Digital BW, The Print

One other point is that the 100% patches are rarely the darkest. beyond some
point the density often decreases. You really need to print the file calibration
page and find the best ink limit. I have seen best ink limits as low as 45%.
PKN really can get up above 2.3 on many papers. I have not tried semigloss.

costa


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Traupman" <jont@c...> 
wrote:
> I've been doing B&W printing with a 2200 and the UT7 inks for about a
> year now and have been getting great results on matte papers with
> Eboni black. I drive the printer with Quadtone RIP and build most of
> my paper profiles myself with a Noritsu DM-201 densitometer.
> 
> However, I've had very limited success with printing on glossy and
> semi-gloss media. The biggest problem I've encountered is that the MIS
> Photo Black ink is simply not very dense. 
> 
> For example, I'm trying to create a QTR profile for Epson Premium
> Semigloss paper. If I print the QTR ink limit file in calibration mode
> with all limits set to 100%, the density of the 100% Photo Black patch
> is only around 1.9. This is weaker than the densities of the Dark Warm
> Gray (2.1) and Dark Cool Gray (2.2) 100% patches. I've actually gotten
> better results from profiles that just use the gray inks than from
> ones that use PK and the grays, though neither looked particularly great.
> 
> I recently ordered a bottle of the "experimental" PKN Photo Black
> Neutral ink since MIS claims it has a higher Dmax than regular PK.
> However, I neither noticed nor measured any appreciable increase in
> density, at least on the Premium Semigloss paper. It is a more neutral
> black, however.
> 
> So, is this normal behavior for the MIS Photo Blacks? With the Epson
> UC Photo Black, I routinely got densities of 2.2+ with this paper. It
> just seems odd that MIS's Photo Blacks would be this weak, when their
> grays clearly indicate that they can make a denser ink.
> 
> My search through the archives yielded little info on this topic, but
> it does seem that densities around 1.9 are what people have reported
> in the past for these inks. Is this true across papers, or is the
> Premium Semigloss just a particularly bad choice for the MIS inks?
> 
> The only potential problem that I can imagine with my setup is that I
> have put the PK ink in a light black cartridge and am using it in that
> position, because QTR allows me to control which black to use in
> software, and I have no need for the "Custom Light Black" that usually
> goes there because I'm not using the Epson driver. Perhaps the light
> black position in the print had incapable of laying down as much ink
> as the black position, but I've never heard mention of this.
> 
> I've already tried asking MIS about this, both on their forums and to
> their tech support, but received no response.
> 
> Any help would appreciated.
> 
> -Jon