Digital BW, The Print

Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not there.

Joel isn't a newbie at this John. In my estimation, he's got a damn good 
eye, and he's quite an experienced digital printer. If he says he sees 
metamerism, I believe him.

I know that many prints I've seen that tried to use color inks to make 
monochrome images exhibited metamerism. Probably all did, but galleries 
are curiously uncooperative when you want to take prints off their walls 
and walk out to the street to see how the print looks in sunlight ;-).

The monochrome-from-color prints that were well lit also showed some 
color -- I'm particularly annoyed by the way the color seems to shift 
back and forth as the print's tones go from dark to light. The closer to 
neutral people try to print with color inks, the more color seems to 
show. Those people trying for warm toned "digital platinum" looks tend 
to be more successful with color inks in my book.

For context, I see some metamerism and color shifting in the MIS 
variable tone inksets, and just a bit of metamerism (but no color 
shifting) in the Piezotones as well. I attribute this to the way inkjet 
print work - the way some tones get close to full coverage over the 
substrate, while other tones let more of the substrate color show 
through. I'm hopeful that the K7 inkset will really minimize this, but 
I'm not in a position to test it now, so I'm in wait-and-see mode.
--
Bruce Watson


john dean wrote:

> I don't know what you are doing with the Ultrachrome K2 and K3 inksets
> but if you are seeing metamerism you are not printing out of greyscale
> mode and using a rip like you should be. If you were doing this you
> would not be seeing noticebale metamerism with K2 or K3. If you are
> printing out of the Epson driver there is no comparing that to
> anything decent, either tones or neutral. And, I certainly wouldn't be
> doing my toning in Photoshop RGB that is a sad way to go.
>
> John
>
>
> > The highlights are also smoother and more "dotless," like Cone prints.
> >
> > The only reservation I have from an artistic standpoint is that they
> still look like B&W prints
> > made from color.  UC K3 has an almost identical look and feel to the
> old UC, except with
> > more dotless highlights and most of the metamerism gone.  K3 will be
> a very useful and
> > practical ink set.  You will be able to tone it as you like in
> PhotoShop, but it won't have that
> > lucious, tactile quality of a good print made from monochrome inks.
> In fine art
> >
> > Joel Pickford
> > http://www.joelpickford.com/
>
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