Digital BW, The Print

Carl-
Thanks.  I missed this the first time around and they are much more 
in line with my visual impression.  Because I find these ABW prints 
very convincing visually, I assumed the only issue was whether the 
color content would contribute to instability in the print.  A second 
thought- it might be possible for someone so inclined to find that 
spot on the toning "circle" (in the ABW driver) where the selected 
tone matched the black ink colors and no color need be added.  That 
assumes that the three blacks are the same color.  To me, visually, 
the LK looks warmer than the other two.  In case, I don't think it 
has been established that these amounts of UC inks are actually a 
stability problem.
Walt

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Bob Frost" 
<bob@f...> wrote:
> Peter, Carl, & Walt,
> 
> AFAIK there is no black-only mode in my Windows Epson driver - this 
must be 
> just a Mac thing.
> 
> As for the AdvancedB&W mode, there is no need to peer at prints 
looking for 
> dots of different colors. Just print a patch to file and decode the 
file and 
> you can see exactly how many dots of each color are used in that 
patch. I 
> posted the results for my R2400 in AdvancedB&W mode using the 
default 
> Neutral/Darker setting on Premium Glossy. In case you didn't see 
them, here 
> is a summary again:-
> 
> 
> "Looking at the printer files (with help from Roy Harrington) of 21 
neutral 
> patches (from 0-255) it seems that the three blacks are the main 
inks used 
> throughout the range.  The PK ink is
> used from 0-90, the lk ink from 0-170, and the llk ink from 20-250. 
No inks 
> are used at 255 unless you check the Highlight Point Shift box, as 
I 
> explained in an earlier post.
> 
> The neutral toning is done with light magenta and light cyan 
througout the
> whole range 0-250, and yellow is also used from 5-250. Amounts of 
toning are
> variable, but at 210 for example (where only the smallest dots are 
used for
> each ink) 72% of the ink was llk, 16% lm, 10% lc, and 1% Y. At 250, 
the llk
> was 82%, with 9% lm, 7.5% lc, and 1.5% Y.
> 
> Further down the scale, I can't directly compare the % of the 
different inks
> because the blacks, and occasionally the lm, use medium drops as 
well as
> fine, and I don't know the exact size ration of the three sizes of 
drops
> (does anyone else?), whereas the others usually use just fine 
drops."
> 
> 
> I have now found some figures for the sizes of the different drops, 
so I 
> could work out the exact proportions of dots for all the 21 
patches, but I'm 
> not sure its worth the effort!
> 
> Bob Frost.
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "wwodets" <odets@c...>
> 
> 
> Carl-
> 
> I've examined several ABW (not "BO") prints under a 7-35X Nikon zoom
> microscope and I've never seen anything like the amount of color in
> your scan.  What I've seen is perhaps 10% of that amount of color 
and
> that little bit only in the extreme, very thin highlights.  What you
> show there is completely unlike anything I've seen from this printer
> in ABW.  Perhaps the ABW actually uses less color than the "black"
> mode or perhaps these prints are all over the board.  It is amazing
> how obtuse Epson is about communicating about these products.