Digital BW, The Print

Hello Tyler,

>Clayton, my apologies for adding to the confusion. I knew exactly 
>what you meant. Simply had a brain meltdown (it's 90 degrees in my 
>office) and also got all caught up in the sound of my own musings.
>I've never thought you are an opinion nazi, and can't imagine how
>anyone here could interpret your contributions in that manner.

Thank you, I'm relieved <g>.  I'm tired of discussing that issue and
hope that was the end.


>Regarding the K7 inks, I have to think they were neutralized using
>color pigs, just as hue is adjusted in the other "carbon" inks most
>of us use. 

Hmmm...ok.  Will be interesting to see how they look on various
papers.


>My read of Jon's info is that their target was lab neutral on
>PhotoRag, and that print hue will vary from there on a per paper 
>basis

That kind of bother's me.  On PR, Eboni (BO) is medium warm.  At the
farthest ends of the range it goes up to extremely warm on Wm Turner,
and down to the closest thing I've seen to pure neutral black on
Kayenta (with other papers falling in various places in between). 
These papers provide a full range of tones, which of course is very
important for any mono-tone ink set.  If K7 is formulated to be
neutral on PR, that means it's considerably cooler than Eboni and
may not offer the same full range (i.e. will it turn blue on cooler
papers and only go to medium warm on the warmest ones?).  I will be
real interested in user reports.  They are frightfully expensive so I
won't be trying them myself any time soon.


>I too have heard of white inks. I believe Ernst may know something
>about them. Makes sense to me that they could be worthwhile in
>creation of gray inks, and a possibly different result from simple
>dilution.

Speaking of dilution, Steve Karafyllakis and I yesterday successfully
diluted Eboni using MIS EPS archival clear base (success means it
didn't settle out and printed ok).  Unfortunately it warmed as
dilution increased.  By the time it was LK density (15%) it was nearly
UC LK in warmpth.  I don't know if white would keep it from warming or
not...


>I think we are in agreement in general on this entire subject, but
>that I have more tolerance for hues mixed in directly than you do. 
>I really do love a few of the sets as they are now, and I know they 
>have color pigs in them. 

Understood.


>...as well as the opaque verses translucent look
>(another subject entirely, 

Ah, yes, there's that...<g>.


>and in fact relevant to the K7s).

Are they more opaque than other pigment sets?  I think of opaqueness
as being caused by full coverage of the paper, where BO get's it
luminance/translucence from allowing bare paper to show...are you
thinking of something different?


>To the K3s, and the beginning of this thread, I think when someone
>using a RIP, anything from QTR on up that will partition well, 
>starts giving us their experiences, it'll be hard to get a handle 
>on what they'll do because of the RGB driver's use of the color 
>inks as you say. 

Yes, much waits to be discovered.  At this point I'm going to proceed
with other stuff and just see what unfolds.  I'm now into fiddling
with a QTR curve.  

Regards,
Clayton


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