I pull out the K3 prints...I just don't get that
warm fuzzy feeling about them, my stomach gets uncomfortable.  They
look fake, somehow, with unconvincing blacks.  As an analogy, it's
like looking at a fake Picasso, albeit one that is very skillfully
done.  It may fool the masses, but the museum director who has handled
the real thing for years isn't fooled.  His gut instinct waves red
flags all over the place.

Please understand I am not trying to be critical of those who like K3
prints.  I think it great, and these printers will surely have a huge
impact and bring legions of photographers over the line into digital
printing.  In the long run this will be a boon to the industry and
will help propel more R&D.  I just don't think we are where we need to
be just yet, and I'm not satisfied.

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm